| Chapter 1: | Jamaican Governance and Citizen Politics in Context |
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1996; J. A. Hall, 1995; Munroe, 1999; Whitehead, 1997), these notions are rarely foregrounded and given theoretical or empirical precedence in the existing debates on civil society. That civil society’s uncivil side has been theoretically ignored, pushed away, or deliberately underplayed is perhaps the major conceptual deficit of the contemporary writings on the subject. This has led to confusion over its meaning and, in contexts such as Jamaica, may trigger doubts over its usefulness as a force for societal transformation. As Boyd (2004) maintained, “In the absence of any shared agreement about the nature and character of civil society, what emerges is a strictly terminological definition that, consciously or unconsciously, seeks to avoid addressing questions about civil society’s moral character” (p. 5; cf. Fine, 1997). This book addresses this conceptual deficit and the extent to which it has implications for the positive value of civil society in the Jamaican society.
Focusing on the actual character and conduct of civil processes such as protests and demonstrations and the extent to which they constitute and reflect civil society should go a long way in explaining the limits of current efforts to conceptualize and establish civil societies. In this regard, I find Boyd’s (2004) conceptual stance particularly useful. He argued that
Civil society must embrace both its call for civil conduct as well as collective engagement––in order for civil society to be validated politically anywhere (not just in Jamaica), its dual role as a social value and as a set of functioning, participatory social institutions. This means that