Reading the 'Uncivil' in Civil Society Resistance to Transitional Justice in Cote d'Ivoire

As with many other contexts civil society in Côte d’Ivoire is not a space or set of actors and practices neatly distinct from the state. Political parties, politicians and party political agendas infuse civil society activism and ensure that being a civil society actor is a contested identity which can be leveraged for diverse and competing political projects. This paper is based on qualitative fieldwork with civil society actors who position themselves as ‘resisting’ the state-sanctioned transitional justice process following the 2010–2011 election violence and armed ousting of former President Laurent Gbagbo. Claiming and mobilizing their civil society identity such actors seek to create distance from what they claim is an illegitimate state and to lend credence to their project of resistance, read by some Ivoirian and non-Ivoirian commentators as mere political machinations by those who refuse to give up power and behave democratically. However, reading this ‘uncivil’ behavior is a complicated empirical and analytical task. In this article we explore the potential of analyzing such ‘disorder’ from the perspective of an expansion of the public in Côte d’Ivoire and how such a study of an actually existing civil society can challenge any notion of an easy instrumentalisation of civil society to serve the ends of transitional justice.