Civil society is not an invention of the left. In the past decade alone, the American right-wing think tank, the Cato Institute, has been inspired by de Tocqueville's thoughts on civil society's role in beating back intrusive governments. Civil society does not imply big government. Prof. Watson goes further to say that celebrating civil society should not entail government subsidies to civil society groups. If anything, new research shows that civil organizations are subsidizing governments, not the reverse.
Civil society refers to a real society.
The CDR shows that more than 12 million Canadians belong to one voluntary organization or another, and that they spend 1.1 billions hours a year working in these groups. Civil society does not mean a polite society. Far from being an ideologically consistent collective of leftist organizations, civil society in Canada and throughout the world contains misogenists, human rights advocates, free market proponents, gun collectors, dollhouse builders, girl guides, nazi leagues, labour unions, environmentalists, and chambers of commerce. We dare anyone to find some kind of common ideological stamp in that list. What is important about the civil society debate, in our view, is that it throws up these questions of values and priorities in the first place.