Lately analysts have been actively discussing why democracy is not taking root in our national soil, what is the essence and nature of a transition period and what results should be expected from democracy. Analysts also often refer to the issue of the civil society's role in democratization, and lately the terms "informal politics and informal political institutions" have been frequently used to describe our state political system. In this material I would like to like to bring forward my vision that the above-listed programs are interrelated through a paradigm that assumes that civil society is an element of a "social capital" and that democracy is a development factor.

Civil society in theory and practice.

We have lately been forced to hear that Kyrgyz civil society did not fulfill its historical mission of democratization of the society and public socialization. Criticism of NGOs that are often identified with civil society has increased, especially during the political battles of the last two years, although before that nongovernmental organizations were also criticized as interest groups, grant money consumers and a certain type of business supported by foreign donors. To understand to what extent those accusations are reasonable, let's refer to a history of civil society in our country.

Ideas about civil society being a catalyst for democratic processes, a key to democracy and a "missing formula for democracy" became a part of international discourse during last years of Soviet Union's existence and were especially strengthened after its collapse. In brief, the main idea of this discourse is that civil society, in the role of a liaison between citizens and the government, fosters public interest in the government and politics, cultivates pluralism, checks government and makes it accountable to society and encourages activism and political participation by citizens.

These ideas were perceived, in a way, as an axiom.  Therefore when the construction of democracy showed disappointing results, accusations were raised that NGOs had replaced their "true" functions with excessive politicization and were unable to solve large scale social problems.

In reality, everything is much more complicated. It is worth stating that after collapse of the USSR and the independence of Kyrgyzstan, the international community started a large project of modeling and nurturing civil society in the image and likeness of Western civil society. Moreover, they selected a model that was ideologically and philosophically founded upon principles of liberal democracy including principles of individual freedoms, the division between government and private activity in society and that of a separate individual, and government accountability, etc. Meanwhile, this term's long-term historical genealogy has been forgotten.

The definition of civil society as a rational, artificial, human-created institution uniting people into one community through a social contract or, in other words, through their voluntary subjection to power (authority) and recognition of common norms and practices of human dormitory is attributed to Thomas Hobbes[1]. For Hobbes and later for John Locke, civil society was not separated from the government and social contract. According to assertions of Frederic Starr, the works of a German philosopher, Hegel, brought another understanding of civil society. Now it is separated from the government and is only viewed as a part of the society that voluntarily self-organizes into various associations for promotion of common goals, achievements of common objectives and plays a role in providing checks-and-balances for state institutions. And government was perceived as a regulator of the interactions between various public groups taking responsibility for performance of the overall society[2].

Thus, the modern liberal understanding of civil society entails a dichotomy and even a certain element of antagonism between the government and civil society. And considering experience of former communist states with omnipresent and omniscient government, civil society has been constantly considered as a counterbalance to the tyranny of government entities. That justified efforts by the international donor community to support certain types of associations, which could provide such counterbalance. In the beginning they succeeded to a certain extent, since the conditions of our country were such that after independence the national state and civil society started their development simultaneously.

The civil society model suggested by the Western community did not quite fit into the local cultural - historical context and did not become an exact copy of Western civil society. Another important aspect that is frequently missed is that the construction of civil society in our country took place in the context of an intellectual search for a "correct formula" for civil society in the West, i.e. in developed countries. This search, converted to the context of states in transition, led to a conceptual confusion and turned them, in particular Kyrgyzstan, into a sui generis experimental space.

The intellectual search for "a correct formula" of a civil society that was essential for democratic development, stability and prosperity gained special impetus after the publication of the works of Robert Putnam, a Harvard University professor who has researched civil society in Italy and the USA[3]. In his research, Putnam made the conclusion that a network of civil associations and active culture of civic involvement and activism in some regions of Italy fostered democratic development while the absence of horizontal associations in other regions made democracy impossible. He has also argued that currently many countries including USA are facing a decline in civil society reflected in political apathy, weak recruitment of citizens to politics, and non-participation in elections and other political processes. According to Putnam, horizontal voluntary unions of people are stimulators of cooperation, mechanisms for the resolution of local issues by community efforts and also cultivators of a common civic spirit, solidarity and trust.

Putnam's works have gained enormous popularity and at the same time have raised a storm of criticism. Putnam's critics said that civil associations would not only stimulate spirit of cooperation and trust but may also lead to the emergence of conflict, and indeed it is not the civil society that shapes government's behavior but on the contrary, government in a certain sense shapes civil society, the activeness of citizens and the level and forms of such activity. Some critics have also argued that the existing social-political context has a strong influence on a civil society, for example, the current constitutional environment, traditions of political repression, the ability of the state to mobilize people and methods they used for mobilization, etc. 

Putnam's ideas about decline of civil society reflect concerns about the constriction of the public policy sphere and decreased opportunities for public participation in the decision making processes or in other words for those factors that lead to the alienation of people from politics, and consequently to political discontent and the growth of protest phenomena.

How is that related to the Kyrgyz experience of civil society construction? Directly; if we consider the issue of modeling civil society on various forms and their impact on the development of democracy in our country.

If we are to look at the chronology of the nongovernmental sector, it is quite obvious that in the beginning, it was encouraged (by international donor community) to create such NGO models that could influence directly the processes associated with democracy. This includes so-called advocacy groups, groups for the protection of human rights, groups for election monitoring, etc.

In the middle and especially at the end of the 1990s changes took place towards encouraging so-called community based organizations that were targeted at the creation of various mutual assistance groups and the implementation of social infrastructure projects in rural areas. The same category of NGOs mentioned above started to be "accused"of excessive professionalization and turning into business, were criticized for detachment from target groups, for turning into elite interest groups, and were called hunters of grants from international funds and governments. Moreover, the government and donors funding NGOs changed their approaches. A conceptual reorientation became obvious, thus changing the perception of various types of nongovernmental organizations and associations. From support of NGOs working in political spheres, such as rule of law, good governance, democratic elections, and human rights, the focus gradually shifted to so-called community based groups. These were considered to be the most socially useful, helping to mobilize public efforts for the resolution of common problems, for example, poverty in rural areas. Even a term obscure for the majority of population has appeared: development NGOs.

Such trends had an important meaning for the fate of democracy. To my mind, different civil society actors have different "democratizing" capacities. In our situation, with the simultaneous construction of government and civil society after 1991, the democratizing role could objectively be played by those NGO groups whose activity had the most influence on the establishment of political institutions that could function as the government's monitor and watchdog. This role could be taken by NGOs headed by strong and educated leaders well aware of the situation in the country and capable of competently working in their direction. Due to the fact that after collapse of the USSR many professionals of various spheres including education, culture and healthcare were left without jobs and many of them have joined the NGO sector, a good human capacity appeared in the civic sector.

But with the consolidation of a political regime (as presently argued - towards authoritarianism) and a parallel reorientation of donors in the middle of 1990s, we witnessed a trend of emergence of groups targeted at inter-communal ties and relations that were also profitable to the government as providers of social services for the population since they freed the government from its former responsibilities. The government started actively promoting the term "social partnership" which, unfortunately, has not received a real content. In my opinion, the capacity of these communal organizations as a democratization factor was very limited. Supporters of Putnam's ideas may object, arguing that horizontal ties in local communities uniting people for their common objectives also affect democracy since such associations allow people to unite, to communicate and thus stimulate their activities, cooperation, etc. However it is worth remembering that such groups are after all targeted on relations within their community and less on relations with other groups as well or relations with society and the government overall. One may even argue that to a certain extent such groups facilitate the fragmentation rather than the unification of society. It is also important to note that the principles of democracy and equality are not always observed even within one community. Communal groups reflect existing schemes of power distribution in communities, especially in rural ones. Traditional mechanisms of public mobilization are not necessarily voluntary and do not always assume the participation of all social groups in the decision making process. The Soviet inheritance of government informers, mistrust and total government control over the private life of citizens led to the erosion of common identity and communal solidarity

 In general today, civil society in Kyrgyzstan, despite popular perceptions that it is more active than in neighboring countries, is still weak. The capacity of the first generation of NGOs was somewhat undermined by the inconsistent actions of donors and the aggressive position of the government towards so-called politically oriented NGOs. As a result, part of such NGOs indeed hardened against the government, their actions acquired more antagonism and mistrust to the government, while part of them were forced to change their philosophy and to adapt to donors and the government. Regarding communal organizations, they did not become a panacea for democratic development in Kyrgyzstan either; in many cases they have enhanced paternalistic expectations although not from the government but from donors and NGOS and could not get rid of the habit of seeking "freebies" coming from foreign assistance. All of this supports the assertion that voluntary nongovernment associations do not have an inherent democratizing role and whether or not they contribute to the development of democratic processes depends on a range of important factors including the nature of social capital, its quality, and its content. And that will be discussed below.

Social capital and trust in society.

Lately political scientists, sociologists, psychologists and economics have frequently referred to the term "social capital" to explain various phenomena. There are a great number of definitions of social or public capital. The most widespread and simple definition is the interpretation of social capital as an interaction between various interrelated groups of people as well as interaction within such groups.  Despite differences in terms, everyone agrees that social capital has a certain value; therefore the word "capital" is used.

The use of social capital as a term that is sometimes associated with civil society also has a long history. Many thinkers of the past and current century have integrated the concept of public capital into the study of democracy and pluralistic society. The abovementioned Robert Putnam, who is credited for a Renaissance of scientific interest in this concept over the last two decades, thinks public capital is a measure of social health since in his understanding social capital is founded upon common norms and trust between people. He also argues that social capital contributes to success of democracy and leads to a growth in political participation.

In this material, I use the definition of social capital given by Francis Fukuyama, according to whom social capital is a set of informal values and norms shared by members of one or another public group and allowing them to cooperate[4]; moreover such phenomenon as trust, civil society and informal public collectives, according to Fukuyama, derive from social capital but are not elements of it.

If Putnam and the many followers of his theory view horizontal public associations and social capital as exclusively positive for the development of democracy, Fukuyama paid attention to the fact that social capital may also be negative for development of a society. He gives the example of the Ku-Klux-Klan and mafia structures. Such groups also have certain norms allowing them to reach collective goals, and in this sense they possess social capital. But these groups produce numerous negative externalities[5] for the society overall. At the same time some groups (for example, religious ones) may have a positive impact on other groups or on society overall. For example, if a religion argues that one should be honest not only within his group but also with other people then such a group has positive externalities.

To explain the phenomena of "bad" and a "good" social capital, Fukuyama introduces the concept of "a trust radius," which he explains as a circle of people who share norms of a trust-based cooperation. Different groups have different trust radii. If a group produces positive externalities on other public groups (not included in this group) then the trust radius of this group is bigger than the group itself. It happens that the trust radius is limited by the group scope and may even be smaller than the group if cooperation and norm observance is common only for a narrow circle of group members, for example, a leadership group or some top management.

For our analysis of civil society and politics, this approach, and the term "trust radius" in particular, provides an explanation of some phenomena - especially in relation to current discussions about the role of informal political institutions and civil society in democracy development.

In disputes about the role of information institutions in a current politics, opinions are diametrically opposed. Some analyses are against informal institutions playing a large role in politics, some consider that it is necessary to selectively approach existent informal institutions, to adopt them to a certain extent and to apply the most useful. There is also a third group thinking that in our country formal democratic institutions (in the Western liberal understanding) do not take root, and debate whether it is worth imposing them at all if informal institutions are functioning well. The last position almost idealizes informal institutions.

A full denial or idealization of informal institutions is wrong per se. On the one hand, Weber's approach that sees the essence of social modernization in the replacement of informal institutions with formal ones has become outdated since everyone recognizes that informal institutions may also play a positive role. On the other hand, it is wrong to idealize informal political institutions, referring to their functioning.  Informal institutions may also include those that immortalize certain public schemas of interaction and deprive society of development. Their negative social aspects may outweigh their positive effects.   

If we are to appeal to the political history of other countries, we will see that the existence of informal and formal political institutions is common not only for Central Asian but also other states; and in many developing countries informal institutions have a bigger impact than formal ones. So tribal, family, regional, religious and other groups play a large role in politics of many countries of Asia, Latin American, Africa; Europe also has its examples. But many researchers tend to lean to the position that views these institutions not as a value but rather as a restriction of democratic development. And there are grounds for this view.

Francis Fukuyama justifies it by saying that such groups, as a rule, have a small trust radius. Such groups have their norms and solidarity of members but they may contradict with norms of other groups and may serve as a restriction for cooperation with other groups. The low trust radius in such groups creates a good soil for corruption and produces a certain type of a double-layered system of morality and ethics: good behavior for one's own and bad for all the rest. Such a position does not contribute to the unity of the nation and the strengthening of a common identity, while government power does not have full legitimacy.

Kenneth Newton, summarizing positions of theorists, working on the issue of a social capital and a social trust (Arrow, Coleman, Ostrom, Putnam, Fukuyama) wrote that trust is a main element of a social capital, while social capital is an essential condition for social integration, economic effectiveness and democratic stability[6]. Trust secures the existence of peaceful and stable social relations and that gives grounds for collective behavior and productive cooperation. Theorists of social capital argue that social capital increases when the society has trust and it prevails over mistrust while the mechanisms of reproduction, accumulation and transfer of the society's social capital are religious and cultural-historical traditions.

How important is trust in a society?

The matter of fact is that the cultures of various people differ in their content, forms and quality of a social capital. It is a big challenge to measure trust in a society although there are methods, for example, the famous "World Values Survey" poll and regional and national analogs. Despite the challenge of measuring it, the existence or absence of trust affects the quality of life in every society. Trust may be determined by public expectations from other citizens, whether they will act honestly, whether they will fulfill certain responsibilities, whether or not they will cause harm and in the best case will act in the interests of the society.  

In my opinion, the level of trust in our society is low. That is both trust at the individual and aggregate levels. I do not have empirical data but some facts of our reality may serve as a justification. Thus, by no means is trust in our society, as a rule, restricted to the family and closest relatives and friends. That is revealed in the practice of job hunting, in public communication schemas, in the domination of small family businesses in our economy, a large part of which is in the grey sector.

If we are to trust theorists following the sociological approach then social trust should increase when voluntary public associations increase, and in turn social trust should lead to political trust. Since in Kyrgyzstan a number of different NGOs have increased in size and number then supposedly that should lead to a growth in trust. However, in reality the growth of trust is doubtful. Indeed, everything is probably the opposite.  

Possibly, the level of trust in our society has not increased because existing NGOs and other associations failed to become a bridge between various public groups and a space of aggregation and articulation of a wide range of opinions, and did not become a foundation for people's solidarity to the full extent. In other words they did not become what Western scientific terminology calls "bridging capital." The forms of civic associations that we have are, practically, inter-group capital rather than intra-group since they tie only members of one group representing a "bonding capital." In this regard, they are not different from traditional informal collectives based on tribal, regional and other basis except maybe they produce more positive externalities on the society in the form of new ideas, democratic philosophy, etc although that is also disputable.

Accusing NGOs of failing to fulfill their historical mission is not legitimate since they grew up on Kyrgyz soil. NGOs are a part of the society therefore they are subject to the trust disease dominating in that society. That justifies the family factor in the sector, their unwillingness to exchange information with each other and the weakness of solidarity and cooperation.

Scientific literature distinguishes various forms of trust. Here we are talking about aggregated or generalized political and social trust. Briefly, following Kenneth Newton, let's define social trust as the expectation and belief by people that they live in the society where one can basically trust people, and political trust is a belief that the performance of existent political institutions and political system is satisfactory[7]. Researches give different description of the interrelation between social and political trust; some see a direct correlation, while others do not think that this tie is obvious. There are also disputes about what is more fundamental - social or political trust. Sociologists tend to think that social capital defines political capital, while political scientists argue that trust in the political system and political institutions impacts the quality and program of a social capital. The latter assert that the government may nurture and accumulate social trust and capital using such mechanisms as decentralization of governance, improvement of public access to information, through transparency of politics and through a real not quasi battle with corruption.

Political trust exists then when citizens trust government institutions and find state governance effective and political leaders responsible and honest. Political trust thus shapes the impression in citizens that they are a part of a well functioning state and public system, which gives them a sense of a national pride, or in other words political trust is an important factor in shaping civic identity.

In the examples of various countries, scientists argue whether there is indeed a direct connection between trust in society and associative activity and political trust? There are various opinions on relations between political and social trust in developing countries (democracies) and developing countries. Moreover, if the developed world considers that increased political participation is revealed in the form of election participation and civic activism is considered as a factor of strengthening public and political trust then this relation is negative in developing countries. For example, in some countries of Latin America and Africa an increase in public activism and NGOs led to decreased political trust because by joining NGOs citizens attain more information about corruption in the government. That leads to a growth of antagonism between government and civil society. Some researchers believe that the availability of some minimal level of citizens' trust to political institutes is even useful in the sense that it might stimulate civic activity and the desire to seek accountability and responsibility from government entities. However, if there is a relatively stable situation of social and political mistrust in the scope of the society overall then such a situation threatens the most dangerous consequences for the government's fate.

If the population thinks that the government (or government bodies) have acquired power legally then this government is legitimate. Elections (Presidential and Parliamentary) are very important as a tool of building political trust since they symbolize public will and thus add legitimacy to a political system.

In Kyrgyzstan the level of trust towards various political and government institutions is fairly low. But that is more a global trend including countries with developed democracies. Should we worry about this? And to what extent is the existence of trust important for the government, for its effective performance and development?

It is worth worrying because the main reason for the decline in political trust all over the world is that corruption in our society has reached a hypertrophied size. Besides, it is important to note that expectations from the government are different in the modern world. According to Peri Blind, in the century of globalization, the government should not be a service provider but a strategist capable of planning, creating and maintaining an environment for economic functions, and it should be competent, technological and should follow norms of accountability, honesty, professionalism, ideals, etc[8].

A long-term lack of trust may lead to the immortalization of corruption, to a passive perception of the situation and submissiveness which can be easily replaced by instability in the society, when civil society may turn into its antipode and start accumulating anti-public capital in the form of criminal, extremist or other groups. Lack of trust does not in any way contribute to unity and development of a citizens' identity.

Creation (restoration) of social capital and trust needs time and sometimes a long time to change habits and the way people think. I would like to refer to some interesting data from the poll conducted by IPP in 2006 about the level of public trust towards various institutions. The fact that many people (especially in Issyk-Kul region) have stated that they were not waiting for assistance from anyone can be described as a rollback from paternalistic expectations from the government but at the same time as an indicator of mistrust since people do not rely upon some associations, clans and other unions. Possibly that is a serious symptom that society is atomizing, individualizing and a spirit of unity and solidarity is vanishing. In the context of low public trust towards political and state institutions, first of all those responsible for law enforcement (courts, law-enforcement bodies), with enormous corruption and a low level of trust among people it seems doubtful that citizens might be encouraged by slogans of national construction. The mobilization capacity of the government, at least using old methods, has run low because people simply do not trust state institutions. 

What we see now is a low level of a social and a political trust in the society that undermines possibilities for the positive influence of social capital on the development of society.

I would like to emphasize one more detail in all this discussion. Based on the results of the above mentioned poll, I found it interesting that a fairly high level of trust in the President, government and rural self-government was given. The poll was conducted in 2006, immediately after revolutionary events and one should assume that a big credit of trust was given to the new President and expectations of the rural population for improvements in their lives. Bu if we are to consider one more fact, in particular that 92% of respondents stated that they were not ready to follow a person or an institution believing in his correctness even if he (she) was violating a law; this data provides for interpretation that in our country despite public relations being enveloped by informal rules (clanism, nepotism, tribalism, regionalism, etc) people would give preference to a strong law and a strong formal institution. This is a sui generis credit of trust to democratic principles; this is the expectation and belief that democracy represents positive perspectives for our state. This is a capacity of trust that should be developed and cherished if we want to become a modern civilized nation.

Anar Musabaeva, Education and Youth Policy Expert.

1 Glasius M., Lewis D., & Seckinelgin H (2004) (Eds.) Exploring Civil Society: Political and Cultural contexts. Rutledge: Taylor & Francis Group, P. 16.

[2] See for details : Ruffin, H. & Waugh, D. (1999). (Eds.) Civil Society in Central Asia. Seattle and London: University of Washington Press

[3] Putnam, R. (2002). Democracies in Flux: The Evolution of Social Capital in Contemporary Society. UK: Oxford University Press;

Putnam, R. (June 1994).What makes democracy work. What do choral societies and football clubs have to do with prosperity and good government? A surprising amount. IPA Review, vol. 47, issue 1.

[4] Francis Fykuyama (1999). Social Capital and Civil Society. Prepared for delivery at the IMF Conference on Second generation reforms. Accessed at : http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/seminar/1999/reforms/fukuyama.htm

[5] Externalities mean external appearance (effects) of something.

[6] Trust, Social Capital, Civil Society and Democracy. By Kenneth Newton, International Political Science Review (2001), Vol22, No2, 201-214.

[7] Trust, Social Capital, Civil Society and Democracy. By Kenneth Newton,  International Political Science Review (2001), Vol22, No2, pp. 211.

[8] Peri K. Blind. Building  trust in government in the twenty-first century: Review of Literature and Emerging  Issues. UNDESA, Global Forum on reinventing Government, 2007  Vienna,  Austria