The civil sphere
By: Jeffrey C. Alexander.
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Published: 2006
Place of publication: New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 793
ISBN-13: 9780195162509
Subjects: Civil society; Pluralism (Social sciences); Social interaction
Description: 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.
Table of contents: title: Possibilities of justice; title: Real civil societies : dilemmas of institutionalization; title: Bringing democracy back in : realism, morality, solidarity; title: Discourses : liberty and repression; title: Communicative institutions : public opinion, mass media, polls, associations; title: Regulative institutions (1) : voting, parties, office; title: Regulative institutions (2) : the civil force of law; title: Contradictions : uncivilizing pressures and civil repair; title: Translations : rethinking social movements; title: Gender and civil repair : the long and winding road through m/otherhood; title: Race and civil repair (1) : duality and the creation of a black civil society; title: Race and civil repair (2) : the civil rights movement and communicative solidarity; title: Race and civil repair (3) : civil trauma and the tightening spiral of communication and regulation; title: Race and civil repair (4) : regulatory reform and ritualization; title: Integration between difference and solidarity; title: Encounters with the other; title: Assimilation, hyphenation, and multiculturalism; title: The Jewish question and the failure of assimilation; title: Answering the Jewish question in America : before and after the Holocaust.