Episode 5: CIVIL SOCIETY

Welcome to the podcast series Traveling Concepts on Air, hosted by myself, Tessa Dipporn, and Brianna McGonagall-Lie. We both work at UCF University. I am a legal scholar and she is an anthropologist. And we're both part of the contesting governance research platform within the institutions for open societies. In this podcast series, we want to critically question the promise and ideal of interdisciplinary by focusing on traveling concepts. Traveling concepts refers to concepts that travel within and across disciplines. Do such concepts encourage and enhance interdisciplinarity? Or do they create confusion and perhaps even obstructs collaboration? These are some of the questions we want to discuss. All right, welcome everybody to our new episode of Traveling Concepts on Air. Today we'll be talking about civil society and we have two very esteemed and interesting guests, Chris van de Bohr and Hans van Buiten. Am I pronouncing that correctly? Yes, absolutely. Perfect. Before we actually introduce them more in detail, I think it's important to mention that they're both core active, hardcore members of the contesting governance research platform. And so we're really happy that you guys could make the time to be here today. Yeah. We've had the opportunity to work with them quite closely over the years. And I think this is a fantastic topic for both of them to tackle given their research interests. Shall I start? Go for it. All right. Well, it's always a pleasure to introduce your boss. So this is Antoine Bausa. He's a full professor of human rights law and director of the Netherlands Institute of Human Rights, which as I said is where I also work. He is an editor-in-chief of the Netherlands Quarterly of Human Rights, a member of the editorial board of the Dutch Human Rights Review. And he hosts a blog about the European Convention on Human Rights. He's also connected to the Utrecht Center for Global Challenges, the Montana Center for the Rule of Law and the Administration of Justice, and the University Strategic Theme Institutions in Open Societies. And of course, our research platform contesting governance. His current research focuses on European human rights and the position of civil society and civic space. Welcome. Yeah, welcome. Thank you very much. Thank you for being here today. I have the pleasure of introducing Chris von der Boer, who was also one of my former teachers. Actually, when I did my masters in the Conflict Studies and Human Rights, it's kind of an honor that you're here today. So he's a system professor at the Center for Conflict Studies here at Utrecht University in the Netherlands. He specializes in issues such as conflict analysis, political developments, and international conflict resolution, and peace building. His recent research deals with the contestious processes of international intervention and post-warrior reconstruction. Related to this, he has published on parallel governance and the resistance against international state building in Kosovo and about the conflict pertaining security provision in post-Kadafi Libya. But as I think his most extensive field experience, both as a practitioner and as a scholar, is in El Salvador. His PhD thesis deals with the role of external donors in process of local development and peace buildings in El Salvador. And more recently, he's been doing some work about street gangs and government and international policies dealing with this new security threat in El Salvador. And he's also worked for several NGOs as a consultant, sharing his expertise on this topic, on these various topics. And as I mentioned, he's a founding member of the contesting governance research platform. So very much welcome, Chris, to this episode. Thank you. Yeah. So let's dive in. Yeah. So I guess my first question, maybe I'll start with Antoine. Have you ever heard of the concept of traveling concepts? Is it something you were familiar with before we said, "Hey guys, we want to make a podcast on traveling concepts?" Yes, actually, I did. When I was working with the Dutch young academy, from Royal Academy of Sciences, which is quite an interdisciplinary group from all fields of academia. And there we had a debate on interdisciplinary, and then that concept somehow was popping up in the conversation. And felt quite familiar right away because myself, I started studying history, and then I went into law, and already then as a student, some concepts that were the exact same word meant something completely different. So I guess there was an earlier awareness. Yeah. And how was it, because you mentioned you discussed this with some of your fellow young academy members, and was there a general kind of appreciation of this idea, or what was the debate, what were the discussions about at that time? Well, that was basically a group of enthusiasts about that kind of collaboration across disciplines, so they liked it. But what everyone also said is, "It takes time." So if you want to understand the concept from another discipline, and really use it, and not just mention it, then you need time, basically. Yeah, that's really interesting, because this kind of came back in some other episodes as well. Yeah, and the enthusiasm, the willingness to be open to new concepts and new understandings of concepts that you already use. All right. Excellent. And how about you, Chris? No, I never had heard about traveling concepts, and I like traveling, and I like concepts, to understand. So I thought that's really interesting. But when you sent invitation, I thought, "Okay, actually, civil society, we're going to talk about it today." I started as a political scientist, then I did development studies in Sweden, I joined the department of anthropology for my PhD in Uterland, and then came a member of the Conflict Studies Group. Civil society was always there in different ways, so that concept has sort of travelled with me or accompanied me. And so, yes, I became actually aware that traveling concepts exist, and this is one of them. Yeah, I guess maybe that's the case for many people. I think we understand the idea behind it. We just know that there's an actual concept to describe and encapsulate this phenomena, so that's. Yeah, and I'm curious because you said civil society has always been with you as you went from political science to development studies to anthropology to conflict studies, which is already interdisciplinary. I'd be curious to hear how your concept of civil society, how the way you've approached it in your research and used it has evolved and been enriched by those different disciplines. So maybe we can hear from you first, how you use civil society in your own research, how you view it. Well, it's such a slippery concept and some authors call it an empty shell. Yes, I sometimes use the concept, but I have to relate to discussions about the concept, I think. And well, in one of my studies about NGOs and the pressure that I did a couple of years ago, five years ago, we published that book, you know, at NGOs and the pressure in Central America and South East and Asia. There we saw NGOs as a type of civil society organization, but in the book, we have very critical about the concept of civil society also. In my recent research, which is mostly on a server in the Tibet street gangs, street gangs are often called uncivil society or uncivil actors. And there's an important question of how you deal with these kinds of actors, you crack down, that's like the common sense you should crack down on these actors, but other say, like you have to enter into dialogue with them or to negotiate. Well, this raises very important questions, like most people agree that gangs are not civil with this between the princesses, because they're violent actors, but nevertheless, they maybe need to engage with them. So these kinds of questions, and the question of civility is a set of norms. It's very important, whereas in the study about NGOs, it's about associations, civil society associations, it's about the norms of civility, but it's also about the public sphere. Civil society can mean these three things, I think. Well, could you maybe take a step back and say, okay, so in the book you wrote NGOs and the pressure, there was a lot of critique on the concept of civil society. So what were you exactly criticizing? What was kind of the definition that was used that you were critiquing on, so to speak? Yeah, well, the most basic definition, I think that Antoine and I both use is like, it's the associational sphere, or the union between the family and the state of organizations that are mostly voluntary organizations, and there, more or less, it stops, like, well, how about clans in some society? So they're not civil society. How about churches? How about groups in the US at this moment, in the US, for instance, either civil society or not, and so you get this whole normative discussion also, and civil society, or association alive, is so diverse. There's so many different manifestations there. You can lump them together and say, this is civil society, but it's very problematic, I think, any my own city, for instance, when you look at NGOs that often little bureaucracies, where people get paid for their work, have a little office, who have cars, for instance, there's a very different type of organization than, for instance, a church, a trade union, a grassroots organization. So this diversity, it does not really take into account this diversity, or some scholars say, well, you have to look at it diversity. So as a descriptive term, it's vague, and as a normative concept, it's problematic. It's almost everything and nothing at the same time. Yeah. Does this resonate with your approach? I mean, Chris mentioned it a little bit, but yeah, maybe you could say something about how you use the term or define the term. Yes, it's coming from law. It has immediately a normative connotation, which was one of the aspects that Chris mentioned, which is contested. So if you talk about civil society, the legal approach would be it's, first of all, it's organized. So you have formal associations, foundations, clubs, not for profits. And as soon as they are a formal entity, which we call a legal person, then they have rights and duties under law. But of course, that's just a very small part of what civil society actually could be. So if we see teenagers demonstrating in the climate marches, they are maybe not very organized, let alone formally established, but they are civil society. So this is something that law tries to grapple with, that there is this huge variety between very informal at-home groups and very established formal organizations. And law adds only a few categories. So it tries to box them in formal associations, which are legal persons, or if it's informal, it's just separate individuals. We could claim something or we'll have a duty but on something. And do you find, I mean, I know the UN has attempted a definition. Do you find that useful as a lawyer or do you find actually it's not useful at all? I guess specifically within human rights, which is my field, there is a strong bridge between academia, the study of human rights and practice. So the work of the United Nations and also of NGOs working on human rights. And there, although law has these normative starting points, these organizations, also the international ones, working on it, also are quite normative. So when they talk about civil society, they have a positive assumption behind it. So it would indeed not be the street gang that Chris is studying in Central America or the militia in the US. It would be organizations that contribute to human rights democracy in the rule of law. That's the assumption that international organizations make. Again, that's just a fraction of civil society. But it influences the way they talk about civil society and the role they see for civil society. And also the formal roles they give to it. So some of these international human rights mechanisms give opportunities for civil society to give input, to complain, to play a role. But then they assume that this is civil society that contributes to these lofty goals, which is not always the case. And in fact, define it as such that in order to be labeled that in some way, they are contributing to these higher ideals of democracy and human rights in rule of law. Oh, very interesting. And when did you start working with the idea of civil society? So how did you start researching this issue? So to speak, what was your introduction to the concept? I think it was active in civil society before studying it. So I co-created with when I was a PhD student, an NGO here in Newtracks, which is called Critical Mass, which works on conflict escalation for young people and how they can de-escalate it. So I was quite aware of setting up a foundation and also all the rules around it. And in my academic work, a lot of it focused for the past decade on human rights and post-conflict situations and situations of transitional justice. And in that field, especially last decade or so, we see that transitions stall or stop or even revert backwards to more violent situations, to more authoritarian situations. And in that literature that is evolving there, there's a lot of talk about civil society being under pressure. So it's seen as one of the kind of phenomena that exemplifies that regression of democracy. And that's how I started to be interested in civil society as a study object, because they are a kind of a litmus test. If you see civil society active as being imprisoned or being threatened or their work made more difficult, that can be a sign of this kind of reverse transition, this regression. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, it's interesting how you have your own personal, yeah, outside your profession, also a stake in civil society, I think it's interesting. Well, also that the, you know, Chris, on the one hand, was looking at NGOs under pressure, you know, a specific subset, perhaps, of this larger umbrella term, where Antoine was looking at civil society as a whole, including individuals, like an individual activist, perhaps not associated with any particular NGO, also under pressure. Yeah, and can I maybe say something on this NGO term, because if you look in human rights law, where that is actually the old word for civil society. So if you look in the earliest human rights treaties, they talk about non-governmental organizations. That's how these states, who made these treaties, saw the role for their citizens, non-governmental organizations. And for example, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights from 1948, they talk about every organ of society should contribute to promote human rights. And they mean everyone beyond the state, so individuals, but also indeed the churches, the sports clubs, the associations, and the NGOs. And it's only, I think, probably last 15 or 20 years, that the newer human rights treaties, such as the Convention on Rights of People with Disabilities, they mentioned the word civil society. So it's a relatively recent kind of traveled in concept, into human rights law, in the most formal sense, in the most formal kind of agreements to which our treaties. I think that this distinction is also the result of NGOs on one hand, the civil society on the other is the result. As civil society became popular again in 1980s, with groups in Eastern Europe and Latin America protesting against authoritarian regimes, so it was very much sort of a space that came into existence under pressure, like citizen groups or political organizations that were not, you know, had no rights. So many people became interested in civil society. Then in that period, Robert Putnam wrote his book about democracy in Italy, he linked it to the term of social capital, and the development community, so development assistance community became interested in civil society. This is sort of a local term, like if the state can't sort of do development or promote development, maybe we have to look at a local level and we have to look at local organizations, and that is where NGOs started to become important, to mushroom actually, and NGOs are not necessarily, or not really, I think, local organizations, but organizations or experts that try to do agricultural development or health care or human rights or whatever, and they have a better contact with the local level and with local organizations. And then the discussion emerged like, so can you actually call NGOs civil society, or are they more of a sort of a layer in between, maybe international actors or between, and the local level? Of course, there's many different types of NGOs, and there's not a consensus definition of what an NGO is, but it's also a problematic definition, I think. But the role of these NGOs has been questioned more and more, and that is also something I found in my research. The NGOs that I looked at were all funded by international actors and the international donors, and they did, you know, they were involved in democracy, promotion of democracy, or human rights, and these kinds of things. So we're seeing as good organizations, where staff get paid for their work, but they still have to make this connection with local organizations, or with local processes, like anti-corruption, or some NGOs are involved in mining conflicts, where the questions of civil space and of the role of the NGO can be very different as well. So again, yes, NGOs, one of the questions is, are they actually part of civil society? That's an academic discussion, and then maybe the answer is it really depends on in which arena they operate, how do you relate to state, to the market, to other organizations, and so on. And this also relates to between the formal approach from law and the practical study of it, the more sociological empirical study of it, because we see in the human rights world so-called gongos, so government organized NGOs. Gongos, I've never heard of that before, gongos, it sounds like a song. And they are set up, they look like NGOs, they are formally set up as an independent foundation, so they are by law and NGOs, but in practice, completely controlled by the state, and also made to intervene in international organizations to look as if there is an independent voice from that particular country. But actually, if you studied empirically, you see that they are completely voicing what the authorities want them to voice. So it's kind of just like fake news, you also have fake NGOs if you want, and there's a whole variety of these. So it's the non-governmental in the name is also bit delusive as such. But I really like what you're saying now, so you have this kind of legal perspective, and then the more sociological empirical. Does that mean that in order for us to understand civil society, we inherently need this interdisciplinary approach to understand it in its various ways? Is that kind of what you're saying? Yes, I'm 100% sure, because you need for formal legal decision making, you need this kind of backgroundist context to make a solid decision, otherwise you base yourself on paper realities only. Yeah, yeah, and what would this decision be then? What kind of decisions are we talking about? Well, we can talk about these kinds of NGOs that then claim rights for themselves, and international human rights watchdogs, like the European Court of Human Rights. They get, for example, claims from violent, conducive NGOs who call for violence against a certain group of people or a state. Well, they claim all their human rights, and then this court has to decide, are they actually eligible to do that? Or do they have certain goals that are so contrary to the whole value of human rights that we cannot give them that protection? And indeed, some of these NGOs have been really acted for that very reason that they condone or call for violence, for example. Interesting. Very interesting. I had no idea that this whole space existed, but I think that says more about me than any of you. Sorry, what struck me also, but what was said was this change in terminology, almost from a negative definition, so non-state, which again is huge, and you know, not, sorry, non-governmental, to maybe a more positive, of course, it's normative, but a more positive spin, spin of civil society, and perhaps also, you know, if NGOs perhaps had this negative connotation of being either funded by states or by, you know, these international donors with clear interests that the term civil society in itself could kind of wash over that. And you see that in the language as well that there's more and more talk of CSOs or civil society organizations by themselves, rather than calling themselves NGOs. It's interesting because in our last episode on sustainability, we talked about greenwashing, and I guess what term could we use here, civil washing? Is this also a process of ways things are kind of, you know? Definitely civil society is kind of a few good term. I think everybody wants to use it, and that makes it a very useful concept for policymakers also, like you don't define it too well. Everybody likes the idea because everybody would like to work with the locals, whoever they are, and whatever it is. But the difficult questions are really so. Who are those organizations? If you talk about organizations, when you talk about civil society, who are they? Who do they represent? Who do they represent people? And how do they represent those people? And the idea that they're independent is I think it's very problematic in many cases. Very often organizations have links to political parties or actors to the state, to the private sector, and that's so that's normal, I think. But the question is how what kind of relations do we see? Maybe also clientelistic relations with strong men or whatever. So a more critical look, if organizations, international organizations say, yeah, we want to work with civil society, that is actually very problematic. And that's one of the things that we, in my research in Kosovo, where we looked at the EU, who is now the most important international actor in Kosovo, and it's stress as it wants to involve civil society in its missions. But that is quite a difficult thing in the context of Kosovo. And apart from the fact that it was not really able to do so, if you have a quick look at the work of the EU, you see that it's very problematic. But if you want to involve civil society, who are you going to involve? Who makes these decisions? There is a lot of money behind that. Yeah. And it makes me kind of ask a question, maybe it's maybe a very stupid question, making us forcing us to go back a step. So why is it important to work with civil society? So this is inheritance assumption that it's good to work with civil society, whoever that may be. So then the question is why, what is the kind of normative ideological idea behind that, steering this drive? There's another reason that international organizations are interested in civil society. And that is because they believe that, as Putin put it, it makes democracy work. So if you strengthen civil society, you strengthen a certain type of interpersonal relations, nonviolence, moderation, tolerance, trust, all these features of association on life, as Putin puts it. And that's a good thing. But they forget that many organizations do not necessarily promote tolerance, trust, and so on. So there's also uncivil organizations in civil society. And that is, I think, in the field of political science and conflicts studies that is recognized. We've seen a lot of conflicts. Not only in the past decades, but in the past centuries, where organizations have played very negative roles in processes of polarization and escalation. So. And if I can jump into that? So law would indeed also try to distinguish these different roles for civil society. So in human rights, there is more protection accorded to civil society. If it performs that more positive role, the first examples that you mentioned, Chris, on this contributions to democracy. So if an organization plays the role of what they call this watchdog of democracy, for example, making public information about environmental pollution or corruption, then they play this role. And in doing so, they receive more freedom of expression for what they say, because it is a criticism and information that informs the public and that contributes to a well-working democratic ecosystem. So you have different levels of protection given to players, to actors, to organizations, according to the role they play. So this differentiation is made by lawyers without knowing anything about putting them probably. But they do it. Yeah, interesting, really fascinating. Can I ask about cooperation? So we know that the two of you have a project together. Can you tell us, have you encountered any challenges in terms of wrestling with some of these ideas from your own disciplines, or has it been smooth sailing? We love to hear more about the challenges around cooperating from different disciplines, you know, around themes of civic engagement and civil society. Yeah, maybe our project is really about civic space, under a tax of civil society, under attack in many different places. And when I started reading about that, I encountered Chris book that was mentioned. NGOs under pressure, exactly. And that's how I started to learn about that whole vocabulary and trying to digest it and understand it. And I need that because just anecdotical last year, I presented at the conference for political scientists as a lawyer on society. And the first comment I got right away after I talked was, you don't even mention Habermas and Putnam and the Tokville and how can you even talk about civil society without referring to all these names. And as a lawyer, I thought, yes, of course I can. But now I'm trying to read up on all of that as well. Okay. That's a great example. I've come across something similar. Where you're presenting to a different type of audience and there's certain expectations attached to maybe how even the information, not even what's in the information, but how that information is laid out and presented to them. That's great. Yeah, I think the cooperation is important and very productive also. In the book, NGOs under pressure, I cooperated with Coverline Tevin, who is an anthropologist and a lawyer. And it was very important that she had a lot of knowledge about human rights, law and things because if you talk about civic space under pressure, you refer to something like a legal framework, a national framework, an international framework. So you refer to law in many cases. Well, we question this in our books, so we say, okay, in practice, it works in the space. What is civic space? And that's one of the questions we ask. There's a formal definition like organizations have the right to organize in the first place to say what they want to say and so on. And what we ask in the book is like, how does this work in reality? What is civic space in a country like, say Guatemala, where these rights are not protected or not always guaranteed? And why is that? I think this, you need both perspectives, really. If you're interested in civic space, you need both perspectives. So I think it's very interesting in the projects. We did different, we had different projects about Lebanon, about COVID. And there maybe it's nice to mention that the way in which we collaborate, one of the ways is that we co-supervised research intern students, so that kind of allows Chris and I to talk to each other through the work of the students. That's great. And bringing our different perspectives and then something comes on the table and slowly shapes up into this new multidisciplinary, hopefully our good article that comes out of it. Well, that's super great to hear. I mean, we're very excited about the idea of this also translating into teaching and supervision. So this idea that for students, it's a terrible experience, of course, because it's not one of me. Perhaps in the beginning, but at the end, a student has a much richer understanding. That's what we hope, right? And a much broader perspective on these things. And I think it would be great if we, yeah, we talk about this a lot as well in the academy and having supervision done across disciplines or across faculties, so that students get different perspectives. But I do have a question as well about the project, because I'm interested in the fact that you guys are now talking about civic space. So maybe Chris, could you tell me a little bit more about this shift from civil society to your civic space or why the maybe the term civic space is now being used in your project? Yeah, I think it's a different emphasis. When you talk about civil society, Michael Edwards says it has there's three approaches to civil society. It's about associations. It's about norms, civility, civil norms, and it is about a sphere, a public sphere, public realm. And when you look at civic space, we're looking at, I think, a combination of norms and the public realm, a place where associations can deliberate, can cooperate, but can also enter into conflict with each other. And where that is, where there's protections, where it's a protected space. And then, in the world today, it's a government to suppose to sort of protect that space. And the emphasis on civic space and civic space under attack is because, in many cases, you see the organizations are there, there are human rights organizations, there are organizations that are protesting against corruption, against mining companies, and so on, but they're not able or allowed to do what they're supposed to do. And that's where civic space comes under pressure, and the organizations as well. But so the focus is on the system. Also, it's more of a systems approach to civil society, apparently organizations don't have the possibility to challenge under actors, or to protest against certain actors. And this happens in particular when vested interests are affected by civil society organizations, I think. So, in some way, authoritarian regimes, yes, there's hardly any public space, although China also has a civil society, but it's a different one. But if you look at countries and our democracies, or partial democracies, or young democracies, they all acknowledge in their whilst that organizations have the right to protest or to get together or to question things, and that is often not possible. So, in that space, that is not present, that's the project focuses on that, on the absence of that space, and the rules of the game. - Yeah, very good. Well, I would like to turn back to this notion of traveling concepts, and to hear maybe if other metaphors have creeped in. So, Chris had not heard of traveling concepts prior on to on hat, but were there other metaphors that you've encountered, now that you have maybe a clearer idea of what we meant by traveling concepts? - Yes, I guess a very usual metaphor in law is the concept of transplantation, or transplant. So, what do we often call a legal transplant? So, there's maybe a good new way of organizing not-for-profit companies in one country, then another country can use that idea, those kind of setups, to implement them into their own system. And that we call a transplant. So, it's kind of a medical metaphor to use an element from one legal system into another. So, that's one that is very often used, which is problematic because it doesn't often work to put one piece of a puzzle in a different puzzle, right? So, there's problems in themselves with that metaphor as well. - Yeah, a rejection of the transplant. - Yeah, legal irritant, even that's going on. - Oh, yeah, legal irritant. Yeah, because it's sometimes even in your description, it feels a little bit hostile almost, like an invasion, and not like something is being shared, or it doesn't, yeah, it doesn't feel like that. So, a legal irritant, I'd like this idea. - And Chris? - Yeah, maybe I don't have a different name, but a different tool. I remember that, I think it is in the securitization literature where there's also a lot of interdisciplinary work, where they use the term of a kaleidoscope, I think it's where you sort of turn a little bit and see something else. And that is what happens when you use different definitions of concepts. When you use very broad definitions, it's easy to have a conversation, but you get stuck at some point. And then when you become more precise, and I think it's when you conduct research at some point, you have to be more precise, that's where the friction starts, and where it really becomes difficult and interesting, because friction is-- - I was about to say-- - Yeah, exactly, and this resonates with what we were talking about in the other episode as well, so when does friction emerge? Does it emerge when you are discussing with people most further away from you, or actually with disciplines that are very closely connected, actually? And do you guys, in your projects or in your approaches, where does the friction emerge? Is there friction in your understandings of society? When you guys, for example, supervise your students, is there other points where you think, "Okay, now I see it this way, and I definitely see it this way." - Only in the sense that students are very often want a point to base themselves on, and we work with different sets of literatures. - Yeah. - So, there is important to guide the students, and not just to put on the table, to completely different sets of things, and go for-- find it out yourself, but find some parts of the literature where there are connecting points, I think that's important. - Yeah, okay. And maybe the last question about the concept is, what are kind of the ways forward? So, how, where is the concept civil society, where is it going to be in 10, 20, 30 years, or whatever ideas of future we have? - Yeah, I think it will still exist, you know, as I already said, in the beginning, like I think it's a concept. It's received a lot of critique in the social sciences, because it's so vague. - Yeah. - But nevertheless, the things that we're talking about, association, civility, publicist, they're very important, especially in the world today, I think, and it's a normative point of view, but I do believe that it's very important. So, we have to talk about these questions, not necessarily from a Eurocentric point of view, because it's one of the other critiques about civil society, but think about maybe non-Western or less liberal ideas of civil society, think about the role of social media, in the way civil society is developed, is a very important point, I think. And so, I think there's a lot of research opportunities also. - Perfect, yeah. Antoine, any last thoughts on that? - Yeah, it's a reality as well, so there are civil society players, and they will use it. So, irrespective of whether research is discarded or not, it will exist, and that means that there is indeed also a future for it as a term in academia as such. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. - Nice. - Perfect. - That brings us almost to the close. We would love to hear your suggestions for our listeners about, yeah, what is it inspired you recently? Books, podcasts. - Series. - Games, series. - Anything. It doesn't have to be about civil society, it could also just be a guilty pleasure. Anything you want to share, put it out there in the public space. - I'm currently reading a great book, which is about kind of the enemy if you want a civil society, it's called the new despotism. It's a book by political scientist John Keen, and he really looks at all these new kind of populist authoritarian forms of power making by elites in countries, and how they keep power, and they don't want any organized citizens. They want quiet, consuming citizens. - Oh, yes. - Exactly. And he really dissects this whole issue, kind of like a devil, but he writes like an angel, so I really like reading it. - That's a good one. I will definitely add that to my Christmas list. - Me too. Me too. John Keen, I think he has written a lot about society also. - Yeah. - Yeah, I think it's not a new book, but an old book, and I think for everyone who likes to learn more about civil society, is Michael Edwards' little book called Civil Society, was published in 2004, and I think it's an excellent introduction to many of the things that we talked about today. And next, I think he had a question about civil society and social media, a very urgent question, but I don't have any suggestions, so I would like to hear anyone who has suggestions. I'm very interested in it. - All right, listen here, so you hear that please, if you guys have any suggestions on the particularly the role of social media, let us know on Twitter or send us an email, and we really help Chris out, and all of us out, and we're excited to move further. I think this is a wrap. - That's it. Thank you guys so much for taking the time to speak with us. We've really enjoyed it. - Yeah, definitely. - Definitely. - Thank you. - Thanks for joining us for this session of Traveling Concepts on Air. - For more information, please visit Uselk University's contesting governance platform website. - If you have any questions, comments, or suggestions, email us at [email protected]. - Please subscribe and follow us on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. And more importantly, spread the word with your colleagues and friends. Till next time.