ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on civil society arguments in two different socio-political settings, namely South Africa and Japan, so as to clarify both the background of the (re)emergence of the concept and the meanings of the same concept in each case. One of the most important theorists of the notion of civil society was Hegel. Hegel’s stance can be understood as a reaction against over-evaluation of civil society. In historical terms, the meaning of the concept of civil society in political philosophy has often reflected changing political realities. One of the important contributors to consider the element of autonomy as an element of civil society in the Western political philosophy was the an Italian Marxist, Antonio Gramsci. For Gramsci, civil society is also the sphere where the struggle for hegemony takes place between labour and capital and where the hegemony of the dominant class has been built up by means of political and ideological struggles.
