ABSTRACT
This chapter traces how civil society leadership has been addressed in key debates on civil society, with particular reference to Southeast Asia, and outlines how these debates, in turn, can benefit from advancing a research agenda on civil society elites. Firstly, debates about the relationship between civil society and democratisation indirectly home in on the nature of civil society leadership. Secondly, a critical literature charting the distance between civil society leaders and grassroots problematises the representativeness of the former. Thirdly, civil society leadership also looms large in literature that seeks to disentangle the empirical and conceptual relationship between civil society and the state. The chapter argues that pursuing a research agenda of how civil society leadership emerges and is perpetuated, and how it relates to leadership in other spheres, can advance these debates. A focus on key individuals at the helm of civil society gives insights about the role of civil society in democratisation and autocratisation episodes and processes. Secondly, locating civil society leaders in elite networks that span different social spheres qualifies and sheds light on their relations with grassroots. Thirdly, the relationship between civil society leaders and leaders of other social spheres has implications for our understanding of the boundaries and reach of civil society.
