State-civil society inter-action in policy making: a manual

Abstract

'Civil society' has become one of the most fashionable terms our times. There are many civil soviet} organisations (CSOs) which ha\e sprung up in Southern Africa in the past two decades. No discussion about politics, democracy and development is complete without reference to the pivotal role and contribution of CSOs. Newspapers, magazines, text-books and talk-shows refer to civil soviet} and its Ivnch-pin role, indeed, it is often assumed that ever}bod} knows what 'civil soviet} 'is. and its contribution in the broader soviet}. This manual is on ' civil soviet} ’ but it does not not assume that everybody has extensive knowledge about what it is: what it consists of and how it relates to the state. The manual seeks to explain in basic terms the nature of the relationship between civil soviet} and state institutions, a relationship which historical!} has been characterised by accommodation, suspicion and conflict. It begins b} providing working definitions of the key concepts of civil soviet} and state, and a framework through which these two sets of institutions could be understood better.