A large body of literature holds that the development of a vibrant civil society is required for the political development of a nation. Juan Linz and Alfred Stepan (1996: 7) for example, define the existence of a free and lively civil society as one of the requirements for a consolidated democracy. Bernhard Wessels (1997) demonstrates a strong relationship between the levels of social group membership in a nation and social modernity (also see Pham Minh Hac 2001). Larry Diamond (1994) provides an extensive description of the role that civil society participation plays in the development of democratic citizenship and the development of a democratic polity (also see Yamamoto 1995). Participation in social groups independent of the state is seen as developing the interpersonal skills and resources that benefit democratic participation, encouraging a tolerance and trust in others, broadening world perspectives, and providing practice in deliberation and decision making. These citizen-building benefits are often described as creating "social capital" among the citizenry that supports democratic politics. Indeed, beginning with DeTocqueville, there is a long tradition of political culture and political development research that stresses the beneficial aspects of a vibrant civil society (Almond and Verba 1963; Putnam 1993; Rueschemeyer 1998; Warren 2001).....
This Ordinance promulgates contents that are to be disclosed to the public; contents that are to be discussed and decided by the people; contents that are to be commented by the people before decided by the competent agencies; contents that are monitored by the people; responsibilities of governments, officials and civil servants at the commune level, the village level, and the cluster level; responsibilities of related agencies, organizations. individuals and the people in implementation of democracy at the commune level.
CIVICUS has compiled a large collection of Civil Society capacity building toolkits and resources. All toolkits are available free of charge unless otherwise noted. You can find these listed below, loosely grouped into the following categories:
