Civil Society and Building a Democratic Civil State: A Political Approach

The purpose of this study is to find a foundation for the concepts of the 'civil society' and the 'civil state'. It ‎examines and compares both from different dimensions: description, purpose, objectives, history, the reality of the ‎civil society and finally, to what extent they are similar. Most discussion is about civil society and civil democratic ‎state, including studies, discussions and arguments, because of their importance in the Arab countries. In addition, ‎this discussion seeks to clarify the role of civil society in building a democratic civil state. The researcher uses the ‎systems analysis to point out the relationship between how active the civil society is and the establishment of the ‎democratic civil state. After collecting and analyzing related statistics, this study has shown how much the civil ‎society, the concept of democracy, and the state are related. The three represent the most important channels of ‎public participation. In addition, the activeness of the civil society increases opportunities of political participation, ‎supports the values of democracy and citizenship, and enhances the sovereignty of law.

The three are the major ‎components of the civil state. The results have revealed a number of facts: (1) there is a strong positive relation ‎between the reasons behind the establishment of an active civil society and the establishment of the democratic civil ‎society. Furthermore, (2) the civil society, its institutions and organized units, its ability of social coordination have ‎created a strong state with powerful active institutions and limited the dominance of the society's powers over ‎individuals. This has created a democratic civil state. (3) Individual and communicative will, increasing the public ‎awareness of the importance of modernization and development, as well as stimulating the role of the active civil ‎society lead to the development of a simple state to a democratic one. The study concludes with a major ‎recommendation: the classical concept of the modern state as an independent uni-center of an isolated social ‎coordination should be abandoned for the civil social organizations.‎