Conceptual Principles of the Civil Society Research

Abstract

The article attempts to analyze the conceptual foundations of the study of civil society (theoretical and methodological foundations) comprehensively in order to generalize research material on this subject. Different approaches to the concept and phenomenon of civil society in the historical context of their formation are analyzed and systematized. Taking into account complex content and the form of a civil society as a subject of research, the author offers an approach to its analysis, providing three dimensions of the study: a theoretical; a historical; and a practical one. The emphasis is on the importance of the economic component in the emergence of the phenomenon of a civil society in the socio-political reality and the significance of changes in the economic realm to update goals and objectives, as well as the structure of a civil society.

Contemporary investigation of civil society involves research of information technologies that affect the level of openness and mobility of any knowledge and information; globalization processes that shape the new economic landscape of the world and, therefore, become the subject of civil society due to inevitable social-economic conflicts and contradictions; migration processes that affect the value system of both migrants and settled population, which leads to the formation of completely new subjects and objects of influence of civil society; ecological problems, which do not have a pronounced nationality and directly affect humanity as a whole, which leads to the emergence of international environmental movements.

A separate problem in considering the theory of civil society is the level of personal interactions in modern conditions. The emergence of planetary problems and, accordingly, the interests of people allow distinguishing three levels of social relations, which have their own characteristics and directly affect the approaches to the implementation of civil society. Such levels are local level of interrelations (within the framework of separate communities, professional or cultural communities); national level of interrelations (at the state level or interstate regional interrelations); supranational level of interrelations (environmental issues, war and peace issues, disarmament, etc.).

Keywords: Civil society, capitalism, labor market, mass movements, economic inequality, justice, conflict of interests, institutionalization