Law

=== Civil society ===
{{main|Civil society}}
[[File:1963 march on washington.jpg|thumb|A march in [[Washington, D.C.]] during the American [[civil rights movement]] in 1963]]

The [[classical republicanism|Classical republican]] concept of "civil society" dates back to Hobbes and Locke.<ref>Warren, ''Civil Society'', 3–4</ref> Locke saw civil society as people who have "a common established law and judicature to appeal to, with authority to decide controversies between them."<ref>Locke, ''[[s:Two Treatises of Government/The Second Treatise of Government: An Essay Concerning the True Origin, Extent, and End of Civil Government|Second Treatise]]'', Chap. VII, Of Political or Civil_Society. Chapter 7, section 87</ref> German philosopher [[Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel]] distinguished the "state" from "civil society" ({{Lang-de|bürgerliche Gesellschaft}}) in ''[[Elements of the Philosophy of Right]]''.<ref>Hegel, ''Elements of the Philosophy of Right'', 3, II, [http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/hegel/works/pr/prcivils.htm 182] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070401193900/http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/hegel/works/pr/prcivils.htm |date=1 April 2007 }}</ref>{{sfn|Karkatsoulis|2004|pp=277–278}}

Hegel believed that [[civil society]] and the [[State (polity)|state]] were polar opposites, within the scheme of his dialectic theory of history. The modern dipole state–civil society was reproduced in the theories of [[Alexis de Tocqueville]] and [[Karl Marx]].<ref>(Pelczynski, ''The State and Civil Society'', 1–13; Warren, ''Civil Society'', 5–9)</ref><ref>{{cite journal|last=Zaleski|first=Pawel|title=Tocqueville on Civilian Society. A Romantic Vision of the Dichotomic Structure of Social Reality|journal=Archiv für Begriffsgeschichte|volume=50|year=2008}}</ref> In post-modern theory, civil society is necessarily a source of law, by being the basis from which people form opinions and lobby for what they believe law should be. As Australian barrister and author [[Geoffrey Robertson QC]] wrote of international law, "one of its primary modern sources is found in the responses of ordinary men and women, and of the non-governmental organizations which many of them support, to the human rights abuses they see on the television screen in their living rooms."<ref>Robertson, ''Crimes Against Humanity'', 98–99</ref>

[[Freedom of speech]], [[freedom of association]] and many other [[individual rights]] allow people to gather, discuss, criticise and hold to account their governments, from which the basis of a [[deliberative democracy]] is formed. The more people are involved with, concerned by and capable of changing how political power is exercised over their lives, the more acceptable and [[Legitimacy (political)|legitimate]] the law becomes to the people. The most familiar institutions of civil society include economic markets, profit-oriented firms, families, trade unions, hospitals, universities, schools, charities, [[cogers|debating clubs]], non-governmental organisations, neighbourhoods, churches, and religious associations. There is no clear legal definition of the civil society, and of the institutions it includes. Most of the institutions and bodies who try to give a list of institutions (such as the [[European Economic and Social Committee]]) exclude the political parties.{{sfn|Jakobs|2004|pp=5–6}}<ref>Kaldor–Anheier–Glasius, ''Global Civil Society'', ''[http://www.lse.ac.uk/Depts/global/Publications/Yearbooks/2003/2003Chapter1a.pdf passim] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070817130457/http://www.lse.ac.uk/Depts/global/Publications/Yearbooks/2003/2003Chapter1a.pdf |date=17 August 2007 }}''</ref>{{sfn|Karkatsoulis|2004|pp=282–283}}