Search Results

Conclusion: Civil Society as a Project

Jeffrey C. Alexander

in The Civil Sphere

This chapter summarizes the preceding discussions and presents some concluding thoughts. This book presented a new theory of society by defining a new sphere, its cultural structures, its ... More

This chapter summarizes the preceding discussions and presents some concluding thoughts. This book presented a new theory of society by defining a new sphere, its cultural structures, its institutions, and its boundary relations with discourses and institutions outside it. It suggests that in a world of increasingly dangerous weapons and political tactics, a globalized civil sphere may be the only way to proceed. Without a global range, the promises even of civil society in its national form may die. Only the civil sphere can regulate force and eliminate arbitrary violence. It does so through persuasion and civil power and, if necessary, by dispensing force to defend democratic solidarity and to keep the aspirations of civil society alive. As violence becomes global, so must the civil sphere.Less

Race and Civil Repair (1): Duality and the Creation of a Black Civil Society

Jeffrey C. Alexander

in The Civil Sphere

Since their first institutionalization in the seventeenth century, the promises made by the civil spheres of democratic nation-states have been mocked by gross exclusions and inequalities. These ... More

Since their first institutionalization in the seventeenth century, the promises made by the civil spheres of democratic nation-states have been mocked by gross exclusions and inequalities. These destructive intrusions have entered into the very construction of civil spheres, distorting their discourse, institutions, and interaction. Yet insofar as the civil sphere has retained any autonomy at all, and it often has, it has held out the continual possibility for civic repair. Those whom civil society has repressed in the name of a restricted and particularistic conception of civil competence, it also can save. More precisely, it can offer resources so that they can save themselves. This chapter discusses racial domination and duality in the construction of American civil society; duality and counterpublics; duality and the construction of black civil society; and duality toward the civil rights movement.Less

Race and Civil Repair (3): Civil Trauma and the Tightening Spiral of Communication and Regulation

Jeffrey C. Alexander

in The Civil Sphere

This chapter explores more deeply the symbolic extension of interracial solidarity at the heart of the Civil Rights movement, investigating how its tensely wrought dramas triggered a sense of moral ... More

This chapter explores more deeply the symbolic extension of interracial solidarity at the heart of the Civil Rights movement, investigating how its tensely wrought dramas triggered a sense of moral violation among members of the surrounding civil sphere that led them to initiate forceful symbolic action for civic repair. It shows how this compensatory symbolic action triggered unprecedented changes in the civil sphere's regulatory institutions, creating overlapping waves of institutional and symbolic activity. However, even as we emphasize the neglected role of symbolic action and communicative institutions, placing them at the center of efforts to change the structure of civil society, we cannot forget the structures of a more coercive kind. To assert the significance of civil power is not to deny political and social forces; it is rather to place them into perspective. When social systems contain civil spheres, the sources and effects of power must be conceived in new ways. Power must be redefined.Less

Race and Civil Repair (2): The Civil Rights Movement and Communicative Solidarity

Jeffrey C. Alexander

in The Civil Sphere

This chapter focuses on the white journalists who worked for progressive newspapers and magazines. From the beginning, there was a symbiotic interaction between the social dramas staged by civil ... More

This chapter focuses on the white journalists who worked for progressive newspapers and magazines. From the beginning, there was a symbiotic interaction between the social dramas staged by civil rights leaders and the “point men” of the communicative institutions who defined their jobs as interpreting such dramas to the civil sphere. That neither could exist without the other was a recognition, at once simple and profound, a recognition that became increasingly conscious and consequential as the black movement grew in influence and civil force.Less

Walking the Boundaries

JEFFREY C. AlEXANDER

in The Performance of Politics: Obama's Victory and the Democratic Struggle for Power

This chapter explores a strategy that seemed to offer Republicans an alternative pathway to victory. Rather than working the binaries, John McCain could walk the boundaries. If he had difficulty ... More

This chapter explores a strategy that seemed to offer Republicans an alternative pathway to victory. Rather than working the binaries, John McCain could walk the boundaries. If he had difficulty navigating ideals inside the civil sphere, perhaps he could focus on themes outside it, evoking noncivil ideals to make a difference, to sacralize himself, and to label Barack Obama in a negative way. The Republican candidate has long focused on the foreign policy environment of civil society, suggesting that Obama should not be elected because he cannot lead the state's military struggle against dangerous anti-American forces outside. The civil sphere is bounded not only by the state, however. It is also surrounded by spheres that focus on religion, family, ethnicity, race, economics, and gender. Walking these boundaries is a delicate task, but it must and will be tried.Less

Real Civil Societies: Dilemmas of Institutionalization

Jeffrey C. Alexander

in The Civil Sphere

Civil society has been conceived in three ideal-typical ways. These have succeeded one another in historical time, though each remains a significant intellectual and social force today. This chapter ... More

Civil society has been conceived in three ideal-typical ways. These have succeeded one another in historical time, though each remains a significant intellectual and social force today. This chapter situates these ideal-types temporally and evaluates them theoretically. It then introduces the analytical model at the core of this book, a model which aims to define the relationship between civil society and other kinds of institutional spheres. Only by understanding the boundary relations between civil and uncivil spheres can we push the discussion of civil society from the normative into the empirical realm. And only by understanding civil society in a more “realist” manner can we lay the basis for a critical normative theory about the incompleteness of civil society in turn.Less

Gender and Civil Repair: The Long and Winding Road through Motherhood

Jeffrey C. Alexander

in The Civil Sphere

This chapter focuses on boundary relations between family and the civil sphere, and the movements it has generated for social change. It aims to establish a prima facie case for viewing the women's ... More

This chapter focuses on boundary relations between family and the civil sphere, and the movements it has generated for social change. It aims to establish a prima facie case for viewing the women's movement in terms of civil society. The discussion covers the relations between the intimate and civil spheres; the difference of women as facilitating input; the difference of women as destructive intrusion; gender universalism and civil repair; the compromise formation of public motherhood; public stage and civil sphere; feminist fortunes in the twentieth century; and the ethical limits of care.Less

Race and Civil Repair (4): Regulatory Reform and Ritualization

Jeffrey C. Alexander

in The Civil Sphere

The dramatic deepening of the identification of northern whites with protesting southern blacks, and the profound arousal of civil consciousness that both triggered and reflected it pushed the ... More

The dramatic deepening of the identification of northern whites with protesting southern blacks, and the profound arousal of civil consciousness that both triggered and reflected it pushed the elected representatives of the civil sphere decisively in the direction of regulatory reform. When there is an independent civil sphere, powerful state officials face two masters. Authorities in the structure of state power, they are, at the same time, officials of the civil sphere. On the one side, they face power-political considerations generated by the need to maintain governmentality, state power, and party position; on the other side, they face demands for moral solidarity and symbolic responsiveness from the civil community. Until Birmingham, the reformist thrust of the Kennedy administration had been paralyzed by the countervailing pressure to maintain the allegiance of the Democratic Party in the South. After Birmingham, they were much less willing to accept these power-political “necessities,” and they became more responsive to riveting moral demands from the civil sphere.Less

Answering the Jewish Question in America: Before and After the Holocaust

Jeffrey C. Alexander

in The Civil Sphere

The collapse of the civil sphere in Germany, not German anti-Semitism, is what allowed the Holocaust to proceed, this chapter states. That it was problems in the civil sphere that caused the ... More

The collapse of the civil sphere in Germany, not German anti-Semitism, is what allowed the Holocaust to proceed, this chapter states. That it was problems in the civil sphere that caused the Holocaust is demonstrated by the uneven but increasingly substantial Jewish incorporation into the modern, capitalist, and often deeply anti-Semitic United States in the latter half of the twentieth century. This chapter completes the discussion of civil society and the Jewish question by considering this critical case. It provides one final demonstration of how contingent is the institutionalization of the promises of civil society. Whether these promissory notes are paid does not depend on the presence or absence of Enlightenment ideals. What is decisive is their implementation in a fragmented civil sphere.Less

Encounters with the Other

Jeffrey C. Alexander

in The Civil Sphere

During the three hundred years since the first democratic institutionalizations of civil society emerged the crippling of its utopian promises generated continuous struggle. These have not only been ... More

During the three hundred years since the first democratic institutionalizations of civil society emerged the crippling of its utopian promises generated continuous struggle. These have not only been political struggles for power, but legal, cultural, and emotional arguments about definitions of competence and identity, about symbolic representations of the primordial qualities of dominant and excluded groups. The public has never been a dry and arid place composed of abstract arguments about reason. It has always been filled up by expressive images, by narratives, traditions, and symbolic codes. Organizations and social movements have sustained and resisted these cultural structures, engaging in discursive struggles over the legitimating resources they need to expand or restrict civil life. This chapter discusses the plasticity of common identity; exclusionary solidarity; forms of out-group contact; nondemocratic incorporation; internal colonialism and the civil sphere; varieties of incorporation and resistance in civil societies; closing down the civil sphere; opening up the civil sphere; and stigmatized persons and their qualities.Less

Bringing Democracy Back In: Realism, Morality, Solidarity

Jeffrey C. Alexander

in The Civil Sphere

Any discussion of the civil sphere is inextricably intertwined with an analysis of democracy as a political form. This chapter begins by reviewing the two broad approaches that marked the social ... More

Any discussion of the civil sphere is inextricably intertwined with an analysis of democracy as a political form. This chapter begins by reviewing the two broad approaches that marked the social scientific treatment of democracy in the last half of the twentieth century. After suggesting the limitations of each, it argues that democracy depends on the existence of solidary bonds that extend beyond political arrangements. Solidarity is civil only if it combines collective with individual obligations. Civil solidarity can be sustained only by a democratic language, a discourse that allows the abstract and universal commitments of the civil sphere to take concrete and imagistic forms. Justice is possible if there is civil solidarity, which itself depends on the vitality of a fluent and provocative moral discourse.Less

Integration between Difference and Solidarity

Jeffrey C. Alexander

in The Civil Sphere

The claim that multiculturalism undermines the cohesiveness of American society, indeed, the very existence of an American “society” as such, is potentially an extremely damaging ideological charge; ... More

The claim that multiculturalism undermines the cohesiveness of American society, indeed, the very existence of an American “society” as such, is potentially an extremely damaging ideological charge; after all, the construction of a fuller, more inclusive society is precisely what most of the emancipator social movements of the last century have been about. What makes this claim so perplexing is that some of the most important intellectual advocates of multiculturalism seem to agree with these conservative critics. They allow that the movements they defend are indeed at odds with the concept of an American community. This chapter examines this claim on empirical, theoretical, and normative grounds. It criticizes it for ignoring not only the theoretical possibility of a civil sphere, but its real, if fragmented, existence in contemporary American life. It shows that the civil society theory being developed in this book allows us to cast the debate between radical multiculturalists and fearful conservatives in a very different light.Less

Introduction

Jeffrey C. Alexander

in The Civil Sphere

This introductory chapter sets out the purpose of the book, which is to bring together the normative and empirical sciences on the terrain of civil society. The premise is that societies are not ... More

This introductory chapter sets out the purpose of the book, which is to bring together the normative and empirical sciences on the terrain of civil society. The premise is that societies are not governed by power alone and are not fueled only by the pursuit of self-interest. Feelings for others matter, and they are structured by the boundaries of solidarity. The discussion then turns to the concept of civil society as a civil sphere, a world of values and institutions that generates the capacity for social criticism and democratic integration at the same time.Less

Civil Sphere and Public Drama

JEFFREY C. ALEXANDER

in The Performance of Politics: Obama's Victory and the Democratic Struggle for Power

Political campaigns are centralized battles run by generals, organized by captains, energized by foot soldiers, and disciplined, if possible, in the extreme. In order to gain power in democracy and ... More

Political campaigns are centralized battles run by generals, organized by captains, energized by foot soldiers, and disciplined, if possible, in the extreme. In order to gain power in democracy and society, one must win the formal consent of one's fellow citizens. It is these members of the democratic public—the “civil sphere”—who call the shots. As societies became larger, more complex, and more inclusive, this asking gradually took the form of an extended campaign. The struggle for power is democratic insofar as power becomes a privilege that must be campaigned for. One asks the members of the civil sphere to become their representative. In the course of political campaigns, those struggling for power are subject to a terrible scrutiny. This is critical because, once power is achieved, it gains significant independence from civil society.Less

Becoming a Collective Representation

JEFFREY C. ALEXANDER

in The Performance of Politics: Obama's Victory and the Democratic Struggle for Power

Those who struggle for power in democracy frequently do establish powerful connections with citizen audiences, despite the enormous increase in mass mediation and the uncertainty it exacerbates. To ... More

Those who struggle for power in democracy frequently do establish powerful connections with citizen audiences, despite the enormous increase in mass mediation and the uncertainty it exacerbates. To struggle for power in a democratic society one must become a collective representation—a symbolic vessel filled with what citizens hold most dear. Candidates experience and channel the energy of human contact. These intense, face-to-face encounters look a lot like old-fashioned rituals. The emotions they generate are connected to civil discourse, and culture and emotion are digitized and circulated. The sounds and images of audiences whistling and applauding and of beaming, back-slapping, and fist-pumping candidates reflect a collective psychic energy to the candidate and these channel upward, via communicative institutions, into the broader civil sphere. While virtual, digitally created political performances are technically feasible, it would be considered immoral to employ them. They would not trigger the recursive processes of ritual and symbolic representation so critical to performative success.Less

Nine Theses on The Civil Sphere

Jeffrey C. Alexander

in Solidarity, Justice, and Incorporation: Thinking through The Civil Sphere

This chapter contends at the very beginning of his chapter that The Civil Sphere is intended to articulate a new object of inquiry to be understood with new conceptual tools. Its goal is to promote a ... More

This chapter contends at the very beginning of his chapter that The Civil Sphere is intended to articulate a new object of inquiry to be understood with new conceptual tools. Its goal is to promote a novel form of critical social theory. The nine theses advanced in its response to the commentaries contained in this collection are intended to more broadly clarify its views and point the way forward in further refining the idea of the civil sphere. It contends that the civil sphere is not exclusively modern, can be partial, and needs the noncivil spheres to succeed. It can operate at the national level or at that of global society. It opens up the possibility of multiculturalism as a new mode of incorporation. The chapter's theory is meant to be sociological, focusing on institutions and social movements, while also opening up the possibility of hope.Less

Civil Sphere and Political Performance: Critical Reflections on Alexander’s Cultural Sociology

Bryan S. Turner

in Solidarity, Justice, and Incorporation: Thinking through The Civil Sphere

The chapter’s analysis begins with its contention that one cannot understand the civil sphere without first understanding Alexander’s version of cultural sociology and of the significance he attaches ... More

The chapter’s analysis begins with its contention that one cannot understand the civil sphere without first understanding Alexander’s version of cultural sociology and of the significance he attaches to performance and political rituals. The chapter considers the two to be inextricably linked. In its analysis, the chapter stresses the centrality of performativity. This leads to identifying what it views as the three central shortcomings of the civil sphere project. First, it states Alexander exhibits a distinctly American optimism that does not resonate with the situation in Europe. Second, by focusing on dramatic political rituals, Alexander gives insufficient attention to public reasoning. Finally, he does not think the civil sphere is adequately defined.Less

Forging the Creed

in American Creed: Philanthropy and the Rise of Civil Society, 1700–1865

Franklin's career heralded a new chapter in a transatlantic philanthropic revolution that began with the Reformation. Public service was both an avocation and a necessity. The commonwealth ideal, the ... More

Franklin's career heralded a new chapter in a transatlantic philanthropic revolution that began with the Reformation. Public service was both an avocation and a necessity. The commonwealth ideal, the notion that public and private interests were blended under the sanction of a charter, infused Franklin's associational work, providing legal authority and support for a variety of privately initiated civic improvement schemes. It also undergirded the long-standing colonial practice of earmarking public funds for ostensibly private charitable and educational ventures, coupling public and private resources, donations, tax monies, earned income, and voluntarism in order to maintain public services in an era of limited taxes, limited government, and limited surplus cash. Charitable and educational ventures such as Franklin's aroused little controversy; rather than seeking fundamental social or political change, they enhanced the status quo. Through its actions and its ideas, Franklin's generation sparked a revolution within the revolution, creating a civil sphere in which the meaning and practice of citizenship and democracy would continually be tested, contested, and refined. Forged in the idiom of republican manhood, it was about to receive a decidedly feminine reiteration.Less