ABSTRACT
This chapter provides the democratic theoretical underpinning of the book. It focuses on the connections between civil society and democratisation, the role of civil society in increasing democratic knowledge, but also the centrality of civic political culture to making democracy work by supporting democratic structures, institutions, and processes. It addresses the functions of civil society and the two understandings of civil society that inform the book: neo-Tocquevillian ‘Liberal-Associative’ and Gramscian ‘Oppositional-Resistance’. Relating to the discourses and practices of civil society organisations (CSOs), this chapter identifies the criteria of civil political culture; the political culture CSOs need to exhibit in order to fulfil a democratic function. The role that civil society can play in a democratic transition, both supportive and detrimental to the process, is explored while the research’s triangulation methodology, of positivist and micro-interpretivist approaches to assessing political culture is explained.
