The State and Civil Society in Social Movements Responding to Globalization

An East Asian Perspective

Abstract

This paper examines the views on the relationship between the state and civil society in three analytic frameworks on social movements responding to globalization : antisystemic movement theory, network society theory, and the East Asian civil society argument. Through this examination, it searches for a paradigmatic change in the civil society argument. The purpose of the change is to make the civil society argument deep-rooted in the East Asian soil on which we live, meeting the demands of our times of globalization.
Antisystemic movement theory follows orthodox assumptions that there is a clear distinction between the state and civil society, and that they can confront each other. Recently, these assumptions have been less emphasized because of the strategic calculation on the political use of anti-globalization movements. Network society theory analyses social movements without considering the relationship between the state and civil society, because it maintains that global networks will make the role of the state and civil society less important. In short, the state and civil society are presupposed to confront each other, or are not considered central to these main analytic frameworks on anti-globalization movements. On the other hand, the East Asian civil society argument, which has been less noticed in relation to social movements responding to globalization, regards the state and civil society as interconnected.
In actual anti-globalization movements, we can hear some voices to be resonant with the viewpoints of the East Asian civil society argument. The East Asian civil society argument will continue to address the theoretical and practical issues in building a transnational network responding to globalization in this region, bearing a geographical specificity and internal diversity as its own destiny.