A world which is not yet

Peasants, civil society and the state

Bibliographic Data

ID2158241
AuthorsTom Bra (0000-0002-8565-2416, corresponding author), Tom Brass
Year2007
Volume34
Issue3-4
Pages582-664
Publication date2007-07-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueThe Journal of Peasant Studies (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0306-6150 • E-ISSN: 1743-9361
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/03066150701802918
OpenAlexW1971281059
LanguageEN
Citations received8
References cited106

Historically, the construction of democracy and 'civil society' has been linked by both the political left and right to struggles over property, the market and the State. What conservatives and neoliberals feared, and socialists hoped for, was that'pure democracy' would enable peasants and workers to capture the State, and thus use the latter to transform existing property and exchange relations. Having relied on the strong State to maintain its socio-economic privileges, the political right first opposed and then endorsed (representative) democracy, thereby combining a populist'from above' attempt to generate the support of workers and peasants with the idea of a strong capitalist State. Positioning'civil society' within the capitalist system, modernization theory sought the incorporation of peasants and workers into the bourgeois polity without, however, challenging existing traditional rural culture. The latter was the identity subsequently mobilized by'new' populist postmodernism to construct a concept of a locally-based agrarian'civil society' outside and against the capitalist State. Resisting - but no longer attempting to capture or control - the State, this form of 'civil society' seeks merely to establish or re-establish local and systemically non-specific forms of democracy. This, it is argued here, replicates the historical project not of the left but of conservatism and neoliberalism, and as such is politically disempowering for peasants and workers

Agrarian society · Bourgeoisie · Civil society · Democracy · Neoliberalism (international relations · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Polity · Sociology · State (computer science · Agriculture, Land Use, Rural Development · Global trade, sustainability, and social impact · Law · Organic Food and Agriculture

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