Basic elements of civil society system

Carolina Galben, doctorandă ULIM 

Civil society is not only a comprehensive concept that includes all political organizations, foundations, leagues, unions and non-governmental organizations that act within this framework. For a better understanding of civil society, it is necessary to analyze its components and their characteristics. Keywords: Civil Society, NGOs, social organizations, family, civil society components.

Elementele componente ale sistemului societăţii civile Societatea civilă nu este decât o noţiune globală politică ce cuprinde toate organizaţiile de la asociaţii, fundaţii, ligi, sindicate şi până la organizaţii neguvernamentale ce acţionează în acest cadru. Pentru a înţelege mai bine societatea civilă, atât naţională, cât şi europeană este necesară analiza componentelor sale şi ale caracteristicilor lor. Structura reprezintă edificiul intern al societăţii, care reflectă varietatea şi interacţiunea componentelor ei, ce asigură integritatea şi dinamismul dezvoltării. Cuvinte cheie: Societate civilă, organizaţii nonguvernamentale, organizaţii sociale, familia, elementele componente ale societăţii civile.

Civil society is a global and political notion that includes all types of organizations such as associations, funds, leagues, trade unions and nongovernmental organizations carrying out their activities in this area. In order to understand better the civil society both national and European it is necessary to analyze its elements with their distinguishing features. The structure represents the internal edifice of the society reflecting the variety and the interaction of its elements that assure the integrity and the dynamic development.

The human being with his natural needs and interests expressed through juridical rights and duties is the main element of the system, a factor of intellectual and voluntary energy of the society. The elements of the structure are composed of different communities and associations of people and mutual relations between them1.

There are a lot of varied social organizations and their organizational degree is also different. Thus, there are organizations with many spontaneous elements and more stable organizations with a constitution and working system set up by a legal status that fixes the members` rights and duties.2

The distinguishing feature of the civil society is the political pluralism. It is viable when its members have a high level of intellectual and social development, are free inside and able to act independently in the framework of any institute of public life. The civil society generates the developed consciousness and the ability to objective self realization.

Thus, the civil society cannot be defined as a system of any apolitical and public relations and institutions. The genesis of such a society is formed of an enough coherent system of economical, social and political, religious, spiritual — moral, domestic, cultural and other public relations which through the means of determining the policy of the state express the citizens` wish. Within this system different social organizations, movements, political parties (excepting those governing), religious organizations, economical associations and communities work, and finally the man himself as a personality with his domestic, professional, entertainment and other different needs.3

The area of civil society organizations has been described as a varied, heterogeneous domain that brings together organizations which goals, structure and motivations vary considerably.

Hence, it is difficult to find a common definition to the civil society organization.4

The civil society:

a) Is included in a public space within the society;

b) Is situated between the state, the market and the family;

c) Doesn’t represent a homogeneous group nor a mass of isolated citizens;

d) Materializes through associations of citizens depending on their interests, so that it is possible to follow common objectives and mutual interaction.5

It is important to take into account three aspects when analyzing the structure of the civil society.

Firstly, the aforementioned structural parts that reflect the spheres of the vital activity of the society are closely tied and interpenetrated. The unifying factor, the epicenter of the various relations between them is the man (citizen) as the entirety of all the social relations and the measurement of all the things.6

The organizations of the civil society are, first of all, associations of legal order that voluntarily gather citizens following their own interests. As the members of this organizations deliberate and realize in common their objectives and tasks that are stipulated through associating statutes, these ones can dispose of a high specialized competence. The organizations of civil society are institutionalized structures independent of the State and its institutions including political parties.7

Secondly, when analyzing the social and economic system as relatively independent phenomena one shouldn`t underestimate other structural elements (such as ideas, norms, traditions).

Thirdly, we must understand that the factor that tie, put in order the structure and the vital activity process of the public organization is the law with its common humanistic nature maintained by a progressive and democratic legislation and that the logic of the development of the civil society imply inevitably the idea of a based on law state, a law democratic society.8

The civil society has a very complicated own internal structure. One of its features is the presence of horizontal relations and the existence of some levels and stages.9

The organizations of the civil society working within the national framework are juridical subjects that are members of a national juridical order. Generally, the juridical order that exist in the majority of the European states claim to these organizations their recognition as juridical subjects of democratic structures, like the elected members` offices by the majority of the members and certification commission.

The organizations of the regional and/or international civil society working in a cross-border manner in their quality of juridical subjects are subjected to the specific jurisdiction of the state in which they have their headquarters. In the majority of cases, the international organizations that join a federation like OSC don`t dispose of juridical personality if not having received such a quality from the behalf of the country where their headquarters are situated.10

The structure of a modern civil society can be presented in the form of 5 basic systems which reflect the spheres corresponding to its vital activities. These systems are: social (in the narrow sense), economic, political, spiritual-cultural and informational.

The social system represents the totality of objectively formed communities of human beings and of the relations between them. It is the primary and basic layer (class) of the civil society that influences the vital activity of other subsystems.

First of all, we have to mention the block of relations tied to the mankind continuation, reproduction, life prolongation and children`s education. These are family`s institutions and relations conditioned by their existence that assure the unification of the basic biological and social principles in the society.

The second block is formed by law relations reflecting a strictly social essence of the human being. These are tangible relations human to human both direct and in diverse communities (groups, layers, classes, nations, races). 11

The economic system represents the totality of the institutes and economic relations established by people in the process of the realization of property, production, distribution, exchange and consumption relations of the social product. The first layer is constituted by property relations which penetrate the whole canvas of economic relations and all the production cycle and public consumption.12

The state and municipal property are recognized and protected in the Republic of Moldova. Property is the supreme expression of the access to possession, use and disposal of goods. Before being a right, the property is a social and economic reality.

The acceptance of master quality of a thing at his disposal in order to satisfy his own needs, the affirmation of these prerogatives towards the third party were born before law.13

Being regulated by the state, the private property is integral part of the holder and becomes as it is shown in the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, the most sacred right.14

The founding principles of the civil society consist in economic relations based on diverse forms of property respecting the interests of the person and of the society in general. The economic pluralism creates essential premises in order to exceed the alienation of the human from the production means. The civil society demonstrates its viability when its members possess tangible goods or have the right to use and dispose of these goods. They produce the social product according to their own conviction. The right to property can be private and public on the condition that every participant of the public property — kolkhoz, co-operative, enterprise, etc — is different. The right to dispose of a good is a basic condition for the freedom of the person in every society.15

The relations of material or non material goods production represent the second structural layer, the most important one. The creative labour of the members of a society is on the basis of the production, labour relations being an indispensable part of economic relations. The production relations present a more indirect and abstract characteristic despite of their particularity; they become more independent towards the will and consciousness of a real man. The structural elements of the economic system are private, municipal enterprises, co-operatives, and farmers` home administration, citizens` individual private enterprises.

Distribution, exchange, consumption relations of the social product represents a compound part of economic system however they function in a special measure and in the framework of another system — the social one. 16

Property can be defined under two aspects:

a) Of economic category,

b) Of juridical category. 17

Property generates assurance in the man`s complicity towards the goods and phenomena and through this he is forced to work in order to preserve and rationally use the things.18

Thus, the organizations of the civil society:

a) Are independent of the state and economic organizations

b) Don’t work for profit

c) Try to attract attention to their interests

d) Work in accordance with the established goals, serving “the public interest”

e) Don’t follow governing function, but are interested in the participation in the independent politics.19

The basic self-regulatory elements constitute the political system — the state, political parties, social-political movements, associations and the relations between them. From a political point of view, the individual functions as a citizen, a MP, a member of a party or organization.

The profound and essential layer is set up by the authority relationships that penetrate the political system in all its spheres, at every stage of its development. Authority relationships are various: relations between the state and other structural elements, between the state bodies and institutions, etc. The relations bound to political parties’ activity have a privileged place; their final aim is always the political (state) authority.20

Some organizations comprise a limited number of persons, while others can count thousands of sympathizers and hundreds of members. At the functional level, the organizations of the civil society can deploy operational or defense activities in someone`s interests. The organizations of the operational civil society contribute to supply social security services, while their first objective defending certain interests is to influence the public authorities’ politics and the public opinion in general.21

The superior layer of the civil society consists in the relations tied up to individual choice, political and cultural preferences, and valuable orientations. These are diverse groups of interests, political parties (which don`t govern), movements, clubs, influence groups, etc.

Thus, a cultural -political pluralism is assured presuming the denial of ideological stereotypes and the assurance of free self-determination of every citizen. This layer of the civil society includes the most social-active institutes, which are tied up to the state-political system. 22

At the same time, the mere existence of the civil society in any of its possible manifestations, is not enough and good to fulfill the functions. Only the presence of “certain intensity, distributions and types of civil society positively contributes to the consolidation and at a later stage to the persistence) of democracy,”23 speaking even about a democratic civil society24, and more, about “the paradox of the civil society”25 and the duality of its effects, on the one side about the associative framework with positive effects on the government and on the other side about the associative framework and a form of resistance towards the government.26

Besides the strictly authoritative relations, there is a wide range of political relations including problems of citizens` adherence to social-political organizations, freedom of the word, guaranties of the citizens` electoral rights, functioning of the forms of direct democracy, etc.27

It is evident that the citizens follow their own interests when they join associations to which they adhere in order to deliberate needs, to realize and to maintain associative and democratic life. In general, citizens realize voluntarily their interests inside their associations. Usually, the organizations of the civil society bring together a high competence, highlighted by associative life being characterized by their members` interests and needs. These organizations offer individual participative methods and forms to the citizens, — especially after they had adhered to an association — in order to realize goals and tasks set up by the statute.28

They aim to actively participate in the public life, in general, concerning the populations` general interest, the interest of certain groups or of society as a whole. They don`t defense the commercial or professional interests of its members.29

The spiritual-cultural system comprises the relations between people, their associations, state and society regarding the spiritual-cultural goods and institutes — the materialized institutions (educational, scientific, cultural, religious ones) trough the intermediary of which are realized these relations.30

The civil society relies on a diverse and vast social structure that reflects all the richness and diversity of the interests of many groups or social layers and their representatives. Furthermore, this variety is objectively oriented towards different changes, is dynamic creating and interrupting vertical and horizontal relations.31

The basic block in this sphere is constituted by the relations concerning the education. Education represents the fundamentals of the development of human personality. Its state is a clue to the development of society perspectives. Without education neither the spiritual-cultural sphere nor the public system can function.

The relations conditioning the emergence and the development of science, culture, religion are vital for the man and the society. The constitution ways of these relations are diverse, and the impact on the person is unambiguous, but the consolidation factors are oriented towards the upholding of historical experience, general humanistic traditions, the accumulation and the development of scientific, moral-spiritual and cultural values.32

In this context, the way in which the structures of the civil society follow coherently and consciously the cultivation of such civic attitudes that could have important effects on the success of the democratic transformational process of one nation, and implicitly of the changing process on its social level, it becomes very important the study of the modality in which this social changing is generated and modeled by the civil society and the identification of the mechanisms that lay on the basis of the direction choice, the action of the structures of the civil society having effects at an individual (concerning the interpersonal relations and the individual`s relations with the institutions and social mechanisms) and social level, with consequences for the socialization process and for the economic and political spheres.33

The informational system results from the direct communication between people and through means of mass information. Its structural elements can be organizations, institutions, public, municipal and private enterprises which realize the production and the broadcasting means of mass information. The informational relationship is pervasive penetrating all the civil society spheres. 34

The associations and the organizations defined to the sphere of the civil society have proved their efficiency in “affirming the autonomy of those who wanted to act as they were free” during the authoritarian regime.35 The mobilization of the civil society as means of abuse exposure and submission of the legitimacy of authoritarian regimes propelled this social structure in front of the theories about democracy in the last centuries. 36 Communication between citizens being facilitated by the active associations and organizations within the civil society has contributed to the emergence of an interpersonal confidence stage among the participants to this structure; this confidence determines them to follow the game rules.37 Within the framework of the register of life associative effects on the society is incorporated their contribution to the generation and cultivation of the social capital, understood as “those features of the social organizations like network, norms and social confidence that facilitate the coordination and cooperation for the common good,”; these features are considered to have significant influences on development efforts and/or changing of a community.38

However, the lexical group “the organizations of the civil society” can be used to describe a range of organizations that have in common the following distinctive features:

— aren`t created to realize personal profits. Yet they can have employees and run activities that produce profit, they don`t spread any benefit to their members or authority;

— are voluntary, that is they are created on the persons` wish and there is, generally, a voluntary participative element within the organization;

— are different from informal groups or ad-hoc constituted groups by a certain degree of formal or institutional existence. Generally the organizations of the civil society are officially institutionalized structures having a strictly defined mission, objectives and an action field. They are responsible towards their members and donors;

— are independent, especially from governments and public powers in general, from the political parties or trade organizations,

— are impartial regarding their objectives and values which they defend.39

Some authors consider that the range of the elements of the civil society is somehow wider. The system of the civil society is different through a developed structure. The following basic elements are part of this structure: 1) humanitarian (the human element of the society — free individuals); 2) social (social division of the society in social groups, classes, layers): 3) economic (economic organization of the society — property, production, exchange, consumption forms and relations); 4) spiritual (science, teaching, culture, religion, etc); 5) informational (means and forms of mass information and public opinion); 6) territorial — administrative (local self government); 7) organizational (diverse forms of group formations).40