ABSTRACT
Within little more than a decade, the concept of civil society has moved from relative obscurity to centre stage: the aftermath of the events in Central and Eastern Europe in 1989; questions about how to rebuild the social fabric of African societies after humanitarian tragedies and civil wars; concerns about the decline of community and the weakening of social ties in the US; disagreements on how to increase and broaden citizen participation in policy-making in Japan, and how to lower the ‘democratic deficit’ in the European Union; concerns about how to provide voice to the socially excluded in Latin America; and debates on how to address the impact of globalization on local societies in Asia and the Middle East. All of these are policy issues with the role of civil society figuring large at their centre.
