Civil Domains in African Settings

Publication date: Wednesday 13 October 2004

As an idea-in-action, "Civil Society" has enjoyed a meteoric career in the past 15 years. This paper seeks to review some issues arising in current debates and thereby offer some talking-points about the idea as applied in African contexts.

The concept of "Civil Society" has given rise to think-tanks, university degree programmes, foreign aid units with large budgets, a cascade of books and many seminars - some of them bringing together grantmakers and grantees.

The roots of the idea and why it has become so prominent today is beyond this paper's scope. In this paper, David Sogge seeks to review some issues arising in current debates and thereby offer some talking-points about the idea as applied in African contexts.

The paper is organised in 3 parts:

I: Concepts matter
II: Dillemas, tensions and possibilities on the ground
III: Topics worth probing and debating further.