Rethinking Democratization in the Philippines 191 negotiated political solutions to the armed conflict, ending the culture of impunity on corruption and human rights violations, completing the agrarian reform process, ensuring credible and fair elections, and substantially reducing poverty and income inequality, to name a few of such actions that will no doubt advance the democratization process. The final chapter by Holmes examines whether two generally acknowledged “democratizers” --- civil society and decentralization--- have indeed facilitated the democratization process in the country. Starting with a cautionary note, he argues that “both arenas have suffered innate systemic limits and therefore have not really propelled the democratization process in the country”. Defining the concept of civil society is a highly contested exercise and in this study, Holmes adopts a framework drawn from Alagappa (2004) and Anheir and Topler (2010) that privileges groups somehow oriented toward a set of “public goods” that include: “accountability of public officials, more inclusive representation, equitable development and an intrinsic goal, autonomy,” particularly from government. These set of orienting goals are generally consistent with the prescriptions of many political theorists on the functions that independent groups and associations of civil society perform for democracies such as: “ 1) a center of collective political resistance against capricious and oppressive government; 2) to organize people for democratic participation; and 3) socialization into the political values necessary for selfgovernment” (Rosenblum and Post 2002: 17-18). Such a definition of civil society groups and their functions is consistent with this book's expanded understanding of the public accountability mechanism through which citizens make their public officials accountable both through the electoral process and the impact of “politically active civil society groups”. However, we also need to address the collective impact of many nonpolitically active civil society groups whose political apathy by itself also necessarily affects the dynamics of public accountability. Holmes recognizes this concern as he discusses the problems faced by civil society groups in trying to expand their mass base of support. Thus, a conception of civil society that situates it mainly as a “seedbed of virtue” risks glossing over the reality that there are voluntary organizations in the wider civil society that may in fact “strengthen existing cleavages and exclusion patterns” (Hooghe and Stolle 2003: 235-36). In assessing the overall impact of civil society initiatives to advance the democratization process, Holmes identifies the key limitations and dilemmas faced by this sector. These include the “project-oriented” and single-issue