Reflections on Jeffrey C. Alexander's The Civil Sphere

Bibliographic Data

ID7467660
AuthorsChad Alan Goldberg (0000-0002-5270-8903, University of Wisconsin–Madison), Чад Алан Голдберг (University of Wisconsin–Madison, corresponding author)
Year2007
Volume48
Issue4
Pages629-639
Publication date2007-09-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueSociological Quarterly (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0038-0253 • E-ISSN: 1533-8525
PublisherTaylor & Francis (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1111/j.1533-8525.2007.00094.x
OpenAlexW1979678890
LanguageEN
Citations received3
References cited8

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size ACKNOWLEDGMENTSI thank Peter Kivisto for kindly inviting me to contribute to this symposium.Notes1 This view also has affinities with Pierre Bourdieu's conception of the social order as a multiplicity of fields. For a critical appraisal of Bourdieu, see Alexander (1995) Alexander, Jeffrey C. 1995. "The Reality of Reduction: The Failed Synthesis of Pierre Bourdieu." Pp. 128–217 in Fin de Siècle Social Theory: Relativism, Reduction, and the Problem of Reason. New York: Verso. [Google Scholar].2 Habermas ([1981] 1984 Habermas, Jürgen. [1981] 1984. Reason and the Rationalization of Society, vol. 1, Theory of Communicative Action. Translated by Thomas McCarthy. Reprint, Boston, MA: Beacon Press. [Google Scholar]:183) reaches a similar conclusion. He suggests that conflicts between value-spheres are not the result of rationalization per se, but "a partial and therefore imbalanced rationalization—for example, to the fact that the capitalist economy and modern administration expand at the expense of other domains of life ... and squeeze [these other value-spheres] into forms of economic or administrative rationality." For an appraisal of Habermas, see Alexander (1985) Alexander, Jeffrey C. 1985. "Habermas's New Critical Theory: Its Promise and Problems." American Journal of Sociology 91(2):400–24.[Crossref] , [Google Scholar].3 The notion of "dual membership" in the civil and noncivil spheres (Alexander 2006 Alexander, Jeffrey C. 2006. The Civil Sphere. New York and Oxford, England: Oxford University Press.[Crossref] , [Google Scholar]:207–208, 266) brings to mind and appears to generalize W. E. B. DuBois's notion of "double consciousness." This theoretical lineage is most evident in Alexander's discussion of the civil rights movement.4 In fact, the Jewish question could only be treated as a religious question once Jews were redefined as a religious grouping rather than a nation. Alexander (2006 Alexander, Jeffrey C. 2006. The Civil Sphere. New York and Oxford, England: Oxford University Press.[Crossref] , [Google Scholar]:478) acknowledges this: "Jews no longer considered themselves a nation but a religious grouping, an identification that allowed full primordial attachment to their respective nation-states." However, even after this process was presumably completed, the national identity of the Jews remained contested.5 This continues to be the case. Today, as Europe strives to construct a post-nationalist identity through the European Union, Zionism (Jewish nationalism) and Israel (the Jewish nation-state) serve as the anticivil other. Those who favor the construction of a post-nationalist political order see Israel as an anomaly that threatens to pollute that project (Judt 2003 Judt, Tony. 2003. "Israel: The Alternative." The New York Review of Books 50(16). Retrieved July 10, 2007. (http://www.nybooks.com/articles/16671). [Google Scholar]). This representation of Israel in terms of the anti-democratic side of the discourse of civil society was notably reflected in a 2003 poll commissioned by the European Commission, which found that Europeans in 15 countries ranked Israel ahead of all other countries as the greatest threat to world peace ("Is Israel Really the Biggest Threat to Peace,"International Herald Tribune, November 8, 2003, p. 8).6 Further confirmation of this point is provided by the fate of the other major mass movement of Russian Jews, the Bund. The Bund advocated the transformation of the Russian Empire into a socialist, multinational federation with cultural autonomy for Jews and other national minorities. In some respects, this program anticipated the multicultural mode of incorporation. However, the Bund was destroyed at the hands of the Communists in Russia and the Nazis in Poland.7 The resurgence of anti-Semitism has attracted growing attention in the global civil sphere, and not only from Jewish organizations, as indicated by the report commissioned by the European Union on "Manifestations of Anti-Semitism in the E.U., 2002–2003"; an unprecedented governmental conference devoted entirely to anti-Semitism, convened in 2003 by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe; the 2004 United Nations seminar on "Confronting Anti-Semitism"; the creation of the European Sociological Association's "Racism and Anti-Semitism" research stream in 2005; and the 2006 report of the British Government's All-Party Parliamentary Inquiry into Anti-Semitism. Even in the United States, recent attacks on the "Israel Lobby" may have the effect of tainting Jewish activism and advocacy with the negative categories of civil discourse.8 Fraser (1995 Fraser, Nancy. 1995. "From Redistribution to Recognition? Dilemmas of Justice in a 'Post-Socialist' Age." New Left Review 212(July/August):68–93. [Google Scholar]:76) puts the point even more sharply: "In the Marxian conception ... the task of the proletariat ... is not simply to cut itself a better deal, but 'to abolish itself as a class.' The last thing it needs is recognition of its difference. On the contrary, the only way to remedy the injustice is to put the proletariat out of business as a group."9 A recent court case in Germany raises the same issues. The judge in that case reportedly cited "the Koran in turning down a German Muslim woman's request for a fast-track divorce on the ground that her husband beat her. In a remarkable ruling that underlines the tension between Muslim customs and European laws, the judge ... said that the couple came from a Moroccan cultural milieu, in which she said it was common for husbands to beat their wives. The Koran, she wrote, sanctions such physical abuse. News of the ruling brought swift and sharp condemnation from politicians, legal experts, and Muslim leaders in Germany, many of whom said they were confounded that a German judge would put 7th-century Islamic religious teaching ahead of modern German law in deciding a case involving domestic violence" ("Germany Cites Koran in Rejecting Divorce,"New York Times, March 22, 2007. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/22/world/europe/22cnd-germany.html

Civil society · Critical theory · History of sociology · Order (exchange · Rationalization (economics · Social life · Social order · Social theory · Contemporary Sociological Theory and Practice · Electoral Systems and Political Participation · Social and Cultural Dynamics

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