Beyond NGOs: Civil and Uncivil Society in the 21st Century

Goodenough College, London, UK
February 26-27, 2009
Abstracts: November 8, 2008

This international conference will be a joint cooperation between the LSE Centre for Civil Society and the CINEFOGO Network of Excellence under the 6th EU Framework Programme.

Taking as its point of departure recent debates on “uncivil” society, political society or the dark side of associational life, the conference will invite research abstracts which address themes that go beyond the equation: civil society = NGOs. The aim of the conference is to investigate the role of organizations and movements that fall outside conventional civil society analysis and to develop new perspectives on issues of transnationality, migration and citizenship in and beyond Europe.

Research is invited on instances of “actually existing” civil societies - on religious movements and faith-based organizations, migrant networks, as well as on dimensions of “uncivil” society—vigilante groups, criminal networks, gangs, trafficker networks, mafias, and border-crossing systems of kinship and patronage.

Proposals are also sought on NGOs working with already established social organisations and social movements in instances of advocacy, welfare provision and humanitarian relief. From a theoretical perspective a key concern is to explore those analytical categories which challenge existing paradigms of civil society research. The meaning of religion, violence, migration, kinship, ethnicity and new configurations of identity politics in relation to civil society theory are all themes which should be explored and investigated within the thematic framework of the conference.

There are three key strands to the conference. The first strand will explore the role of civil society organizations beyond the NGO sector. These would include churches, mosques, religious movements, migrant networks, criminal groups and gangs. This research strand will raise issues around the diversity of social and political society both in European and in developing country contexts.
The second strand will explore the engagement of governments with social organizations outside the formal NGO sector. A key focus will be on changing European government policies towards the funding and management of civil, social and religious groups. Included in this strand would be the growing interest in working with faith-based organisations, diasporas, transnational advocacy networks as well as the work and international connections of Christian and Islamic organisations.

The third strand will examine civil society theory in the light of recent challenges, which have seen notions of civil society as European or Western impositions, and criticised their deployment within European and World Bank policies. Questions of what is civil and uncivil, or what is political society versus civil society open up new social science perspectives on the value of civil society as an analytical device and possible different understandings and applications of it.

CINEFOGO members will be expected to cover their own travel and accommodation costs. Non-CINEFOGO paper-givers can apply for travel funds of up to Euros 1,000. Non-CINEFOGO paper-givers should indicate upon submission of their abstract whether they wish to apply for a travel grant.
If you wish to present a paper at the conference, please submit an abstract of 300 words + CV by 8th November 2008 to Maria Schlegel at the Centre for Civil Society at ccs@lse.ac.uk. Your abstract should indicate clearly the strand into which it falls. You will be informed by December 5th as to whether your abstract has been accepted. Conference papers should be 6,000-7,000 words in length and would need to be submitted in full by January 31st 2009.