ABSTRACT
The term “civil society” has become fashionable and, perhaps as a result, contested and rather confused. The literature on civil society is extensive. 1 Garry Rodan notes that in concept it has become “romanticized”, and Philip Resnick observes that it contributes very little beyond the characterization of “state–society relations”. 2 Although the term has been traced back to Aristotle, its revival can be linked to the writings of Eastern European dissidents in the 1980s.
