It is a decade since the debut of the landmark Global Civil Society yearbook. During that time, as the yearbook has attempted to debate, map and measure the shifting contours of this contested phenomenon, relationships between state and society have shifted. On both sides promises have been made and broken, expectations raised and shattered, partnerships brokered and roles reversed. Moreover, from the instigation of the International Criminal Court by a coalition of NGOs to the mass protests of civilians across North Africa, the influence of non-state actors has become impossible to discount.

In this anniversary edition, activists and academics look back on ten years of ‘politics from below’, and ask whether it is merely the critical gaze upon the concept that has changed – or whether there is something genuinely new in kind about the way in which civil society is now operating.

The book is now available from Palgrave Macmillan.

Yearbook Contents

Part I: Introduction

Part II: Democracy and Citizenship

  • Chapter 3: The Arab Awakening: The Crisis of Dictatorship and Civil Society
    Bernard Dreano
  • Chapter 4: ‘Lost in Transformation’: The Crisis of Democracy and Civil Society
    Ferenc Miszlivetz
  • Chapter 5: Passionate Publics in Mediated Civil Society
    Bolette Blaagaard

Part III: Peace and Justice

  • Chapter 6: A Decade of the War on Terror and the ‘Responsibility to Protect’
    Mary Kaldor
  • Chapter 7: Pro-Roma Global Civil Society: Acting For, With or Instead of Roma?
    Angéla Kóczé and Márton Rövid
  • Chapter 8: Civil Society and Cluster Munitions: Building Blocks of a Global Campaign
    Thomas Nash

Part IV: Economy and Society

  • Chapter 9: Global Civil Society and the Rise of the Civil Economy
    Robin Murray
  • Chapter 10: A Decade of World Social Forums: Internationalisation without Institutionalisation?
    Geoffrey Pleyers

Part V: Records

  • Chapter 11: Bordering on the Unknown: Approaches to Global Civil Society Data
    Sean Deel, Sally Stares and Jill Timms
  • Chronology of Global Civil Society Events – A Yearbook Retrospective
    Compiled by Jill Timms