Download or read book The Myth of Civil Society written by O. Encarnación and published by Springer. This book was released on 2015-12-25 with total page 244 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Almost irrespective of the geographic setting, the debate about the future of democracy in post-authoritarian societies is increasingly tied to the strength of civil society. A strong civil society is thought to be crucial to the emergence of successful democracies while a weak civil society is deemed the cause of flawed or frozen democracies. Using contrasting evidence from Spain and Brazil, this study challenges these widespread assumptions about contemporary democratization. It argues that it is the performance of political institutions rather than the configuration of civil society that determines the consolidation of democratic regimes.