A Typology of Civil Society: Type of discourse and Practice of public interest action

This study construct a typological framework from the viewpoint of public interest actions as a cognitive tool to comprehensively and systematically figure out the flow and current situation of Korean civil society. Through the review of theoretical resources, it was discerned two key issues that are important to the typology of civil society from the perspective of public interest actions; ‘relationships’ between civil society and other realms, and ‘roles’ performed by civil society. While considering the main factors affecting the discourse and practice of public interest actions in civil society, a typological framework was constructed using two dimensions, the relationship and role of civil society, which contain different perspectives. Regarding relationships, the view that civil society should actively ‘involved’ in other areas such as government and market, versus the view that it should establish an ‘independent’ area from other areas; Regarding roles, the view of ‘conflictive’ that raise issues and pursue social changes, versus the view of ‘functional’ that complements roles are distinguished from roles of government and market. Then, by crossing two dimensions, set four type sub-sector of civil society: ‘opposition’ (involvement-conflict), ‘autonomy’ (independence-conflict), ‘charity’ (independence-function), and ‘resolution’ (involvement-function), and looked at researches and discourses on each sub-sectors. Finally, In order to verify whether the typological framework can adequately explain related phenomena, I applied this framework to the historical practice of civil society and public interest actions in Korea. As a result of the discussion, this typological framework is verified to have an explanatory power about the discourse and situation of civil society and public interest actions in Korea.