Civil Society: The driver of change?

Abstract

At the time of the collapse of the communist system, the rise of civil society offered a universal remedy both for the ‘socialist virus’, and the ‘transition fever’. Representing a detachment from the statedominated worldview, civil society became the key ingredient for the emergence of a participatory culture based on political pluralism. It is precisely the drive to be independent of state power that could counterbalance the domination of the state in the day-to-day life of the people. In the Western Balkans, which have underwent a much more turbulent two decades of transition than their eastern neighbors, civil society organizations have yet another role, examined in this article. In addition to being the drivers of political and societal change, civil society is also a mechanism of reconciliation in the region that was torn by the bloodiest conflict that took part on the European soil after the Second World War.