Comparative Civil Society and Democracy

The process, which started in the early 1990s and was described by the American political scientist Samuel Huntington as the third wave of democratisation, slowed down completely in the 2000s and then came to a virtual standstill in 2008, when the economic crisis hit. The global economic crisis has had a significant impact on the global not-for-profit sector. Previously supportive government attitudes have changed and deteriorating conditions for central budgets have led to a severe economic and then social crisis. Cultural diversity and changing social structures slowly eroded liberal values until the crisis erupted. The rapidly changing environment and a renewed sense of vulnerability among citizens brought back the desire for 'watchdog power', fuelled by fears of growing existential insecurity and marginalisation. The panel aims to answer the question of why civil society, seen as the engine of democratic development after the Second World War, found itself in this situation and what the way out might be. Can civil society show the way again for an increasingly polarised global society, or will civil society lose its social and political integrating power as democratic values devolve?