The political power of civil society

We propose a model to understand how civil society affects political reform. A member of civil society who is a political actor can defect to the opposition and directly erode the ruler’s power. An ordinary citizen, however, can only indirectly depose the ruler through popular discontent, generating governance costs which, if sufficiently large, can trigger defection to the opposition by political actors. A key factor that determines the success of reform is the degree of organization of civil society into particular groups. Wide-reaching groups whose membership spans political actors and ordinary citizens are most effective; groups composed of solely political actors are somewhat effective; while groups composed solely of ordinary citizens are the least effective. We apply this framework to explain key features of the Glorious Revolution in England in 1688. We also discuss two other examples: the People Power Revolution in the Philippines, and the Arab Spring.

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