公民社會是近幾年來被廣泛應用的概念,而公民社會在台灣的發展亦早已是學術界熱衷討論的話題。其中,第三部門之內非營利組織的運作更被認為是實踐公民社會的最佳管道,第三部門的「社會力」則是公民社會能否制衡「政治力」和「經濟力」的關鍵所在。然而,近年來台灣的非營利組織往往向政府或企業靠攏,期望獲取資源以利本身發展;或者孤軍奮鬥,無法聯合其他非營利組織為公民事務發聲,限縮了台灣公民社會發展的空間。 因此,本文的宗旨主要是從非營利組織的角度思考公民社會在台灣的發展情形,以及藉由第三部門運作所成型的公民社會樣貌。本文以慈濟功德會為研究對象,透過相關文獻的探討,先檢閱公民社會和公共領域的相關理論、文獻,發展本研究之分析架構;再透過深度訪談法及參與觀察等方式,暸解慈濟在運作過程中所建構之公民社會的特色,並從公共領域角度探討慈濟及公民社會兩者間的關係。 本研究發現,慈濟透過日常生活的溝通和實踐,營造出具有動機公共性的社會想像,然而透過不同層次的分析,觀察到慈濟在某些層面上無法順利進入公共領域,亦可能間接受傳統道德觀和慈濟理念的限制,顯示西方的公共領域和公民社會與慈濟仍存在些許異同之處;透過慈濟社區志工對於生活世界的重建過程,並借助公共領域和公民社會的概念,讓我們能更清楚描繪出台灣社會的圖像。
The concept of civil society is widely used in recent years, and its development in Taiwan has long been keen to discussed in the academic community. Non-profit organizations (NPOs), which represents the operation of the third sector, is considered to be the best practice of civil society. Also, the "social force" of the third sector is the key point that civil society can balance "political force" and "economic force". But in recent years, Taiwan's NPOs are often closer to the government or enterprises, hoping to obtain resources to facilitate its own development, or making it’s own effort without cooperating with other NPOs for the civil affairs. It limited the development of Taiwan's civil society. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is mainly from the perspective of NPOs, to consider the development of civil society in Taiwan, and the appearance of civil society through the operation by the third sector. This research takes Tzu Chi Foundation as studying case, reviewing documents of former studies and theory about civil society and public sphere to construct the analytic framework. Besides, this paper adopts in-depth interview and participant observation methods to figure out the characteristics of civil society constructed by the operation of Tzu Chi, and discuss the relationship between Tzu Chi and civil society through the perspective of public sphere. The study found that Tzu Chi builds the social imagination of motive for public through daily life communication and practice. However, through analysis in different levels, we discovered that Tzu Chi could not completely enter public sphere. It maybe indirectly caused by restricts of traditional moral values and philosophies of Tzu Chi. It also reveals similarities and differences between western public sphere, civil society, and Tzu Chi. In observing the life-world reconstructed process made by Tzu Chi volunteers in communities, and concepts of public sphere and civil society, we could depict Taiwan society images more clearly.