Title: The civil sphere /
Authors: Alexander, Jeffrey C.
Publisher: Oxford University Press,
Year: 2006
Subjects: Civil society.; Cultural pluralism.; Social interaction.
Abstract: How do real individuals live together in real societies in the real world? Jeffrey Alexander's masterful work, The Civil Sphere, addresses this central paradox of modern life. Feelings for others--the solidarity that is ignored or underplayed by theories of power or self-interest--are at the heart of this novel inquiry into the meeting place between normative theories of what we think we should do and empirical studies of who we actually are. A grand and sweeping statement, The Civil Sphere is a major contribution to our thinking about the real but ideal world in which we all reside.
Contents: Possibilities of justice -- Real civil societies : dilemmas of institutionalization -- Bringing democracy back in : realism, morality, solidarity -- Discourses : liberty and repression -- Communicative institutions : public opinion, mass media, polls, associations -- Regulative institutions (1) : voting, parties, office -- Regulative institutions (2) : the civil force of law -- Contradictions : uncivilizing pressures and civil repair -- Social movements as civil translations -- Gender and civil repair : the long and winding road through m/otherhood -- Race and civil repair (1) : duality and the creation of a black civil society -- Race and civil repair (2) : the civil rights movement and communicative solidarity -- Race and civil repair (3) : civil trauma and the tightening spiral of communication and regulation -- Race and civil repair (4) : regulatory reform and ritualization -- Integration between difference and solidarity -- Encounters with the other -- The three pathways to incorporation -- The Jewish question : anti-semitism and the failure of assimilation -- Answering the Jewish question in America : before and after the Holocaust -- Conclusion : civil society as a project.