Solidarity, Justice, and Incorporation: Thinking Through the Civil Sphere

ISBN-13: 9780199811908 / Angielski / Twarda / 2015 / 216 str.

Peter Kivisto; Peter Kivisto; Giuseppe Sciortino

Opis

Although many contemporary scholars have deepened our understanding of civil society through critiquing the limits of civil society discourse or seeking to offer empirical analyses of existing civil societies, none have attempted anything as bold or original as Jeffrey C. Alexander's 2006 book, The Civil Sphere. While consciously building on a three-centuries-long tradition of thought on the subject, Alexander has broken new ground by articulating a detailed theoretical framework that differs from the two major perspectives which have heretofore shaped civil society discourse. In so doing, he has sought to construct a model of what he calls the civil sphere, which he treats in Durkheimian fashion as a new social fact.

In Solidarity, Justice, and Incorporation: Thinking through The Civil Sphere, six internationally recognized scholars comment on Alexander's civil sphere thesis. Robert Bellah, Bryan S. Turner, and Axel Honneth consider the work as a whole, while Mario Diani, Chad Alan Goldberg, and Farhad Khosrokhavar offer analyses of specific aspects of the civil sphere. In their substantive introduction, Peter Kivisto and Giuseppe Sciortino locate the civil sphere thesis in terms of Alexander's larger theoretical arc as it has shifted from neo-functionalism to cultural sociology. Alexander's concluding essay responds to their analyses by clarifying and elaborating on issues in the text while simultaneously addressing recurring misunderstandings of the thesis.

Comprehensive and insightful, Solidarity, Justice, and Incorporation is an essential companion to The Civil Sphere. This compelling volume is a valuable resource for students and scholars of sociology, political science, and social philosophy.

Recenzje

This superb new volume of essays reminds us that social solidarities and popular participation are aspirational goals, not settled accomplishments, and have the potential for moral inclusiveness only in a third autonomous sphere of civil society. A consequential set of reflections on an enormously consequential work of original social theory that will serve as a touchstone of critical theory for the foreseeable future.

O autorze

Peter Kivisto is the Richard A. Swanson Professor of Social Thought at Augustana College and was formerly the Finland Distinguished Professor at the University of Turku, Finland. Giuseppe Sciortino is Professor of Sociology at the University of Trento and a Faculty Fellow at Yale University's Center for Cultural Sociology.