Democracy and civil society

Since there are various views on the civil society, in this paper the writer first introduces two main views, a limited view and a broad view, explaining the concept based on these two views. The two views, formed by social and political theorists, are firmly grounded in political and social literature. To explain the concept, the writer introduces the indexes of the civil society, the most important of which are: a small central government (the smaller, the better), acceptance of pluralism, recognition of the people as the only and the superior source of power of the government, reformation of the structure of the political economics, for example by creating equal opportunities, meritocracy and the sense of love for “the other”, etc. The writer then discusses the interaction of the necessary preconditions for the establishment of the civil society and democracy with the characteristics of the civil society and emphasizes their interrelations. The final message of the paper is that considering the current changes in the social and political arenas, cultural determinism is gradually being replaced with cultural relativism.