Showing papers by "Bryan S. Turner published in 2017"

Contemporary Citizenship: Four Types

Abstract: The paper begins with an examination of three ideal types citizenship which are not necessarily mutual exclusive. The first type is national citizenship, typically associated with ethno-nationalism. The second form is social citizenship or ‘welfare citizenship’ refers to the creation of social rights and is closely connected to civil-society institutions rather than to the state or market. The third form of citizenship identifies the citizen with participation in the work force emphasizing self-reliance and autonomy. In this discussion, I argue that with economic globalization and the development of neo-liberal strategies the various forms of citizenship have converged towards a new model of passive citizenship in which the state is or has withdrawn from commitment to full employment and the provision of social security, especially universal provision of welfare services, and civil-society institutions have been eroded. The result is the emergence of the apolitical,isolated citizen as consumer. The fourth model of citizenship presupposes a consumer society, a weak state and the decline of civic institutions, where the passive citizen becomes a consumer of privatized goods and services. The rise of a fourth model of citizenship – the consumer-citizen – can be interpreted as a logical consequence of financialization.1 1 Some aspects of this chapter first appeared in Bryan S. Turner (2010), ‘Ralf Dahrendorf on Citizenship and Life Chances’, Citizenship Studies, 14 (2): 237–43.

Ritual, belief and habituation: Religion and religions from the axial age to the Anthropocene

Abstract: It is a common complaint that sociology has little regard for history. One important exception to this standard criticism is the sociology of religion of Robert N. Bellah and his ‘revival’ of Karl Jasper’s notion of the axial age. In this article, Bellah’s evolutionary notions of religion are explored within a debate about historical disjunctures and continuities. A significant challenge to the idea of the continuity of axial-age religions comes from the notion of an Anthropocene. Our relationship to nature has fundamentally changed and the possibilities for ‘improving’ the human body create a significant ontological challenge to the continuity/preservation of embodied practice as the underpinning of axial-age religions. The Anthropocene age presents a turning away from the religious legacies of the past, because biotechnical developments change not only our relationship to nature but they presage a radical change to the human body. Can the axial-age religions as our contemporaries survive the constructio...

Multiple Modernities and Political Millenarianism: Dispensational Theology, Nationalism, and American Politics

Abstract: There is a swell developed argument from Alexis de Tocqueville to Jose Casanova that Christianity is not only deeply embedded in the founding myths of American society as the First New Nation and the Israel of the New World, but also an important component of contemporary American politics from the Moral Majority to the Tea Party. This chapter looks at the millenarian dimensions of that aspect of American political culture. Starting with the dispensational theology of the nineteenth century to the “unusual relationship” between evangelical Protestantism and modern Judaism, this chapter explores how American foreign policy toward the Middle East has been influenced by dispensational theology, the idea that the end of times will be foretold by the gathering in of the Jews and by a nationalist reading of American exceptionalism. The foreign policy of George W. Bush was in particular constructed around this version of the theology of catastrophe. The more intense the Middle East crisis, the more evangelicals believe that their catastrophic view of history is coming to fruition. Those who reject this millenarian view of the end of history will be left behind. In short, American foreign interest toward Israel and the Arabs is shaped by the intersection of a nationalist sense of America as a society with a unique commission in the world, a religious theory of apocalypse, and the conjunction of a Middle East crisis.

Religions, Nations and Transnationalism in Multiple Modernities: An Introduction

Abstract: This introduction addresses the contributing chapters of this book and links their argument and findings through a discussion on religion, politics, nationalism and transnationalism within the prism of the multiple modernities theory. It deals with historical and contemporary cases to inform this study of comparative nationalism and transnationalism with regard to religion. It also explores the theories of the post-national constellation, the clash of civilization and cosmopolitanism to shed further understanding on historical and contemporary social and cultural interactions.