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Civil Society's Role In Democracy

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Role of Civil Society in Democratic state.
1. Limit and control the power of states.
This is the most basic role of civil society which is to control and limit the power of the states. As mention civil society works as an organization to check and balance the states. Of course. Any democracy need a well-functioning and authoritative state. But when a county is emerging from decades of dictatorship, it also needs to find ways to check, monitor, and restrain the power of political leaders and states officials. Civil society actors should watch how the states use their power. They will raise any issues related to public concern about any abuse of power. The civil society will lobby access to information, including freedom of information laws, …show more content…

Civil society has become one of the most effective alliance of the states to curb corruption in many countries . Civil society will ensure that there will be a high transparency in a democratic states. Corruption can happen either in a democratic states or in a communist states. This practice are totally against the principle of democracy which is to be fair, and equal. As a pressure group, civil society will expose the corrupt conduct of public officials and lobby for good governance reform. Even there is an anti-corruptions laws and bodies exist, they didn’t function effectively without active support and participation from civil society. For example, In India, massive demonstrations convinces the government to put forward strong anti-corruption legislation . Civil society in India had proved that they were successfully build an awareness of the important of anti-corruption mechanism to be implement in the …show more content…

Due to a representative democracy system in today’s model of democracy had weaken the power of the citizen. So, civil society can be used as a medium for a citizen to raise any issues and it seem to be more effective and practical. It is a norm that to move as a group is better than standing alone. For example, in Malaysia, BERSIH movement was used as a medium for the citizen to show their anger towards the corrupt government. And it proved when thousands of people gather at the centre of Kuala Lumpur to demonstrate against the government administration and fight for their right as a democratic citizen to get freedom and equality. Base on that, it’s show that civil society act as a “big microphone” due to their role as a civil

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