Imagined communities: Reflections on the origin and spread of nationalism

Introduction 1. Woman's Place in Man's Life Cycle 2. Images of Relationship 3. Concepts of Self and Morality 4. Crisis and Transition 5. Women's Rights and Women's Judgment 6. Visions of Maturity References Index of Study Participants General Index

In a Different Voice. Psychological Theory and Women’s Development. Cambridge, MA (Harvard University Press) 1982.

Drawing upon philosophy and social theory, Social Theory of International Politics develops a theory of the international system as a social construction. Alexander Wendt clarifies the central claims of the constructivist approach, presenting a structural and idealist worldview which contrasts with the individualism and materialism which underpins much mainstream international relations theory. He builds a cultural theory of international politics, which takes whether states view each other as enemies, rivals or friends as a fundamental determinant. Wendt characterises these roles as 'cultures of anarchy', described as Hobbesian, Lockean and Kantian respectively. These cultures are shared ideas which help shape state interests and capabilities, and generate tendencies in the international system. The book describes four factors which can drive structural change from one culture to another - interdependence, common fate, homogenization, and self-restraint - and examines the effects of capitalism and democracy in the emergence of a Kantian culture in the West.

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Social Theory of International Politics

Introduction 1 Contentious politics and social movements: Part I The Birth of the Modern Social Movement: 2 Modular collective action 3 Print and association 4 Statebuilding and social movements Part II From Contention to Social Movements: 5 Political opportunities and constraints 6 The repertoire of contention 7 Framing contention 8 Mobilising structures and contentious politics Part III The Dynamics of Movement: 9 Cycles of contention 10 Struggling to reform 11 Transnational contention/conclusion: the future of social movements

Power in Movement: Social Movements and Contentious Politics

Preface I. On the Shoulders of Bakhtin and Vygotsky 1. The Woman Who Climbed Up the House 2. A Practice Theory of Self and Identity II. Placing Identity and Agency 3. Figured Worlds 4. Personal Stories in Alcoholics Anonymous 5. How Figured Worlds of Romance Become Desire III. Power and Privilege 6. Positional Identities 7. The Sexual Auction Block IV. The Space of Authoring 8. Authoring Selves 9. Mental Disorder, Identity, and Professional Discourse 10. Authoring Oneself as a Woman in Nepal V. Making Worlds 11. Play Worlds, Liberatory Worlds, and Fantasy Resources 12. Making Alternate Worlds in Nepal 13. Identity in Practice Notes References Credits Index

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Identity and Agency in Cultural Worlds

The problem of identity in collective action

(1980). Community: Toward a variable conceptualization for comparative research. Social History: Vol. 5, No. 1, pp. 105-129.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/4284951.pdf

Community: Toward a variable conceptualization for comparative research

Observations of public apathy in today's electoral democracies are commonplace (Neumann, 1986). For many social scientists, low voter turnout and similar indicators are simply reasons for believing that liberal democracies will always be governed by elites, though these may shift over time. Recently, a number of authors have argued against this view, and indeed against the presumption that representative institutions are the only form of participation workable in modern, large-scale polities. Characterizing representation as a form of "thin democracy," for example, Barber (1984) has called for a move towards a "strong democracy" based on new or revitalized forms of popular participation. His proposals stress two dimensions of such participation: the renewal of community level institutions of self-rule and the development of more frequent national referenda.... My argument in this paper is that the theoretical grounds on which most discussion of these issues takes place are doubly deficient. In the first place, numerical size, while a central variable, does not adequately grasp the transformation in social organization wrought during the modern era. We need to address contrasting forms of social integration as well as sizes of population. I shall adopt Habermas's (1984) distinction of system world/system integration from lifeworld/social integration for this purpose. I will argue that the current efflorescence of populist politics (of both left and right) simultaneously is a response to the split between system world and lifeworld, and is limited in an often poorly recognized way by the implications of large scale system integration. Secondly, academic discussion of representative vs. direct democracy has tended to focus on mechanisms of decision-making at the expense of attention to public discourse and the educational functions of politics. Communitarian populists (though generally not plebiscitarians) are sensitive to this, and offer proposals for improved settings for local discourse and political language less prejudicial to the values of community and tradition (Barber, 1984; Bellah, et al., 1985; Evans and Boyte, 1986). Most, however, approach this predominantly in cultural rather than social structural terms, and underestimate the limits imposed by large scale system integration. Above all, both communitarian and plebiscitarian visions tend to neglect the structural difficulties which social change has put in the way of public discourse among people significantly different from each other. Changes in cities and community patterns on the one hand, and in communications systems on the other, make it likely that no extension of community level discourse or mobilization will constitute a public discourse at the level of the state. This is a limit to communitarian politics, but not an argument against them. At the same time, the issues presented here do argue against most proposals for extensive reliance on referenda.

Populist politics, communications media and large scale societal integration

Ernest Gellner was, among many other things, a cosmopolitan – both intuitively and by conscious commitment. He was also one of the great analysts of nationalism in our age. I hope my analysis of some problematic and promising relationships between these two clusters of ideas reflects appropriately the huge debt all students of these topics owe Gellner. But there is another sense in which Gellner is an apt exemplar. He was nearly equally philosopher, anthropologist, and sociologist. And I want at least to suggest philosophical, anthropological, and sociological dimensions in contemporary cosmopolitan discourse and suggest that all three need to command our attention. We need to achieve a certain disciplinary cosmopolitanism, which, I would suggest, does not require us to give up nationalist attachments to our disciplines but does require us to reach beyond them and sometimes look critically at them. Cosmopolitanism has become an enormously popular rhetorical vehicle for claiming at once to be already global and to have the highest ethical aspirations for what globalisation can offer. It names a virtue of considerable importance. But, and these are my themes, it is not at all clear (a) that cosmopolitanism is quite so different from nationalism as sometimes supposed, (b) whether cosmopolitanism is really supplanting nationalism in global politics, and (c) whether cosmopolitanism is an ethical complement to politics, or in some usages a substitution of ethics for politics.

Cosmopolitanism and nationalism

In the wake of communism, nationalism has regained prominence as a source of global tension and instability. These problems, and nationalism itself, are often dismissed as transitional difficulties rather than studied as basic to the modern world. This paper argues, to the contrary, that nationalism is produced by central features of the modern world, including the ongoing process of globalisation. Its centrality derives first of all from the need to identify the `self' implied by the notion of political self-determination. This ties nationalism to democracy. But nationalism is also shaped in problematic ways by modern individualism. Metaphorically, the nation is often treated as an individual. Nations are also commonly conceived of as categories of like individuals rather than as webs of social relationships. This places an emphasis on sameness which often makes nationalism an enemy of diversity. It also provides the basis for arguments that national identity should take precedence over other competing identities - regional, familial, gender, interest-group, occupational, and so on. Nationalism is particularly potent and problematic where diverse institutions of civil society are lacking or fail to provide for a diversity of public discourses and collective identities.

Craig Calhoun

Papers

The problem of identity in collective action

Community: Toward a variable conceptualization for comparative research

Populist politics, communications media and large scale societal integration

Cosmopolitanism and nationalism

Nationalism and civil society: democracy, diversity and self-determination