Abstract
This chapter offers an original overview of how civil society is imagined and managed in international development over the past quarter century. An outline of civil society’s history highlights how the sphere is associated with community, trust and autonomous organisation. I examine civil society’s shifting boundaries and purpose during neoliberal and participatory development (PD), and the rise of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) as increasingly professional public–private intermediaries and service delivery institutions. The chapter questions the relevance of development’s romance with civil society in light of first, profound ongoing inequalities in access to substantive citizenship and dignity, and second the gradual replacement of civil society by notions of resilience, risk and constant adaptation which draw on ecological and biological sciences.
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Radcliffe, S.A. (2016). Civil Society: Management, Mismanagement and Informal Governance. In: Grugel, J., Hammett, D. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of International Development. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-42724-3_13
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-42724-3_13
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