Authors: Duhamel & Mény
Summary: The term "civil society" derives from the Latin societas civilis, and ultimately from the Greek koinonia politike, "political community." For the Greeks it was that mode of social organization which corresponded to the nature of humans as political animals, and which found its full expression in the polis. "Civil society" is understood in many different ways, but in general civil society refers to the community of citizens-sometimes seen as connected to or deriving from the State, and sometimes seen as opposed to or prior to the State.
The differentiation of civil society from the State, or on the contrary its assimilation in the State, has been the object of many debates in political theory. Some theorists have sought to draw a sharp distinction between civil society and the state of nature (Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau). Others have sought to establish the priority of the State over civil society (Hegel)-or, on the contrary, of civil society over the state (Marx). In Marx the opposition between the two concepts was transformed into the relation between base and superstructure.