Book: Real Civil Societies; Dilemmas of Institutionalization in English

In recent social and political theory the term `civil society` has achieved renewed currency. Traditionally used in a normative or `ideal-type` sense, the term describes a form of social organization - that is simply neither economic nor political - where democracy, liberty and widespread solidarity are essential regulatory concepts.
Written from an empirical social-science perspective by some of the world`s most important social theorists, this volume is a critical examination of the normative sense of `civil society`. It includes analyses of civil society and democracy, citizenship, race and ethnicity, and post-communism.
Jeffrey C Alexander Introduction: Civil Society I, II, III: Constructing an Empirical Concept from Normative Controversies and Historical Transformations PART ONE: UNCIVIL HIERARCHIES Elisa P Reis Banfield`s Amoral Familism Revisited: Implications of High Inequality Structures for Civil Society Michael Pusey Between Economic Dissolution and the Return of the Social: The Contest for Civil Society in Australia Luis Roniger Civil Society, Patronage, and Democracy Göran Ahrne Civil Society and Uncivil Organizations PART TWO: BIFURCATING DISCOURSES Jeffrey C Alexander Citizen and Enemy as Symbolic Classification: On the Polarizing Discourse of Civil Society Philip Smith Barbarism and Civility in the Discourses of Fascism, Communism and Democracy: Variations on a Set of Themes Ronald N Jacobs The Racial Discourse of Civil Society: The Rodney King Affair and the City of Los Angeles PART THREE: ARBITRARY FOUNDINGS David Zaret Neither Faith nor Commerce: Printing and the Unintended Origins of English Public Opinion Piotr Sztompka Mistrusting Civility: Predicament of Post-Communist Society Víctor Pérez-Díaz The Public Sphere and a European Civil Society