ABSTRACT
Most people, regardless of their circumstance, appear to want to live with a degree of dignity, to have their concerns listened to and acted upon and to be able to express a desire for change if that is not the case. The political system that most consistently, if far from always perfectly, provides for this is ‘democracy’. The debate about what democracy is, whether it is a political positive and whether, more controversially, it establishes a political benchmark, partly concerns the methods by which it is achieved and to what extent the means shape its political ends. The relationship between civil society and government has been proposed as a sort of ‘thermometer’, monitoring the democratic health of the state, with the capacities of individual institutions tantamount to what medical practitioners would call vital signs. Civil society may also become self-strengthening and therefore spur a decline in state power.
