The Civil Sphere

The New Republic The Civil Sphere offers grand theorizing in ways that remind us of both what we are and what we can be. Jeffrey Alexander offers sociology at least a place from which it may begin again.

<br>Jeffrey C. Alexander is Lillian Chavenson Saden Professor of Sociology at Yale University, and a Director of the Center for Cultural Sociology. He is also the author of The Meanings of Social Life: A Cultural Sociology (Oxford, 2003).<br>

Introduction PART I. CIVIL SOCIETY IN SOCIAL THEORY 1. Possibilites 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 Discourse The 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 Fictional Media: Factual 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 Disenfranchisement Constructing 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 Solidarity: Individuality: Legalizing Social Exclusion: The Antidemocratic Face of Law 8. Contradictions: Uncivilizing Pressures and Civil Repair Space: 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 Model Displacing 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 The Ethical Limits of Care 11. Race and Civil Repair (1): Duality and the Creation of a Black Civil Society Racial Domination and Duality in the Construction of American Civil Society Duality and Counterpublics The Conditions for Civil Repair: Duality and the Construction of Black Civil Society Duality and Translation: Toward the Civil Rights Movement 12. Race and Civil Repair (2): The Civil Rights Movement and Communicative Solidarity The Battle over Representation: The Intrusion of Northern Communicative Institutions Translation and Social Drama: Emotional Identification and Symbolic Extension The Montgomery Bus Boycott: Martin Luther King and the Drama of Civil Repair 13. Race and Civil Repair (3): Civil Trauma and the Tightening Spiral of Communication and Regulation Duality and Legal Repair The Sit-In Movement: Initiating the Drama of Direct Action The New Regulatory Context The Freedom Rides: Communicative Outrage and Regulatory Intervention Failed Performance at Albany: Losing Control over the Symbolic Code Birmingham: Solidar