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In addition to the separation of powers and the liberal constitutional state, active citizens who help fashion the community are central pillars of our democracy. In this respect, citizens are not only the addressees of the state’s rules and norms, but also co-creators of precisely those norms. And, the community in a liberal state is more than government order; it is the interaction between people and their relationships to each other – in families and friendships, at work, and in organisations.

Active participation in the personal and public environment enriches many different facets of human life and, in doing so, makes our society more diverse and colourful. There can be no question that humans are political and social beings, and that their individuality can only fully develop within a community.

We find many different answers to how we want to organise our community, and our society, in democracies of the Western kind. Broadly speaking, the following differentiations can be made: Politics that are typically located on the left define themselves principally by way of the paternalistic state that monitors all spheres of life, and plans and regulates the way lives are led down to the smallest detail. In our eyes, although conservative politics relies on the state to set general parameters, it places individual freedom and responsibility at the core. It trusts the intrinsic drive in each and every citizen to want to make a contribution to a functioning community according to their abilities. This is the fundamental idea of the political concept of a “civil society” as a community of free and responsible people.

The Political Academy of the People’s Party and the Wilfried Martens Centre for European Studies have extensively discussed and studied just how varied and heterogeneous the concepts of the civil society are in theory and practice in its current focus of research.

The essential basis for this can be found in the image of man rooted in the Judeo-Christian-Greco-Roman tradition concept of humankind with the dignity of the individual person as its foundation. However, this also includes the obligation of actively making use of one’s abilities to benefit society, as expressed in the parable of the talents in the Bible. Or, to use Immanuel Kant’s words: “Man has an individual imperfect obligation – namely, that of developing one’s own talents – for oneself, as well as for others.”

In this publication, we requested that highly-respected scientists, publicists, and practicians give their fundamental thoughts on the potential and possibilities of the civil society in the 21^st century.

Theoretical, historical, and philosophical contributions can be found here, as well as various case studies from practice. The diversity and pluralism of ideas of the contributions make it clear that the permanent voice and participation of an active public can enrich the political discourse and policy formulation of our country.

Wolfgang Mazal Bettina Rausch