ABSTRACT
The alternative models of civil society that we have considered so far clearly differ in many respects, not least in their orientation to questions of global politics. Yet what unites them all is the hope that we might build a democracy, or dramatically extend democratic space, within civil society itself. Thus it is to reflections on this hope that we must now turn if we are to draw any wider conclusions about alternatives to liberal democratic civil society, where it is a matter rather of what civil society can do for the state. In particular, we need to consider carefully what we can expect from the democracy of civil society by offering a theoretical articulation of the ideal prefigured in these various radical discourses. By then interrogating this ideal-type we should arrive at a fuller understanding of the potentialities and problems of such an approach to democratic theory. This ideal-type should be seen as a reconstruction of key features of the radical approaches reviewed thus far because the intention is not to offer a new model, but rather to ask some questions about the theory of a democracy of civil society.
