The past two decades have witnessed a revival of the concept of 'civil society'. From East Central Europe to Latin America and East Asia to the recent calls for a 'European civil society' and a 'global civil society', the concept signifies the need for national and supra-national forms of civic commitment against both unjustified state domination and neo-liberal marketization. Reviewing the long history of the concept, its use in various regional contexts and its place in critical political theory, this book takes comprehensive stock of these debates and asks about the potential of the concept of civil society in guiding political transformations towards fuller understandings of liberty and democracy.

Peter Wagner is Professor of Social and Political Theory at the European University Institute, Florence, and Professor of Sociology at the University of Warwick. His publications in social and political philosophy and historical and political sociology include A Sociology of Modernity (1994), Theorizing Modernity (2001), A History and Theory of the Social Sciences (2001), and The Political Constitution of Modern Capitalism (co-editor, forthcoming 2005).

Introduction
Peter Wagner

PART I: BEGINNINGS

Chapter 1. Civil Society and the Problématique of Political Modernity
Jean Terrier and Peter Wagner

Chapter 2. From koinonìa politikè to societas civilis: Birth, Disappearance and First Renaissance of the Concept
Peter Hallberg and Björn Wittrock

PART II: NARROWING

Chapter 3. The Nationalisation and Popularisation of Political Language: the Concept of 'Civil Society' in Swedish
Peter Hallberg

Chapter 4. Declining Deliberation: Civil Society, Community, Organised Modernity
Jean Terrier and Peter Wagner

Chapter 5. The Withering Away of 'Civil Society' and the Organization of Social Life: the Case of Germany from the Wilhelminian era to the G.D.R.
Jay Rowell and Bénédicte Zimmermann

PART III: WIDENING

Chapter 6. The Second Renaissance of Civil Society in East and Central Europe - and in the European Union
Jody Jensen and Ferenc Miszlivetz

Chapter 7. Pluralized Globalisation: Civil Society in East Asia and Latin America
Shin Jong-Hwa and Peter Wagner

Chapter 8. Global Civil Society: from Dissident Democratisation to World Bank Parlance
Jody Jensen and Ferenc Miszlivetz

Chapter 9. The Critique of Organised Modernity
Jean Terrier and Peter Wagner

PART IV: CONCLUDING

Chapter 10. The Return of Civil Society and the Reopening of the Political Problématique
Jean Terrier and Peter Wagner

Bibliography
Index