ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the concept of civil and society and its importance to criminology before presenting an overview of civil society and its relation to the six states covered in the book. These are divided into four ‘flawed democracies’ – Colombia, Kenya, Turkey and Papua New Guinea – and two ‘autocracies’ – Tunisia under the Ben Ali regime, and Myanmar/Burma under military rule. While all the states in the study rely on coercive governance some are (or were at the relevant time) significantly more coercive than others. Gramsci’s conception of civil society as a continuum between a contested space on the one hand and an adjunct to totalitarian rule on the other hand is helpful in understanding civil society as an arena in which battles over state criminality are fought out, consent secured, coercion enforced and resistance cultivated.
