Thus, the term was revived in the 1980s, after a long period of dormancy, to connote "those forms of communal and associational life which are organized neither by the self-interest of the market nor by the coercive potential of the state, and introduced fresh air into both the theory and practice of contemporary societies."2 Ernest Gellner, who perhaps was one of the first contemporary thinkers to write comprehensively on civil society, notes that "the ultimate response to Marxism was a Civil Society with a set of diverse non-governmental institutions strong enough to counterbalance the state, and while not preventing the state from fulfilling its role of keeper of the peace, and arbitrator between major interests, these institutions were strong enough to prevent it from dominating and atomizing the rest of society." 3
In more recent years, however, civil society is being discussed increasingly in referring to contribution by nongovernmental organizations to the governance of society. The increasing reference to "civil society" in most of the countries thus reflects a decline of confidence in government. Joseph Nye of Harvard University argues in his article titled "In Government We Don't Trust," that "governments will share more of the processes of governance with market and nonprofit institutions into the next century." 4
This trend had been verified by a well-known study undertaken in 1990-1995 by Johns Hopkins University. Based on this study, Lester Salamon concluded that the world is witnessing a global "associational revolution" and argued that "it may prove to be significant to the latter twentieth century as the rise of the nation state was to the latter nineteenth century."5 Similarly, a review of Emerging Civil Society in the Asia Pacific Community under a survey project undertaken by JCIE from the spring of 1993 through the spring of 1994 to assess the current state of civil society organizations in fifteen countries in Asia Pacific, reported on the impressive growth of the nonprofit sector in the region in recent years. In addition to an expansion of the scope and nature of activities. In the "Integrative Summary" of the survey, this writer, acting as the editor of the book, reported that "many NGOs and philanthropic organizations in these countries have been transforming themselves from traditional organizations that provide charitable contributions and services to the poor, to those that directly involve themselves in the development Process or in addressing issues such as the environment and human rights."6
3. Contemporary Context for Civil Society Debate
It is interesting to note that both the recent experience of the former communist countries in Eastern Europe and the growing economies in Asia Pacific, as discussed above, seem to exhibit an underlying contextual commonality. This can be summarized as follows: one shared contemporary phenomenon is the inability of government to respond to vast social changes brought about by the forces of globalization and intensification of interdependence, and another is a growing interest on the part of citizens in responding to the widening space of social needs. As was the case in Eastern Europe in the waning days of the communist regime and as is the case in countries in Asia Pacific and other regions where government is reluctant to share its power with citizens, civil society development has a critical bearing on the governing of society.
Thus, it would be fair to say that the contemporary usage of the term, "civil society" is distinct from society in general or what the Japanese word shakai connotes "in that it involves citizens acting collectively in a public sphere to express their interests, passions, and ideas, exchange information, achieve mutual goals, make demands on the state, and hold state officials accountable." 7
