Structured Response 2

Civil society actors claim legitimacy from their ability to culturally and socially associate themselves with the people of a state. In order for them to be ‘organic’ parts of broader society, they would need to have the same values that mainstream society has. For example, many civil society actors in the MENA region have Arab values as opposed to Western ones, and therefore claim legitimacy from the fact that these actors stem from every day people with traditional values and a common culture and heritage with the rest of the citizens of that state. People are most likely going to associate with and support a civil society group that reflects their own thoughts as opposed to one that brings up new values and customs that people are not used to.

However, if civil society actors are inherently ‘organic,’ that is, they stem from customs, values, and norms that are already established, how are they effectively opposing the influence of the state? This question is one that seems to “throw a wrench” in the mainstream model of civil society’s role in democratization. Some may argue that civil society does not inspire change because it is already embedded in a society. Contrarily, I would argue that even though civil society actors are founded upon values that are common to the people of a state as a whole, there are differences in these values. These differences, such as a push for more women’s rights for example, are the ones that create change. Civil society actors are only able to make such influential change because at their base, they are able to relate to citizens of a state. Once citizens of a state are comfortable embracing civil society actors because of their foundational values, they begin to realize the true chances that civil society actors are attempting to bring about. Civil society actors seem to take the best of the old and combine it with their sense of dynamic idealism about the new.