Publication

Civil society is an indispensable tenet of democratisation. Its weakness in the post-totalitarian context is predominantly understood to derive from a regressive inheritance of ethnic nationalism, civic distrust in voluntary organisations and ideological tension with an illiberal state and illiberal non-state groups. This paper argues that while powerful these explanations are, the more enduring oppressions are those a nascent and inexperienced civil society cannot easily recognise. Perceived as innocuous, they are unlikely to be confronted. A ‘return to the past’ of state dominance in the civil sphere becomes ever-likely. This argument is illustrated through open-ended interviews with the Directors of 24 local civil society organisations across Iraq.