What does (should) "civil society" do?

This is a theme I would like to come back to often and have others take up.  I am not entirely sure we have a good grasp on it, either as academics or as regular laypeople.  

Can I start with this as universally agreeable outcomes (or, in social science speak, dependent variables)?  We want social order (e.g. coordination and cooperation; safety and security) that offers real opportunities for high standards of living (e.g. health, happiness).  

How do we get there?
On one hand, we have the market.  The idea is, through exchange with one another these things are spontaneously produced in a Smith/Rand utopia.  On the other hand, we have government.  The idea here is, when the market does not provide one of those outcomes (because of deceptions or contradictions or negative externalities- choose your favorite reason) we have centralized authorities to facilitate/produce them.

Now, since we know these outcomes do happen and not just spontaneously and organically, we have to explain why they do or might happen.  Enter civil society.  The idea is, people acknowledge that the market and government don't just work for the universally agreeable outcomes, and then they work together to make it happen. So my questions are then twofold:  How do they do it?  When don't they do what they should do?

Of course, the second question is much, much harder to answer.  For example, in the news this last week there were some very controversial things coming from some politicians about rape and abortion.  Basically they say the women really wanted the pregnancy from the rape and in no way should be allowed to abort a pregnancy.  The reason this kind of discussion is allowable is actually because of civil society (and not because there is real science behind claims that women who are raped really wanted it).  Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) are often pointed to as the institutional embodiment of civil society, and organizations like the American Family Association and the Family Research Council are creating space through "civil" society whereby politicians can say such obscene things that in no way open up discussions of improving social order or opportunities for high standards of living (at least it seems to me).  So (beyond the few irrational and illogical people who actually support the two above organizations' position on rape) can we really say these organizations are doing what they should do?  

 

Another problematic example?  The media is a commonly used basis for people to identify when and how the market or government don't provide the above outcomes.  Thus it can be seen as part of civil society, at least to some extent.  However, in Newsweek this past week Niall Ferguson completely misrepresented findings from the Congressional Budget Office about the effect of the Affordable Care Act on the federal deficit.  As it turns out, Newsweek does not have a fact-checking department.  At all.  They produced a cover story that essentially said "Let's get rid of the President because Ferguson's facts are infallible" without ever checking the key "facts" driving his argumentative essay.  I would expect this from freshmen sociology students (and see it as a teachable moment).  I am aghast at this coming from both a Harvard history professor and a respectable(?) media outlet.  Not providing a basic starting point of reasonable facts blocks civil society from actually directing the market and government toward the holes in one another's efforts at providing the aforementioned outcomes. 

 

What's going on here?  Conversely, do we have any examples where we can legitimately say civil society is "working" that we can compare and contrast to these above examples?

I am open to comments...and/or further posts from others.  This is really the most important intellectual question personally for me, so I want to explore it.