Berman, S. 1997. Civil Society and the Collapse of the Weimar Republic. World Politics , Vol. 49, No. 3, pp. 401-429.
The key point in this brilliant article is that loose talk about “civil society” as a Good Thing that will Help Democracy Thrive is simply not good enough. Put down that hypodermic full of de Tocqueville and Putnam and think.
It has driven me nuts for years the way the word “local” gets bandied around as if it means unproblematically “good” and “progressive” (I won’t mention names). It’s vacuous and cowardly. The people who burnt churches and lynched black people in the Deep South were “local.” The curtain-twitchers and assholes and polluters are “local.” And the same goes for “civil society.” You can have civil society that is active and engaged and influences the state/corporates and still have the greatest shitshow of the 20th century.
What Berman does here is use the history of 19th and 20th century Germany to show this. It’s a well-written, fascinating and cogent argument.
PS Looting the Ivory Tower is back! I will read and review >100 academic articles. Most will get reviews of this length. Some will get more in-depth treatment, including possibly short videos.
marchudson.net 
Marc, an interesting read, it supports my view, that words are open to interpretation. Democracy, Socialisms, Communism and the term Fascist appear tp mean different thing to different people. There are as many forms of Democracy as there are of Communism, today it is hard to know which is which?