When a Google search for “civil society promotion” turns up 847,000 potentially relevant links, it is time for a provocative book like this one. Omar Encarnación takes on the prevailing wisdom that “a strong civil society lies behind successful democracies while a weak civil society is the root of failed or flawed democracies” (p. 3), arguing not only that strong civil societies fail to ensure democratic consolidation but also that democracies can be successfully consolidated without any civil society to speak of. Indeed, “a flourishing civil society can actually be a hindrance to democratization” (p. 5). Encarnación is not the only scholar to raise doubts about the efficacy of civil society to promote a host of social benefits, but he is one of the few to do so in the context of the newly democratizing nations, where civil society promotion has perhaps the most currency today.

At the core of his study is a comparison between Spain and Brazil, the first a successfully consolidated democracy despite marked civil society weakness, and the second a partially consolidated democracy despite being one of the strongest civil societies in Latin America. Encarnación argues that the secret to Spain's success—and Brazil's failure—lies in the differential capability of political institutions and elites to generate trust and legitimacy. In place of the usual causal linkage from civil society to social capital to democratic consolidation, he proposes that political institutions play the crucial role in generating social capital, understood as “a culture of trust, tolerance and reciprocity” (p. 4). Thus, “while civil society theorists have correctly identified social capital as a key ingredient in the consolidation of democracy they have erred in locating the main source of its production.” He contends that “social capital is more likely to emerge as a result of the constitution and performance of political institutions … than from participation of the citizenry in the endeavors of civil society organizations” (p. 8).

Despite the appealing parallelism of the comparison, Spain and Brazil actually underpin quite different claims, one much more effectively sustained than the other. In the case of Spain, Encarnación makes a compelling argument that a dense civil society is not necessary for democratic consolidation, and that the performance of political institutions (particularly elites) can fill in for the expected role of civil society in generating social trust. I think he underestimates the critical role of unions, but he is surely right to stress that union leaders played a bigger part than participating members.

In the case of Brazil, in contrast, Encarnación argues that a strong civil society is not sufficient to generate social trust or ensure democratic consolidation. Even if true, this claim is likely to create far less controversy among civil society enthusiasts, who make their claims in terms of improvements in social capital rather than ability to compensate for all other obstacles. Furthermore, in focusing his attention on the outcome, he underplays the deep dissimilarities between the two nations, any one of which might explain Brazil's poorer performance on both trust and consolidation measures. Spain is richer, less unequal, involved in the democratic European Community—the list goes well beyond the performance of political institutions versus civil society in generating trust. In essence, we have two dissimilar cases with dissimilar outcomes.

That Brazil fails to overcome these obstacles is therefore less surprising than the author implies. Indeed, the failures of Brazil's formal institutions may help explain why its vibrant civil society developed, in reaction and protest. One could also argue that the strength of Brazilian civil society made outcomes much less dismal than they otherwise would have been, as Encarnación, in part, concedes. Civil society advocates won numerous concessions in the 1988 Constitution despite important defeats. Moreover, it is not irrelevant that local governments, primarily of the PT (Workers' Party), have been among the continent's innovators in participatory democratic government. Without a strong, independent civil society, the PT would never have existed. Instead, the PT experience has positively impacted democratic development in Brazil.

Another issue is the nature of the evidence. Encarnación's measure of both civil society density and social capital/trust comes from the 1997 World Values Survey. This survey reports the cumulative percentage of the population that belongs to organizations, as well as support for democracy and interpersonal trust. The first measure has come under attack for a “Western-European” orientation, in that some of the categories used have little application in the developing world. Moreover, some World Values results seem a little odd. Argentina, for example, has a cumulative civil society density of 3%, although 30% of the population belongs to a union (pp. 178, 111). It might have proved worthwhile for Encarnación to have developed alternative measures of these key variables.

In addition, the author does not directly address the question of whether social capital varies according to participation in civil society—one of the key claims of the civil society argument. No statistical testing examines this link, even for the World Values database. And while he notes the uneven distribution of civil society in Brazil, he does not further discuss its impact on the distribution of social trust, or the relative level of social trust within socioeconomic groups depending on whether they do, or do not, participate in organizations.

These problems notwithstanding, The Myth of Civil Society should be required reading for scholars of democratization, and a useful reminder to international donors to curb their enthusiasm about the prospects for civil society aid to bring about democratic change. In fact, as Encarnación warns, funding civil society might only strengthen organizations with nondemocratic goals. Moreover, if political institutions can substitute for civil society, funding for institutional development may be more effective. The only question is whether Spain's other advantages (wealth, capable leaders, and location) were also necessary conditions for successful institutional reform. If so, then funding some alternative organizations may not be as much of a waste of time and money as he implies.