Maintaining civil society momentum/reorganising CSOs after political change
Topic (e)
Author(s): Julie Ferguson
Publication date: Wednesday 20 October 2004
A common assumption is that civil society building is good for society as it allows for ideas and opposing voices to be developed and exchanged. Although open political space is often assumed to be a pre-requisite for a fruitful civil society, at the same time it appears that CS participation in fact declines when this space is provided, and CSOs have no idea how to reposition themselves. How can this be addressed, in order to maintain the involvement of social movements in political discourse?
For example, Indonesian opposition organised itself to lobby for democratic reform; once this was achieved, the CS movement collapsed (cooptation into governing forces?), and with it the public discourse. How can discourse be transferred from a lobby arena to involve broader public discussion? Can we identify organizations who did manage to accommodate these changes, how did they do this?
