1.3.3. Civil Society, Planning, and Power Relations
In this section some works on civil society written by
scholars such as Friedman (1998),
Douglass (1998), and Marris (1998) are reviewed in order to
understand what `civil society' means and which type of organisation can
be considered as part of civil society; in other words, this section
tried to define `civil society' and list a number of organizations that may
be considered as members of civil society. It is important to
know that this study dealt with CSOs in a very broad sense including
non-governmental organisations (NGOs), church organisations, and
community-based organisations.
According to Marris (1998), civil society «represents a
way of thinking about power and the State» (Marris, 1998). To accomplish
this role, CSOs generally use skills that people associate with the
profession of planning. This led me to look at the relationships
existing between
urban planners and CSOs.
| 
