1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910792217503321

Autore

Alexander Jeffrey C. <1947->

Titolo

The civil sphere / / Jeffrey C. Alexander

Pubbl/distr/stampa

New York, : Oxford University Press, 2006

ISBN

9780198036814 (Electronic Book)

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (814 p.)

Disciplina

300

Soggetti

Civil society

Cultural pluralism

Social interaction

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Description based upon print version of record.

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Nota di contenuto

Contents; Introduction; PART I: CIVIL SOCIETY IN SOCIAL THEORY; 1 Possibilities of Justice; 2 Real Civil Societies: Dilemmas of Institutionalization; Civil Society I; Civil Society II; Return to Civil Society I?; Toward Civil Society III; 3 Bringing Democracy Back In: Realism, Morality, Solidarity; Utopianism: The Fallacies of Twentieth-Century Evolutionism; Realism: The Tradition of Thrasymachus; Morality and Solidarity; Complexity and Community; Cultural Codes and Democratic Communication; PART II: STRUCTURES AND DYNAMICS OF THE CIVIL SPHERE; 4 Discourses: Liberty and Repression

Pure and Impure in Civil DiscourseThe Binary Structures of Motives; The Binary Structures of Relationships; The Binary Structures of Institutions; Civil Narratives of Good and Evil; Everyday Essentialism; The Conflict over Representation; 5 Communicative Institutions: Public Opinion, Mass Media, Polls, Associations; The Public and Its Opinion; The Mass Media; Public Opinion Polls; Civil Associations; 6 Regulative Institutions (1): Voting, Parties, Office; Civil Power: A New Approach to Democratic Politics; Revisiting Thrasymachus: The Instrumental Science of Politics

Constructing and Destructing Civil Power (1): The Right to Vote and DisenfranchisementConstructing and Destructing Civil Power (2): Parties, Partisanship, and Election Campaigns; Civil Power in the State: Office as Regulating Institution; 7 Regulative Institutions (2): The Civil Force of Law; The Democratic Possibilities of Law; Bracketing and Rediscovering the Civil Sphere: The Warring Schools of Jurisprudence;



The Civil Morality of Law; Constitutions as Civil Regulation; The Civil Life of Ordinary Law; Legalizing Social Exclusion: The Antidemocratic Face of Law

8 Contradictions: Uncivilizing Pressures and Civil RepairSpace: The Geography of Civil Society; Time: Civil Society as Historical Sedimentation; Function: The Destruction of Boundary Relations and Their Repair; Forms of Boundary Relations: Input, Intrusion, and Civil Repair; PART III: SOCIAL MOVEMENTS IN THE CIVIL SPHERE; 9 Social Movements as Civil Translations; The Classical Model; The Social Science of Social Movements (1): Secularizing the Classical Model; The Social Science of Social Movements (2): Inverting the Classical Model

The Social Science of Social Movements (3): Updating the Classical ModelDisplacing the Classical Model: Rehistoricizing the Cultural and Institutional Context of Social Movements; Social Movements as Translations of Civil Societies; 10 Gender and Civil Repair: The Long and Winding Road through M/otherhood; Justifying Gender Domination: Relations between the Intimate and Civil Spheres; Women's Difference as Facilitating Input; Women's Difference as Destructive Intrusion; Gender Universalism and Civil Repair; The Compromise Formation of Public M/otherhood; Public Stage and Civil Sphere

Universalism versus Difference: Feminist Fortunes in the Twentieth Century

Sommario/riassunto

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