Civil Society -- a Definition and Defense of this Critical Aspect of Modern Life What is a civil society? To answer this question, what is the nature and composition of a civil society, one must first answer the question -- what is a society? A society may be defined as a conglomeration or an association of individuals greater than and representing a wider and more diverse range of interests than 'the one.' In other words, a society is more than an individual. And, although a family or at least an extended family could be perceived as a kind of microcosm of society, technically a family is not equated with a society by sociologists because of its relative singularity of interests, emotional and social, and economic. In contrast, the nature and components of the civil societies such as trade unions, churches, and interest groups of various political colors are voluntary in their associations -- unlike a family -- yet have plural but relatively focused interests to achieve on the part of its membership, unlike political parties.

Unlike the society of the state or the government, however, the membership in such civil societal organization are conscious, willed, and voluntary -- one is not born into a trade union as one is born an American, for example. Nor is there the diversity inherent in civil societies comparable to that of political parties. However, although some of the structures may be similar to the voluntary membership in economic societies such as business firms, civil societies usually have ideological as well as economic goals of fulfillment to realize on behalf of its membership. Payment in civil societies usually voluntarily extracted by the membership itself of civil societies rather than payment given to its members, as in businesses, or involuntarily extracted through taxation as in government.

The media may be one last component of civil society, forming its own loose civil society in and of itself. The media helps give reign to the full and free discourse required to make civil societies fully possible in today's America, so that different opinions from different organizations with different goals can interact and debate in the most fertile...

Despite the usual connotations of 'civility,' a civil society thus is not an idealistic coherence of individuals who all think the same and speak the same. Quite the contrary, because of the possibility of debate, civil societies can form. Individuals form a voluntary association such as a union that is not purely remunerative but is based on shared practical needs and ideological agreements. Without a free media, however, such associations are much more difficult to create between individuals -- when they do, under a dictatorship, civil societies tend resemble revolutionary or secret 'cells' of individuals, much as they did in tsarist Russia, rather than open associations because of their illegality -- and because of this illegality such 'cells' have a more political than social agenda.
Civil society is a distinct public sphere; as a realm for non-state organization; and as a means to influence the structure and rules of the political game. In the first perspective, civil society is a distinct sphere of rights, political discourse, critical reflection, construction of normative ideals, and self-governance. In the second perspective, civil society renders to the voluntary and non-voluntary organizations that populate the realm located at the interstice among the state, political society, the market, and the society at large and take collective action in the pursuit of public interest. In the third the focus is on the instrumental role of civil society organizations in constructing, protecting, and expanding the public sphere, limiting state power, making demands on the state, affecting the political system, and restructuring the relations among actors in the different realms. It is crucial to note here that civil society is not a monolithic force but a diverse group of actors whose interest may span a wider spectrum. Though they maybe disguised for analytical purposes, the three perspectives are interrelated. And, moreover, the definition advanced here is necessarily a broad one meant to capture the multiple and features of civil society." (Alagappa 2004)

Thus, the key ideal 'components' of civil society are that they…