Bignami, Francesca --- "Theories of civil society and Global Administrative Law: the case of the World Bank and international development" [2016] ELECD 420; in Cassese, Sabino (ed), "Research Handbook on Global Administrative Law" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2016) 325

Book Title: Research Handbook on Global Administrative Law

Editor(s): Cassese, Sabino

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781783478453

Section: Chapter 15

Section Title: Theories of civil society and Global Administrative Law: the case of the World Bank and international development

Author(s): Bignami, Francesca

Number of pages: 22

Abstract/Description:

For over two decades, the concept of civil society has informed institutional design in the international realm. Empowering civil society has served as a key rhetorical and policy response to the criticism that the social and economic processes of globalization and the international organizations that have emerged to govern the global realm are illegitimate, elite driven, and anti-democratic. It is only a slight exaggeration to say that the majority of the Global Administrative Law (GAL) that exists today can be understood as the historical product of institutional reform designed to empower civil society. Civil society, however, is a notoriously ambiguous concept. In most contemporary legal and political theory it is believed to be an important component of a fair and stable political community and therefore essential to the good life. It is also generally, although certainly not universally, used to refer to a sphere that is relatively free of the state and the market, populated by voluntary associations through which individuals join together to pursue their common interests and express their common identities. Beyond that, however, there is little consensus. How civil society contributes to democracy and what particular forms of civil society – sometimes in league with other societal actors – are important for democracy and good governance vary considerably among the different theories of how to organize the collective life of a political community.