The Snail and the Good Government. A critique of 'civil society' by the Zapatista movement, Mexico
Ana C Dinerstein
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Abstract
Civil society is generally conceived of as either supplementary or complementary to the state. While it is widely recognised that the boundaries between the state and civil society are often complex, blurred and negotiated (CCC, LSE), most notions of civil society rely on the separation of society from the state, presenting the former as a public space for free association. The re-emergence of autonomy as a central demand in many social movements across the world (which involve claims for self-determination, organisational self-management and independence vis-à-vis the state and capital) has opened a theoretical space to re-think civil society and the state in novel ways. Particularly interesting are in this regard autonomous practices which have been presented by movements as offering an alternative to social relations of capitalism.
This working paper argues that autonomous practices by social movements allow a critique of dominant notions of civil society, defined as a sphere established apart from, regulated via or complementary to the state. The praxis of substantive autonomy emerges and negates the divider between social, economic and political spheres typical of liberal societies. Through autonomy - a category of struggle, civil society ceases to be only the site where the legitimisation of capitalist hegemony occurs to become a territorial and symbolic space where the contention between hegemonic and counter hegemonic practices takes place. In this respect, the concept of 'civil society' is not an 'actualization of the classic term, but alludes to a mutation in the political body' (Esteva 1999).
The theoretical discussion is based on an illustrative case study of new political and juridical bodies (the 'Snails' and Good Government Council) operated by the Zapatista movement in Chiapas, Mexico. It is shown that to the Zapatistas, the term civil society is inextricably interlocked with the practice of radical democracy and autonomy and it is described as 'the sphere of autonomously organised society, in opposition to that established by the state or directly controlled by it or associated to it' (Esteva, 1999). Civil society is experienced as the 'sphere of autonomously organised society' which is able to empower itself in 'rising up' and activating 'the power it already has' (Esteva, 1999: 159). I explore the processes through which the Zapatistas challenge state power by practicing radical democracy. I suggest that despite its significance the Zapatistas' critique of the liberal concept of civil society has been overlooked and point at both the lessons the Zapatista experience of self-government presents for the re-configuration of the concept of civil society in political sociology and political science and the difficulties to grasp them
The paper is based on data from the author's research project 'Social movements and the project of autonomy in Latin America' (RES-155-25-0007) (2008) funded by Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) under the 'Non-Governmental Public Action' programme, centre for Civil Society, LSE. The project compared four social movements from Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil and Mexico.
Keywords: autonomy, civil society, critique, social movements, Latin America, Zapatistas.
About the author
Ana C. Dinerstein (BA, MA, PhD), teaches Political Sociology at the Department of Social and Policy Sciences, University of Bath. Her research focuses on the political sociology of globalisation, autonomy, labour and social movements and the state in Latin America, with focus on Argentina.
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Contact: A.C.Dinerstein@bath.ac.uk|