Although the idea of civil society has been around for a long time and used in diverse contexts it has, by no means, one meaning or one reason for its deployment. The concept has been applied in various forms. The idea of civil society has been used to explain both the active role of people in changing the regimes in Eastern Europe at the end of 1980’s and, in a more recent use of the term, the attempt to bring people into the development process in Africa, Asia and elsewhere. In the former case it is usually used to explain the active part people played in the creation of social change in a society whereby it denotes a space as well as an action taking place in that space. In other words, it maps an experience observed for our understanding. In the latter it denotes an aspirational formation to enable people to act for themselves by attempting to build civil society or strengthen it. This maps an intentional situation, based an experience elsewhere, onto a target context. Beyond its common aspirational positive connotation in terms of people, civil society, is arguably used to describe an existing situation as well as a desired policy outcome.