Struggling for civility. The idea and the reality of civil society

Abstract

This interdisciplinary study revises the rise and development of civil society in post-Soviet Russia from an ethical and intercultural perspective. The author conceives of civil society both as an idea and as a reality. This distinction clarifies the gap between the normative vision of liberal democratic society and the practice of democracy. The problematic relationship between the idea and the reality of civil society in the West constitutes an interesting pole of comparison when placed in an intercultural perspective. Analyzing the failures and achievements of the democratic project in post-Soviet Russia, the author reveals deep-lying cultural and moral causes of the actual problems. A particular problem of Russian civil society relates to the lack of a strong public sphere and, accordingly, of a developed self-conception of society as an independent, full-pledged body entitled to participate in the political process on the par with the state. The study provides a complex picture of how Russian society, liberated from the restraints of the Soviet system, has been struggling for civility.