Showing papers in "European Journal of Social Theory in 2004"

Organized Self-Realization: Some Paradoxes of Individualization

Abstract: Despite the fact that the sociological notion ‘individualization’ contains the most heterogeneous phenomena, the article develops an interpretation of the fate of individualization in Western capit...

The Democratizing Dynamics of a European Public Sphere Towards a Theory of Democratic Functionalism

Abstract: The riddle of how to democratize the multi-level polity of the EU is answered by pointing to the empirical impact of an unfolding European public sphere. It is argued that there is a self-constituting dynamic of a European public sphere which abets the coupling of transnational spaces of communication with the institutional integration of the EU. From this perspective, democracy is not external to the EU, it is already part of the logic of European institution-building and governance and is fostered by collective learning processes in which definitions of the collective good as well as conditions for appropriate forms of political participation are negotiated. In discussing the case of the EU’s constitutional reform, a theory of democratic functionalism is proposed which accounts for this specific form of democratization of the EU.

Politics as the Mobilization of Anger: Emotions in Movements and in Power

Abstract: In most academic research on politics, emotions are deemed important only to the realm of subjects or citizens, not to power. Emotions are presented as a problem power has to deal with, not something with which power is itself intimately involved. This article discusses recent attempts to reintroduce emotions into political analysis and argue that they are incomplete insofar as they look only at opposition social movements, not at mainstream parties. With a nod to Carl Schmitt, I argue that anger is not something that only occasionally bursts onto the political scene, but is central to ‘normal’ politics as well. Anger is central to politics both as a diffuse, untargeted sentiment citizens experience, usually economically, and as the emotion political organizers need to capture and channel, which they do by offering up an ‘enemy’ they identify as the source of the problem. Opposition movements and parties of power alike succeed when they persuade people to accept the enemy they propose.

Feeling beyond rules: Politicizing the sociology of emotion and anger in feminist politics

Abstract: The part anger plays in motivating political action is frequently noted, but less is said about ways in which anger continues to be a part of how people do politics. This article critically assesses approaches to emotions that emphasize managing anger in accordance with ‘feeling rules’. It reflects on the utility of Marxist notions of conflict as the engine of change for the understanding of how anger operates in political life. This involves understanding the ambivalence of anger and its operation within particular power relations. Shifting sets of conventions have had some continuity in discouraging women in Western nations (particularly white and middle-class women) from showing anger. But clearly, women do get angry and feminists have drawn on anger in acting politically. New Zealand feminist writings from the ‘second wave’ are taken as illustrative of the common difficulties Western feminists faced in dealing with anger. These difficulties were due to trying to juggle social conventions about feminin...

Whither European Citizenship?: Eros and Civilization Revisited

Abstract: A claim frequently made about European Citizenship is that by decoupling ‘rights’ from ‘identity’ it challenges us to rethink the classical Westphalian model of citizenship. According to some EU scholars and constitutional experts, this beckons a new form of ‘supranational’ citizenship practice based not on emotional attachments to territory and cultural affinities (‘Eros’), but to the rights and values of a civil society ‐ or what Habermas calls ‘constitutional patriotism’. This article uses anthropological insights to critique these arguments and to analyse the EU’s own citizenship-building policies and practices. It concludes that rights cannot be meaningfully divorced from identity and that citizenship devoid of emotion is neither feasible nor desirable. Finally, it considers the idea of ‘post-national democracy’ and what this might entail in a modern European context.

War on the Couch The Emotionology of the New International Security Paradigm

Abstract: The emotional state of war-affected populations has become a central concern for international policy-makers in the last decade. Growing interest in war trauma is influenced by contemporary Anglo-American emotionology, or emotional norms, which tends to pathologize ordinary responses to distress, including anger related to survival strategies. The article critically analyses the ascendancy of a therapeutic security paradigm in international politics, which seeks to explain the prevailing political, economic and social conditions in terms of cycles of emotional dysfunctionalism. The article contends that international therapeutic governance pathologizes waraffected populations as emotionally dysfunctional and problematizes their right to self-government, leading to extensive external intervention. However, international therapeutic governance may be detrimental to postwar recovery as well legitimizing a denial of self-government.

The Domestication of Anger: The Use and Abuse of Anger in Politics

Abstract: Anger is often described as a wild emotion that endangers both social order and the possibility of constructive political dialogue. And yet, anger is an indispensable political emotion – for without angry speech the body politic would lack the voice of the powerless questioning the justice of the dominant order. Anger is not the opposite of order, for anger is domesticated by the dominant to serve order – in the form of force, authority, moral indignation and care. Moreover, order itself, in the form of technical rationality, is rooted in the anger of the middle-class professional whose claim to social status and power depends upon their moralistic enforcement of the rule of technique. A dialogical politics can only emerge when anger is heard with empathy, rather than domesticated or silenced.

The Elementary Forms of Pragmatism On Different Types of Abduction

Abstract: Among the classical pragmatists Charles Sanders Peirce is often regarded as the most removed from practical affairs; he is seen as the most ‘scientific’. The aim of this article is to show his practical usefulness in daily affairs in determining that ‘which is the case’. The abductive inference had a pivotal role in his pragmatist theory of inquiry. As Umberto Eco has shown, abduction is as equally central in the writing of detective stories as it is in the making of science. Recently, abduction has gained a renewed interest not only in the idea that science is basically ‘conjectural’ (Ginzburg and Popper), but also in different versions of critical realism. Here abduction gains interest as a ‘theoretical inference’ of special concern for the social sciences. An overview of various usages of abduction, from Eco to Bhaskar, is followed by a critical pragmatist assessment.

Introduction The Importance of Being Angry: Anger in Political Life

Abstract: The sociology of emotion is rapidly becoming a popular field in sociology and this special issue of EJST turns that interest to the sphere of politics. The main objective of this issue is to provide an understanding of the sociological importance of emotions, and specifically anger, in political life. Rather than addressing the extremely complicated interrelationship between different emotions, the contributions are focused on anger. As will become evident, this is no random choice but based on the assumption that ‘one can define anger as the essential political emotion’ (Lyman, 1981: 61). Via this assumption the articles engage with the sociology of emotion and with questions of how and why people do politics. Anger matters politically because it both motivates and continues to fuel activity and conflict. Analysis of anger can also assist in the exploration of the supposed personalization of politics. Does anger inevitably contribute to nationalism, racism, selfcentred individualism and division, or does it challenge injustice, resist the bureaucratization of politics and allow greater celebration of diversity? ‘Politics’ here refers both to state and international dealings between politicians and to more participatory political activity and to the politics of everyday life. The definitions of anger are also open. Broadly, the editor and many of the contributors tend towards the idea that anger is something recognized as a response to perceived injustice. This assumes anger is relational – something we do (or do not do) as part of our interaction with others. Contributors distinguish anger from aggression and hostility and attend to the different social meanings of anger as they are expressed or contained in different social and political circumstances. While each contributor has various interpretations of what anger means, in general, a sociological definition is one which avoids seeing emotions as ‘inbuilt’ mental or bodily reactions or instincts. Crossley (1995: 143) suggests that ‘[a]nger, for example, is not situated in an inner mental (emotional) realm. It is an aspect or feature of the way we behave towards that with which we are angry.’ He draws on Merleau-Ponty’s anti-Cartesian argument that we should not see mental affirmations of subjectivity as taking place within an individual body but as ‘publicly verifiable aspects of embodied conduct or behaviour’ (Crossley, 1995: 143). Crossley explains how this is played out in Goffman’s work and clearly this tradition contributes to Hochschild’s highly influential work on emotion management, which I refer to briefly below (and see my article later). European Journal of Social Theory 7(2): 123–132

Ideology, Science and Social Relations A Reinterpretation of Marx’s Epistemology

Abstract: My work and thinking as a feminist sociologist have been profoundly influenced by the understanding I developed of the materialist method, as it was first formulated in Marx and Engels’s The German Ideology The interpretation of Marx’s method explored in this chapter originated in my interest in finding a method of inquiry other than those in which I had been trained, which replicated the objectifying androcentrism of the ruling relations1 In this chapter I present a reading of this aspect of Marx’s epistemology that differs substantially from how it is generally viewed Though my reading has been close and carefully repeated and renewed over the years, it is still one that examines Marx’s thinking dialogically, being focused on what he can teach me of his method of inquiry, rather than on an explication of his theory

The sacralization of memory

Abstract: This article argues that today’s search for identity, in the context of the rise of a new spirituality and the decline of authoritative memories, facilitates the forging of a new connection between soul and memory and enhances the importance of traumatic memories. Consequently, we witness the sacralization of memory which in unsettled times, when memories tend to become fixed and frozen, can undermine intergroup cooperation. The article asserts that an ethical burden, prompted by viewing memory as the surrogate of the soul and the overrating of the importance of the politics of identity, can result in the displacement of public concerns with private ones. It stresses a need to rethink what kind of memory is compatible with a just, pluralist and cohesive democratic system.

Genocide as transgression

Abstract: The origins of genocide have been sought by scholars in many areas of human experience: politics, religion, culture, economics, demography, ideology. All these of course are valid explanations, and...

Deliberative Democracy and Two Models of Pragmatism

Abstract: This article examines the relationship of pragmatism to the theory of deliberative democracy. It elaborates a dilemma in the latter theory, between its deliberative or epistemic and democratic or inclusive components, and distinguishes responses to this dilemma that are internal to the conception of deliberation employed from those that are external. The article goes on to identify two models of pragmatism and critically examines how well each one deals with the tension identified in deliberative democracy.

Anger in Repressive Regimes A Footnote to Domination and the Arts of Resistance by James Scott

Abstract: A well-established idea is that the powerless, even when they are angered by the relations of domination or their consequences, do not display this anger for fear of negative sanctions. Although in the first part of his Domination and the Arts of ResistanceJames Scott elaborates this idea in a creative manner, he challenges it in the second part of his book. He proposes that when autonomous spaces emerge in the systems of absolute domination, the powerless use them to develop their own cultures of solidarity and dissent. These make it highly probable that the long-suppressed anger, rather than just simmering, will one day explode in the face of the oppressor with a satisfying full blast. In this article I use mostly Central European material to argue against Scott’s unorthodox view. I line up evidence in support of the thesis that, even where there are autonomous spaces and cultures of dissent, citizens display apathy and protesters start out with much anxiety and caution, afraid to provoke the anger of t...

Racial States, Anti-Racist Responses: Picking Holes in ‘Culture’ and ‘Human Rights’

Abstract: This article seeks to re-examine two major assumptions in mainstream anti-racist thought of the post-war era. These are culturalism, on the one hand, and human rights on the other, both of which have been offered as potential solutions to the ongoing problem of racism. I argue that both fail to cope with racism as it has been institutionalized in the political and social structures of European societies because they inaccurately theorize ‘race’. Racism is treated as an individual attitude born of prejudice and ignorance and not as a political project that emerged under specific conditions within the context of the European nation-state. A re-examination of this legacy of modernity and a questioning of the structuring principles of anti-racism is necessary in the current context of racism against migrants, asylum seekers and refugees.

Pragmatism and Critical Theory

Abstract: This article discusses Habermas’s project of reformulating Critical Theory through a pragmatic philosophy of communication, while defending post-metaphysical reason and commitment to grounded criti...

Pragmatism as a Philosophy of the Social Sciences

Abstract: This article introduces and critically analyses Richard Rorty’s neo-pragmatism as a contribution to the philosophy of social sciences. Although Rorty has written little about philosophy of social sciences as such, it is argued that his overall philosophical position has significant ramifications for this subject area. The first part of the article sets out the implications of Rorty’s neo-pragmatism for various issues in the philosophy of social sciences, for instance, the doctrine of naturalism, the nineteenth-century Methodenstreit, the philosophical tenets of Marxism, and the relatively recent wave of post-structuralism. The second part presents a constructive critique of Rorty’s neopragmatist philosophy of social sciences. Although critical of some aspects of Rorty’s argument, it is argued that his stance could provide a base for a fruitful view of social sciences, aiming at enlarging human potentialities rather than representation.

William James: Pragmatism, Social Psychology and Emotions:

Abstract: At the core of pragmatism is the idea of an active projection of experience into the future. William James’s contribution to pragmatism included an emphasis on emotions in the apprehension of possible futures and related processes. After presenting a summary of Jamesian pragmatism, and especially the significance of emotions in it, the article notes the reception of James’s writings in Europe and their influence on European intellectual developments. Max Weber, for instance, studied James closely. He treated James’s approach to religion as a negative example. While Emile Durkheim rejected the individualist approach of James, he nevertheless found much of value in James’s conceptualization of religious experience, including its emotional underpinnings. Discussion below explores the neglected Jamesian quality of Durkheim’s account of religion. It is noted in conclusion that the more recent sociological neglect of James and the failure to appreciate his particular approach in pragmatism, coincided with the rise of Freudian psychology in the early decades of the twentieth century.

Anger in Legacies of Empire: Indigenous Peoples and Settler States

Abstract: Cultural norms and values, as well as historical, social, and legal contexts shape the public uses and expressions of particular emotions, including anger. In the settler states of Aotearoa New Zealand, Australia, and Canada, indigenous peoples and those who came later negotiate the unfinished business of empire. Their exchanges are framed in terms of ethnic identity and difference. It is argued here that anger plays a significant part in the legal and political processes of claim, denial, and response through which these differences are articulated and transacted. This article examines situations where people whose very naming is a product of European thought engage in the struggles of decolonization. The very different occasions and forms of anger over justice claims described illustrate the extent to which meanings are not shared in these societies.

An Interview with S.N. Eisenstadt: Pluralism and the Multiple Forms of Modernity

Abstract: The following interview was conducted in Jerusalem on the occasion of a major conference organized by the Israel Academy of Science and Humanities and the International Institute of Sociology to honour Shmuel N. Eisenstadt on his eightieth birthday in November 2003. The title of the conference, ‘Comparing Modern Civilizations: Pluralism versus Homogeneity’, served as an apt point of reference for a wide spectrum of contributions, which in various ways addressed some of the central themes in the vast corpus of Eisenstadt’s work, which spans some fifty years of research in sociology.1 Eisenstadt’s work emerged out of two sets of influences, as he himself has acknowledged.2 The first was the intense intellectual debate that burgeoned in the Jewish community in Palestine and in the scholarly environment of Jerusalem in the early 1940s and which continued at the London School of Economics and in a long career at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and numerous visiting appointments throughout the world. The major intellectual influences on his work were Martin Buber, whom he studied under in Jerusalem and to whose chair at the Hebrew University he later succeeded, and Max Weber, whose work he interpreted through the influence of Buber. Other important influences were Edward Shils, Talcott Parsons, Robert Merton and the major British sociologists and anthropologists he encountered during his stay as a postdoctoral researcher at the LSE in the late 1940s: Morris Ginsberg, T.H. Marshall, Raymond Firth, E.E. Evans-Prichard, Edmund Leach and Max Gluckman. The second influence on his work was in the historical context of the postSecond World War era, a time that saw the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948 and the subsequent crystallization and development of Israeli society. In this era, which witnessed the world-wide impact of democratization and new visions of social organization, Eisenstadt was struck by the limitless potentiality of social formations and, at the same time, their limits. It was this situation that suggested to him, and which became a major thematic concern in his work, that there is a fundamental tension between charisma and its routinization. Although European Journal of Social Theory 7(3): 391–404

New Pragmatism and Old Europe Introduction to the Debate between Pragmatist Philosophy and European Social and Political Theory

Abstract: Pragmatism has become a vital force in contemporary intellectual life. There are a number of reasons for this, of which four are especially notable. First, whereas early critical theorists tended to be hostile to American pragmatism, contemporary critical theory is steeped in the pragmatic tradition. This is especially the case for Jürgen Habermas, whose earlier work on philosophy of science, as well as his recent writings on communicative rationality and discourse ethics draw heavily on the work of Charles S. Peirce (Habermas, 1984, 1987, 1996, 1998; Aboulafia et al., 2001). Second, the renewed interest in G.H. Mead has been one that attempts to put Mead in his intellectual context. Whereas interpreters like Blumer used to construct a presentist reading of Mead (Mead as a precursor of symbolic interactionism and opponent of structural-functionalism), more recently the tendency has been to demonstrate the extent to which Mead was embedded in the pragmatic tradition of the time (e.g. Aboulafia, 1991, 2001; Cook, 1993; Joas, 1985). Not surprisingly, some of those scholars have also tried to study the relevance of other pragmatists for social theory (e.g. Joas, 1993, 1996). Third, Richard Rorty has embraced John Dewey’s pragmatism as a source of inspiration for his anti-foundationalist philosophy. Rorty’s reliance on Dewey was not as obvious in his path-breaking Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature (1980), but Rorty has been acknowledging the influence ever since the publication of Consequences of Pragmatism (e.g. Rorty, 1982, 1998, 1999). Hence Rorty’s influence, for instance in literary theory, went hand in hand with a growing interest in the tradition of pragmatism. Fourth, in opposition to the non-foundational and non-representational dimensions of pragmatism, critical realism has also sparked a renewed interest in Peirce whose reflections on abduction are at the centre of the realist notion of scientific explanation (Archer et al., 1998; Creaven, 2001; Cruickshank, 2003; Danemark, 2002; Joseph, 2002; Outhwaite, 1987). The aim of this special issue is to discuss the role of pragmatism in social and European Journal of Social Theory 7(3): 267–274

Ernst Troeltsch’s Concept of Europe:

Abstract: Recent writing in social theory has seen a renewed preoccupation with questions of religion, secularization and civilizational difference. This article reappraises the work of one early twentieth-century thinker in relation to these issues: the German historical theologian and close colleague of Max Weber, Ernst Troeltsch (1865-1923). The article concentrates particularly on Troeltsch’s late writings on Europe and ‘Europeanism’. The thesis is defended that Troeltsch offers an important gloss on Weber’s famous assertion of the ‘universal significance and validity’ of occidental rationalism. Troeltsch offers a thicker, more concretized reading of Weber’s statement that serves as a precursor to contemporary thinking about ‘multiple modernities’ and also as a fund of trenchant counter-responses to the claims of recent post-colonial critics about Eurocentrism in western social science. Troeltsch’s writings give us one example among many of a current of cosmopolitan reflexivity in European social thought betwee...

Civil Society’s Barbarisms

Abstract: Instead of arguing about elements and boundaries of civil society, recent discussions in social theory have focused on the concept of civil society itself as embedded in different currents of socia...

Knowledge and Human Liberation Jürgen Habermas, Sri Aurobindo and Beyond

Abstract: Knowledge and human liberation are epochal challenges and a key question here is what the meaning of knowledge and the meaning of human liberation are. This article argues that knowledge means not ...

Pragmatism and Feminist Theory

Abstract: Although pragmatism and feminism share a number of key features, pragmatist philosophy has had little influence on feminist thought. This article explores the reasons for this failed rendezvous. Focusing particularly on Rorty’s neo-pragmatism, it is argued that neo-pragmatism’s lack of an adequate political theory, particularly regarding key issues in current feminist theory such as the conceptualization of the relations between the public and private spheres and the understanding of subjectivity, is a particularly important factor here. Earlier versions of pragmatist thought, however, might make more useful contributions to current feminist debates, particularly on the issues of rationality and ethics of care.

Democracy in One Country? Reflections on Patriotism, Politics and Pragmatism

Abstract: This article undertakes a critical examination of the political philosophy of Richard Rorty with special reference to his treatment of patriotism, pragmatism and democracy. Pragmatism, especially in the work of John Dewey, provided an energetic defence of American democracy, claiming that American democratic culture did not require any philosophical lessons from European social theory. American pragmatism is in this sense a celebration of indigenous political traditions. In his defence of pragmatism and patriotism against the cosmopolitanism of Left cultural critics, Rorty advocates pragmatic ethnocentrism. Through a parallel commentary on socialist internationalism, this article asks whether 'democracy in one country' - the United States of America - is either feasible or compatible with the critical legacy of pragmatism. In its response to the growth of international terrorism, especially in its 'liberation of Iraq', the United States is in danger of becoming a 'predatory democracy'. While Rorty has in the past argued that America cannot function as a global policeman, the trend of contemporary international relations is to create an American Empire. The article concludes by arguing that Rorty's patriotism functions as 'a final vocabulary' that contradicts his postmodernism and makes it difficult for modern pragmatism to remain a critical theory.

Socio-Political Transition in the Indian Republic and the European Union

Abstract: In spite of their drastically different historical trajectories, the ongoing socio-political transition in the European Union (EU) and the Indian Republic (IR), two of the most complex polities in contemporary world, suggests that they aspire to combine political federalism and cultural pluralism. This is evident from their endorsing equality, identity and inclusivity as values; implementing political decentralization and facilitating differentiation between state, civil society and market. To meet the emerging challenges both the EU and the IR endorse the idea of unity in diversity. The article suggests that two coping strategies, transforming cultural diversity (a fact) into cultural pluralism (a value) and decoupling the identities of citizenship and nationality are imperatives.

Book Review: Gender Theory and the Disciplines:

Abstract: These two authors, coming from different disciplinary backgrounds, are both concerned with the relationship between cultural texts and gender theory. Susan Fraiman includes in her roster of ‘cool men’ several who could be labelled ‘public intellectuals’ – Edward Said, Henry Louis Gates Jr, Judith Butler (men do not have a monopoly of ‘cool masculinity’). But Fraiman is interested in them, rather because they are intellectual celebrities who share, to some extent at least, a cult status with iconic figures who have worked in film (Quentin Tarantino, Spike Lee, Brian de Palma), and with Andrew Ross, the ‘bad boy’ of the discipline of cultural studies, academic analyst of popular culture. Because of their celebrity status ‘their names . . . resonate beyond . . . the bodies of their work’ (p. xx). They speak ‘beyond [their] professional circle’ (p. 85). They are familiar figures in the arenas of public debate. Fraiman clearly respects them as intellectuals, but it is, in addition, the fact that they carry such influence that provokes her critique of their work in terms of gender. Hers is not a form of ideological criticism that deconstructs, exposes and dismisses without remainder: indeed, ‘critique’ always also implies a certain measure of positive appraisal. Fraiman, as her title suggests, mounts her critique of ‘cool’ from the perspective of gender-analysis, founded in feminism and in queer theory. Her argument is that gendered masculine coolness is created, celebrated and maintained against an abject femininity whose core is the maternal figure. Fraiman’s book is reminiscent of an earlier feminist study of left intellectuals, Jane Miller’s Seductions (1990), although only one iconic public intellectual, Edward Said, figures in both works. Miller argued that feminism had felt the attractions and power of such thinkers as Gramsci, Williams, Bakhtin and Said, and had drawn upon them extensively, but that because these writers did not think of themselves as gendered persons, women found themselves absent, if not European Journal of Social Theory 7(4): 539–548

Book Review: Racism in the Irish Experience

Abstract: Review article: Garner, S. (2003) 'Racism in the Irish experience.' London: Pluto Press,

Book Review: Sacred Revolutions: Durkheim and the Collège de Sociologie

Abstract: Balibar, Etienne (with Immanuel Wallerstein) (1991) Race, Nation, Class: Ambiguous Identities. London: Verso. Goldberg, David Theo (2002) The Racial State. Malden, MA: Blackwell. Lentin, Alana (2004) Racism and Anti-Racism in Europe. London: Pluto Press. Lentin, Ronit and McVeigh, Robbie (2002) Racism and Anti-Racism in Ireland. Belfast: Beyond the Pale. McVeigh, Robbie (1992) ‘The Specificity of Irish Racism’, Race and Class 3(4): 31–45. Miles, Robert (1989) Racism. London: Routledge. Rex, John (1970) Race Relations in Sociological Theory. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson. Roediger, David (1991) The Wages of Whiteness: Race and the Making of the American Working Class. London: Verso. Taguieff, Pierre-André (1991) Face au racisme 2: Analyses, hypothèses, perspectives. Paris: La Découverte.