1.1 Civil society

At a glance

About 35 minutes, including a 15-minute reading. By the end of this lesson you will be able to

• describe civil society as one of four spheres of social life, alongside the state, the market and the family

• name common types of civil society organizations, including NGOs and nonprofits

• compare how Tocqueville, Gramsci and Bourdieu understood civil society and its relationship to power

An NGO may speak for marginalized communities while being led mainly by social elites. Civil-society theories help us explain both its public role and its internal inequalities. We will begin with evidence from Nepal, then use four spheres of social life and three classic thinkers to interpret it.

A question from Nepal

In a 2021 survey of 245 Nepali NGOs, 81% said they served Dalits and 63% said they served Indigenous peoples. Leadership showed a different pattern. Compared with population shares, Khas-Arya leaders were overrepresented by roughly 12 to 23 percentage points in every decade of NGO registration since the 1990s, while Indigenous and Dalit leaders were underrepresented (KC, 2021; KC, Pariyar and Sapkota, forthcoming). Why might an organization pursue inclusion in its programs while reproducing inequality in its leadership?

Four spheres of social life

Before explaining the Nepal paradox, we need to locate NGOs within social life. Societies organize life in roughly four overlapping spheres. The state works through law, policy and authority. The market works through profit and the exchange of goods and services. The family provides care and private life. Civil society is the space where people come together voluntarily to act on concerns they share, from a neighborhood clean-up to a national campaign for clean elections.

The spheres overlap. A family business sits between the family and the market, and an NGO that delivers a government program sits between civil society and the state. Keep this overlap in mind, because it returns throughout the course.

Each sphere also runs on its own logic. The state answers to voters and leaders, uses laws as its main form of power, and judges success by legality. The market answers to owners, uses money, and judges success by profit. Civil society answers to communities, draws its power from shared values and traditions, and tends to judge success by justice and the expression of those values.

The organizations of civil society

Civil society includes informal action, such as neighbors helping each other after a flood, as well as formal organizations. Many of these organizations are registered as NGOs or nonprofits, and the wider family includes religious organizations, neighborhood associations, independent news media, and business and professional associations. What they share is autonomy from the state and a purpose other than making profit for owners. Many have no political aim, yet they matter politically, because they shape what people believe, whom they trust and how they organize.

Three ways of seeing civil society

Locating an organization among the four spheres tells us where it acts, but not whose interests it advances or whose voice carries weight. Three classic thinkers help us ask different questions about that power.

Tocqueville and the schools of democracy

Alexis de Tocqueville (1805 to 1859) was a French aristocrat who travelled to the United States in 1831, aged 26. Coming from a France torn between revolution and authoritarian rule, he was struck by how often Americans formed associations, from town meetings to clubs and professional groups. He argued that these associations work as "schools of democracy". In them, people learn to cooperate, deliberate and share responsibility for local problems. Associations also act as a counterweight to centralized power. A farmers' cooperative that lobbies against an unfair agricultural policy is a simple example.

Gramsci and the struggle over ideas

Antonio Gramsci (1891 to 1937) grew up poor in Sardinia and became a socialist journalist and party leader during the rise of fascism in Italy. He wrote his most important work in Mussolini's prisons. For Gramsci, civil society is where battles over ideas take place. Ruling groups keep their position mainly through consent, by making their view of the world seem like common sense. Schools, media and religious institutions can spread the idea that success depends only on hard work, which hides structural inequality. Civil society is also where people can resist. Trade unions and social movements can question dominant ideas and push for change.

Bourdieu and the field of unequal capital

Pierre Bourdieu (1930 to 2002) was the son of a postal worker in rural France. He rose through elite academic institutions and stayed alert to how class shapes everyday life. He saw civil society as a field where people and groups compete using different kinds of capital. Economic capital is money and assets, cultural capital is education and know-how, social capital is networks, and symbolic capital is prestige and recognition. Those who hold more capital tend to dominate. A well-funded NGO can influence policy more easily than a grassroots group, and highly educated members can dominate a community meeting. In this view, voluntary associations often reproduce existing inequalities.

In short, Tocqueville sees voluntary associations that build democracy from the bottom up. Gramsci sees an arena where dominant ideas are produced and resisted. Bourdieu sees a stratified field where unequal capital shapes who is heard.

Return to the Nepal question

Tocqueville directs attention to whether NGOs create opportunities for participation and shared responsibility. Gramsci asks whose ideas of development become accepted as common sense. Bourdieu asks how education, professional networks, money and prestige shape who reaches leadership. The survey does not prove that one theory is correct, but it shows why the three lenses reveal different parts of the same organization. Lesson 4.3 returns to the evidence in its political and historical context.

Read

Domaradzka, A. (2025). Defining civil society in the turbulent times. Lessons from Poland. In A. Bassi, M. Aquino Alves, & C. Cordery (Eds.), The future of third sector research (pp. 81-94). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-67896-7_7

The chapter is free to read. Read pages 81 to 86. As you read, notice how Domaradzka separates civil society as something researchers measure from civil society as a space of shared values and struggle. Which of the three lenses does her argument sit closest to?

Try it

Use the same organization throughout the exercise so you can see how the lenses change the interpretation. Pick a local club, a temple or church group, a student association or a well-known NGO, and write a few lines on each question.

1. Where does it sit among the four spheres? Does it overlap with the state, the market or the family?

2. Describe it through each lens in one sentence. What democratic habits might it teach (Tocqueville)? Which ideas does it promote or challenge (Gramsci)? Who holds the most capital inside it, and who might be left out (Bourdieu)?

3. Which lens tells you the most about this organization, and why?

Key takeaway

Civil society gives people space to act together outside the state, market and family, but that space is not automatically equal or democratic. Tocqueville, Gramsci and Bourdieu direct our attention to participation, contested ideas and unequal resources, allowing the Nepal paradox to be understood rather than dismissed as a contradiction.