ABSTRACT
This chapter examines regional case studies of East and Central Europe and East Asia. The literature dealing with the 'emergence' of civil society in post socialist Europe is laden with normative liberal assumptions concerning both the nature of civil society as well as the transformation of the state. Official civil society was the state regulated space that allowed non-state associations to form. Unofficial civil society is normally grassroots in orientation, self-organising and positioned against the state. In this respect it bears many similarities to liberal civil society. The dramatic transformations of 1989-1990 in Eastern and Central Europe took place in reference to the social and political systems already established in the West. The different impact that the Confucian doctrine had upon East Asian societies in both the classical and modern periods means that it is a necessary part of any examination of civil society that lies within Asia.
