Maier’s lecture was entitled “Beyond Civil Society: Renewing the traditions of reform in Europe.” Interrogating the historical record, he argued that the fashionable slogans of governance and civil society need to be rebalanced by a renewed agenda for state/EU political institutions.
Maier began his lecture by reflecting on the political changes that have taken place in Europe and around the world since 1989. Transformations of political language, he said, provide a good window into analysing how politics have changed. The key concept in the Europe of 1989 was “civil society.” The term denoted a far more intense engagement with democracy than, for example, the phrase “parliamentary democracy.” Václav Havel famously said that traditional parliamentary democracy could not protect freedom without the help of a thriving civil society.When the Soviets signed the Helsinki Accords in 1975, little did they suspect that their promise to respect human rights would embolden civil society to develop into an existential threat. In Czechoslovakia, the language of the Helsinki Accords found echoes in Charter 77. In East Germany, a number of groups emerged to challenge various aspects of the regime, from church networks and ecologically minded organisations to peace circles. In Poland, the Solidarity movement briefly unified the opposition to the regime, prompting General Jaruzelski to impose martial law. By 1987 the Poles had established the Round Table format, which gave a voice to the representatives of unofficial groups.
However, after the communist regimes fell, civil society groups did not fare well. In Poland, they split into partylike formations whose electoral results were disappointing. East Germany’s Neues Forum and Czechoslovakia’s Civic Forum performed poorly in elections. Maier argued that Civil Society was a necessary agent that helped shatter communist dictatorships, but it proved to be an incompetent political force once democracy returned.
The problem with civil society, Maier argued, was that it yielded to blind faith in capital and neoliberalism. Civil society sought to establish an alternative legitimacy to oppressive regimes, but it was not itself fit to rule. It was a rebellious force whose modus operandi was civil disobedience, and thus it could not become a political force to govern in “normal” times.
From civil society, Maier shifted to governance. In the last forty years, industries, banks, and speculative funds were the source of the growth and vitality that constitute modern economic life. Wagers on the future remain an element in the distribution of income today. A side-effect of the new economic order is a skewing of economic returns and a growing socio-economic disparity. Savvy political leaders have, of course, begun to draw on these grievances. Viktor Orbán said the Great Recession was one of the 21st century’s greatest changes, starting a race to create a reformed state. Populists like Orbán, Modi, and Erdogan intend to build states without norms, drawing on the notion of virtuous people battling elitist forces and levelling societal institutions in the process.
This phenomenon highlights a frequently invoked term: “governance.” The word has been present in Western discourse since the 1980s, occupying a very different meaning to the word “government.” Maier argued that the term “governance” is often used as an attempt to separate rules from politics and procedure from power: a kind of government without contention. Carrying the same illusions of an apolitical future as the phrase “civil society,” the term “governance” now occupies the same place in liberal discourse.
Ideas about governance tend to be technocratic, envisioning a polity that – when the idea is taken to its logical conclusion – is run by algorithms. Maier argued, however, that to govern is to choose. Politics must take place within the framework of debates and legislation, and the state should be the field for politics. The challenges that have arisen since 1989 simply cannot be solved by society. These include ensuring equal access to rights (such as abortion and voting); the “vertical challenge” – financing the welfare state in an age of longevity; the “horizontal challenge” – the question of immigration to wealthy countries; and managing geopolitical rivalries.
Maier closed by noting that we need not all speak truth to power but we should speak truth about power to keep sight of what is at stake. In the question-and-answer session, he fielded a number of questions about the future of civil society, especially in backsliding countries like Turkey, Hungary and Poland. Maier argued that civil society always arises in response to oppression and that other countries can help it by funding “the good guys.” He maintained, however, that the important question is what happens to civil society during ordinary times.
Maier also answered questions about the future of the EU. He said it is still in a state of birth, describing it as an incipient confederation of values with money and even armed forces behind these values. He said that in the long run he was an optimist about the union, and he also remarked that it is his categorical imperative – as an American – to be an optimist about the future of American democracy.
Ladislav Charouz (Research Assistant)
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