| Summary: | 博士 === 國立中山大學 === 中國與亞太區域研究所 === 107 === Civil society is without doubts one of the most problematic terms to define in political science. It is a complex concept where different contents and features can be emphasized, and boundaries are blurred and impossible to stringently set up. The most general and common element of most of the definitions is that civil society is a realm between state and family. To be able to differentiate it from society in general, it is necessary to add that it is a public realm which contains “only citizens who act collectively in order to promote or defend their interests towards the state.” Furthermore, the concept can be based on different features. As Anders Sjögren put it, civil society could be understood, either as “a social sphere; associations within that sphere; their activities in relation to, e.g., the state; or a certain (civic) dimension of those activities.” No matter of what is chosen, civil society incorporates associations of different types which represent a great variety of interests within the society, such as human rights groups, women’s organizations, social and welfare associations, academic clubs, trade unions, etc. Civil society is inevitably a diverse and pluralistic concept. On the one hand, the variety of interests is intrinsic for all societies, and that makes diversity to be an intrinsic feature of civil society anywhere. On the other, various interests may be stronger or weaker, and civil societies thus may be very different in their compositions.
In order to understand the composition of each civil society one has to trace the contours of cultural frames that represent the archetypes of the current dynamics of domestic civil society sectors operating under different economic, political, and social regimes.
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