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Civil Society in Gramsci and Habermas

  CIVIL SOCIETY IN GRAMSCI AND HABERMAS

Both in Antonio Gramsci and Jürgen Habermas analyze civil society; public sphere, state,political society, hegemony on the basis of concerns for the public related to civil society.They have some similarities and differences in their sociological perspectives on civil society.In this paper, I will try to show the sociological perspectives of both philosophers, analyzetheir views and show differences and similarities between them.First of all, Gramsci seperates state and civil society. Furthermore, he distinguishes civilsociety from economic structure. The state is the synthesis of civil society and politicalsociety. The state is not only an apparatus of coercion but also of hegemony. The concreteforms of state are determined by the way in which the ruler and ruled relate, and its notmerely based on coercion, but is influenced by hegemony. Hegemny becomes thefundamental element of state and allows the dominant class to realize its historical goals bygoing beyond economic interests towards ideological and cultural interests. Hegemony asintellectual and moral leadership over allied groups integrates integrates mode of productionwith social formation. Hegemony creates a collective will and a unified political subject.According to Gramsci, the state is not only an instrument of the ruling class but a complexweb of social, political and economic relations. The historical unity of ruling class realizes inthe form of state, but there is an organic relationship between state, political society and civilsociety.1 The ruling class, in this complex web manifests itself in two ways; politicalleadership-domination and moral and intellectual leadership. Therefore, his understanding of state embodies a synthesis of political society and civil society, namely coercion and consent.The state is not only an apparatus of government (coercion), but also the apparatus of civilsociety (consent). From this point, state represents not only political activities but also theintellectual and moral activities, namely superstructure. State hegemony appears as thesynthesis of coercion and consent. This comes from the exercise of political, social, economicand intellectual activities of state. The dominant ruling group is coordinated with regard to theinterests of the subordinate groups and the life of a state is conceived of as a continuousprocess of formation and superseding of unstable equilibria between the interests of thefundamental group and those of the subordinate groups.From this passage, we understand that the ruling class goes beyond its economic interests to create alliances or a hegemonicblock to have the control of ruling. We see here the political aspect of state. Also, stateimposes a moral and an intellectual hegemony over subordinate classes and reaches aconsensus on its own conception of the world and ideological values.Then Gramsci comes to the struggle for power for working classes. According toGramsci, the struggle for power is the struggle to turn the ruled class to ruling class. But thisstruggle on the first step can’t be in political sphere. It begins in civil society and workingclass gains the potential to rule and exercise leadership in civil society sphere. Therefore, civilsociety is an autonomous realm of gaining leadership potentialities for working class. Thecivil society area as understood consists of unions, political parties, literature, newspapers,and associations of all kinds. The kind of state that Gramsci mentions to be struggled here isbourgeois state. Gramsci calls for a different kind of state organization for working classwhich is socialist state.State has the alternative to apply force. Conviction of subordinate classes to rulingclass is the first step of hegemony. What if one of the social groups rejects the hegemony?Force is an alternative against classes that rejects and rebels assimilation by ruling class. Wecan see an obvious example of this kind of hegemony in Turkey. Turkey as a newly foundednation state had applied assimilation policies to subordinate groups and tried to shape themaccording to the wills of ruling classes. Kurds could not be assimilated as the state wanted andthen state began to apply force over Kurdish community in Turkey.That’s a good example of  coercion of state. Coercion of state aims to create eligible citizens who are “civilized” butwhen state can’t succeed in this, it begins to apply force, violence over  persona non gratalike Kurds. State tries to convince masses for the uniformity of society. According to Gramsci,every state is ethical in as much as one of its most important functions is to create great massof population to particular cultural and moral level, a level which corresponds to the needs of the productive forces for development and hence to interests of the ruling class.

State is onthe one hand has an ethical function but it has the alternative to apply force, coercion. It alldepends on the role of state to conform civil society to economic structure.The civil society is mediator between the economic structure and state. In order toconform civil society to new structures, state has two elements; consent and coercion.Moreover, for transforming the society to socialism, for destroying the old homo economicus and burying it with all honors, force is inevitable. These can’t be realized by persuasion andmust be done by force.

Here we can understand that he does not reject the role of force fortransforming the society to a new structure. Revolution can be realized by using force byexercising leadership, power and force in civil society by ruled classes.Hegemony as the structure of capitalist power in the integral state is dominated byconsent and coercion. Cultural domination is embodied in political institutions

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with elections,civic freedoms etc. State has also consent function. The ruling class exercises its hegemony incivil society by the support of coercion to shape masses. In supreme crisis, coercion become more dominant that bourgeois state can’t solve “problems” with conformation. That’s related with the example that I gave above that state exercised violence and force over Kurdish movement when it’s understood that it’s impossible to conform Kurdish community to statepolicies with consent especially after the emergence of PKK movement after 1980s. Every state needs the consent of ruled classes. A state can’t survive only with coercion. That is the assuring of a dominant block. The economically dominant class isinsufficient to maintain hegemony. Intellectuals in dominant block play an important role Inmaintaining hegemony. To clarify this, I want to give again a Turkey example. When AKPcame to power, it needed the support of intellectuals to assure masses. Liberal intellectualssupported AKP in party politics and in this way, AKP gained legitimacy. Intellectuals playeda functionary role in legitimization of AKP policies. The alliance between intellectuals and AKP is a good example of Gramsci’s claims. After Gramsci, we should look at Habermas. For Habermas, the public sphere, to belocated in civil society, is a realm where people can discuss matters of mutual concern, andlearn about facts, events, and the opinions, interests, and perspectives of others in anenvironment free of coercion or inequalities. This implies the autonomy of individuals and isa learning process. According to Habermas, these discussions can occur within various unitsof civil society. But there is also a larger public sphere that mediates among the various mini-publics that emerge within and across associations, movements, religious organizations, clubs,local organizations of concerned citizens, and informal social networks in the creationof public opinion. As such one would see civil society as “a sphere of interaction betweeneconomy and state, composed above all of the intimate sphere (especially the family),thesphere of associations (especially voluntary organisations), social movements, and forms of  public communication. For both Gramsci and Habermas, civil society is an autonomoussocial sphere which contains all cultural institutions. According to Habermas, civil societydoes not include the economy that was constituted under private law and operated throughlabor, capital and goods. Habermas says that civil society is established throughcommunicative action, not through force. In his view, civil society is supplier for the statebecause it’s thought to institutionalize problem-solving discourses for it; for Gramsci, its notan area of democratic policiy but a battle field between democrats, fascists and monarchists.

 The ideal type of a public sphere for Habermas asserts itself as a barricade againstsystematizing effects of the state and ecenomy.Jürgen Habermas uses a term “lifeworld”which means “the intuitively present,transparent, vast and incalculable web of presuppositions that have to be satisfied if an actualutterance is to be all meaningful.

Lifeworld is considered as the domain of freedom that thereis no power in it. System is considered as the terrain of coercion. Gramscian understanding of civil society is different than Habermas. There emerges a problem when the system,constructed to serve our technical needs, invades the practical domain of the lifeworld. Thelifeworld is colonized by the functional imperatives of the state and th economy. Theimperatives of the economic and political-legal system remove the internal communicativeaction that underpins the formation and reproduction of lifeworlds, providing in its place anexternal framework of ideas, values, meaning and language based on systems.

According to Habermas, for the public sphere to be achieved, the equality and the richness of freedom of expression are very much needed, but in addition, the achievement of public sphere will makethis equality continue in a positive and constructive way.As a result, Habermas draws a sharp distinction between political and public spheres, unlike Gramsci. In Gramsci’s understanding civilsociety is a serious part of the state which isused as an instrument for to continue the hegemony. On the other hand, Habermas thinks of civil society as the source for criticism against the state where different individuals of thesociety come together for a civil alliance of deliberation. Gramsci, on the other hand, thinks of