ABSTRACT
The relationship of society, market and state has been a central focus of social sciences research for centuries. As suggested by the history of capitalist societies, the rise of civil society is essentially a beneficial factor and a necessary condition, if not a sufficient condition, for the establishment of a rational legal state (e.g., Keane, 1988; Tocqueville, 1969 [1835, 1840]). Although scholars are still dubious about whether civil society — a concept that originated in the West — can be readily transplanted in a non-Western context (Hann, 1996; Taylor, 1990), the market transition in Eastern Europe actually revitalized this arcane concept and produced enthusiastic yet divergent discussions on the emergence of civil society in socialist countries (Bryant, 1993; Howard, 2003; Kumar, 1993). Yet with the long-standing aversion of communist citizens to civic engagement and the elasticity of the concept itself (Howard, 2003), scholars are still unclear about the underlying mechanism through which civil society can emerge in (post-)socialist regimes.
