These efforts battle to redress fundamental impediments to democracy that emerge from Bosnia's history and current context. Institutions alone will not improve prospects for peace without fundamental changes leading to greater social participation in decision-making processes. International resources must be applied to the less quantifiable and measurable, but no less essential, aspect of democratization - the establishment of a strong and vibrant civil society. That does not mean reducing civil society to NGOs, but rather including all groups, formal or informal, cohesive or loosely organized, militant or moderate, local or national and trans-national, whose existence helps individuals protect themselves from state repression. Civil society is not only hard to define, it can be hard to see, especially in non-western societies.
Democracy is at the foundation of sustainable peace, and civil society is the basis of democracy.
The belief that civic development will help to avert war is based on the critical assumption that civil society inherently promotes tolerance, pluralism and multi-ethnicity, and that, in turn, such democratic principles promote the values, attitudes and habits necessary for peace and stability. Multiple voices emerge, social debate sets in, and conflict is diffused through the subsequent negotiation between interest groups and between them and the state. The debate may not necessarily reflect the contemporary Western political values. But a vibrant civil society will establish a counter-balance to the power of the ruling nationalist parties. The value of civil society development to the peace process is two-fold.