Showing papers in "European Journal of Social Theory in 2010"
TL;DR: The capability approach constitutes a significant contribution to social theory but its potential is diminished by its insufficient treatment of the social construction of meaning as discussed by the authors, which enables people to make value judgements about what they will do and be, and also to evaluate how satisfied they are about what their are able to achieve.
Abstract: The capability approach constitutes a significant contribution to social theory but its potential is diminished by its insufficient treatment of the social construction of meaning. Social meanings enable people to make value judgements about what they will do and be, and also to evaluate how satisfied they are about what they are able to achieve. From this viewpoint, a person’s state of wellbeing must be understood as being socially and psychologically co-constituted in specific social and cultural contexts. In this light, the telos of ‘living well’ which is at the heart of Sen’s version of the capability approach is inadequate and must be modified to a telos of ‘living well together’ which includes consideration of the social structures and institutions which enable people to pursue individual freedoms in relation to others. The policy significance of the capability approach can be further strengthened by paying greater consideration to the political economy of policy decision-making processes and the wa...
265 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the notion of alternative media as critical media is introduced, which can be seen as the communicative dimension of the counter-public sphere, and it aims at advancing imagination; it is dialectical because it involves dynamics, nonidentity, rupture and the unexpected.
Abstract: This article deals with the category of alternative media from a theoretical perspective. It aims to develop a definition and to distinguish different dimensions of alternative media. The article is a contribution to theoretical foundations of alternative media studies. The notion of alternative media as critical media is introduced. Critical media product content shows the suppressed possibilities of existence, antagonisms of reality, and potentials for change. It questions domination, expresses the standpoints of the oppressed and dominated groups and individuals and argues for the advancement of a co-operative society. Critical media product form aims at advancing imagination; it is dialectical because it involves dynamics, non-identity, rupture, and the unexpected. The category of critical media is connected to Negt and Kluge’s notion of the counter-public sphere. Critical media can be seen as the communicative dimension of the counter-public sphere.
229 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the agency of migrants in the conceptualization of borders is brought to the fore by taking as a starting point the struggles of mobility, and it is shown that borders are daily being crossed by migrants.
Abstract: Most critical discussions of European immigration policies are centered around the concept of Fortress Europe and understand the concept of the border as a way of sealing off unwanted immigration movements. However, ethnographic studies such as our own multi-sited field research in South-east Europe clearly show that borders are daily being crossed by migrants. These findings point to the shortcomings of the Fortress metaphor. By bringing to the fore the agency of migrants in the conceptualization of borders, we propose to understand how borders are being shaped by taking as a starting point the struggles of mobility. Against the background of our two-year transdisciplinary research project TRANSIT MIGRATION European migration and border policies cannot be longer conceptualized as being simply oriented towards the prevention of migration. Since migrants cross the borders daily, what happens if the borders’ permeability is part of the way they work? If so, we have to investigate the mechanisms of border po...
203 citations
TL;DR: A genealogical theory of govermentality is proposed in this article, which echoes Foucault on genealogy, critique, and technologies of power, but it is clearly historicist, not structuralist, and opens new areas of empirical research.
Abstract: Foucault introduced the concept ‘governmentality’ to refer to the conduct of conduct, and especially the technologies that govern individuals. He adopted the concept after his shift from structuralist archaeology to historicist genealogy. But some commentators suggest governmentality remains entangled with structuralist themes. This article offers a resolutely genealogical theory of govermentality that: echoes Foucault on genealogy, critique, and technologies of power; suggests resolutions to problems in Foucault’s work; introduces concepts that are clearly historicist, not structuralist; and opens new areas of empirical research. The resulting genealogical theory of governmentality emphasizes nominalism, contingency, situated agency, and historicist explanations referring to traditions and dilemmas. It decenters governance by highlighting diverse elite narratives, technologies of power, and traditions of popular resistance.
125 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors argue that some important injustices are best located not on any one single scale but rather at the intersection of several scales and that this is the case for one of the core characteristic injustices of the present era.
Abstract: It is widely appreciated today that injustices can arise on different scales — some are national, some regional, some global. Thus, the notion of a plurality of scales of justice is intuitively plausible. What may be less evident is the idea that some important injustices are best located not on any one single scale but rather at the intersection of several scales. This article argues that this is the case for one of the core characteristic injustices of the present era: namely, ‘the social exclusion of the global poor’.
103 citations
TL;DR: Borders are not purely local institutions, never reducible to a simple history of conflicts and agreements between neighboring groups and powers as discussed by the authors, but are global ways of dividing the world into regions and thus make possible place and a'mapping imaginary'.
Abstract: Borders are never purely local institutions, never reducible to a simple history of conflicts and agreements between neighboring groups and powers. Borders are already global, ways of dividing the world into regions and thus make possible place and a 'mapping imaginary'. Borders are characterized by an intrinsic ambivalence that derives from their internal and external functions, as the basis of collective belonging and state control over mobility and territory. The construction of political space takes place through modes of translation between inside and outside that the border signifies.
90 citations
TL;DR: The authors argue that a deeper understanding of globalization as a way of being in the world would require a phenomenologically inclined repositioning of the concept of the homecomer, and propose an existential turn that orients future globalization thinking more towards issues of belonging, choice and commitment.
Abstract: The article attempts a reformulation of globalization theory. We identify ‘flow speak’ and the flattened ontology of the social that goes with it as a major limitation in contemporary globalization theory. Contrary to the prevailing overemphasis on mobility and deterritorialization, we suggest an existential turn that orients future globalization thinking more towards issues of belonging, choice and commitment, and the rhythmicity of social relations. To highlight the processual character of this shift of perspective, we shall draw on the paradigmatic figure of the ‘homecomer’. S/he, in our understanding, embodies the ambivalence between the lure of global options and the need for commitment to lasting bonds. Thus, we do not argue for a post-mortem on globalization theory, but maintain that a deeper understanding of globalization as a ‘way of being in the world’ would require a phenomenologically inclined repositioning of the concept.
89 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, it is argued that a theory of modern society centered on its form of differentiation may help to clarify both the political dimension of contemporary international mobility, the variety of irregular statuses existing in the foreign population of receiving countries, and the condition of inclusion and exclusion of irregular migrants.
Abstract: This article claims that the study of irregular migration may be a strategic research material for the development of an adequate understanding of contemporary society. The field, however, suffers not only from a lack of reliable empirical data, but also from endemic undertheorizing. The article shows how the attempt to develop an understanding of irregular migration from within a general theory of modern society has positive consequences both for the clarification of the problems and for the design of research programs able to deal adequately with the phenomena. Particularly, it is argued that a theory of modern society centered on its form of differentiation may help to clarify both the political dimension of contemporary international mobility, the variety of irregular statuses existing in the foreign population of receiving countries, and the condition of inclusion and exclusion of irregular migrants.
86 citations
TL;DR: In the post-Fordist phase of capitalism, technology discourse legitimated the interventionist welfare state, the central planning in businesses and the economy, the hierarchized corporation, and the tenured worker as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: At the center of contemporary discourse on technology — or the digital discourse — is the assertion that network technology ushers in a new phase of capitalism which is more democratic, participatory, and de-alienating for individuals. Rather than viewing this discourse as a transparent description of the new realities of techno-capitalism and judging its claims as true (as the hegemonic view sees it) or false (a view expressed by few critical voices), this article offers a new framework which sees the digital discourse as signaling a historical shift in the technological legitimation of capitalism, concurrent with the emergence of the post-Fordist phase of capitalism. Technology discourse legitimated the Fordist phase of capitalism by stressing the ability of technology and technique to mitigate exploitation. It hence legitimated the interventionist welfare state, the central planning in businesses and the economy, the hierarchized corporation, and the tenured worker. In contrast, contemporary technology...
85 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors investigate the tension and limits inherent in current notions of hospitality in the Mediterranean and the local arena (Lampedusa) as the example, which is based on extensive, multi-sited anthropological field research.
Abstract: How to hospitably welcome refugees and migrants presents urgent questions for social and political thought. Current debates can be attributed to three discursive fields. Liberal versions hold that there are good reasons for political and legal limits of hospitality, critical perspectives advocate a renewed cosmopolitanism and, finally, deconstructive perspectives focus on the demand of unconditional hospitality as an absolute ethical requirement. These concepts trouble the conventional congruence of citizenship and bounded territory that make up modern nation states, on the one hand. On the other hand, they affirm the rights of political communities to decide on the contents and the extent of the universal duty to host those endangered. Taking the Mediterranean and the local arena (Lampedusa) as the example, the article, which is based on extensive, multi-sited anthropological field research, engages with the tensions and limits inherent in current notions of hospitality.
50 citations
TL;DR: The authors examines dominant socio-political questions regarding migration, "multiculturalism" and "integration" as a politics of citizenship and race in contemporary (post-colonial) Europe.
Abstract: This article examines dominant socio-political questions regarding migration, ‘multiculturalism’, and ‘integration’, as a politics of citizenship (and race) in contemporary (post-colonial) Europe. The argument unfolds through a critique of the nationalist complacencies and racial complicities in Jurgen Habermas’s remarks on ‘multiculturalism’ during the 1990s. With recourse to ‘underclass’ discourse, Habermas’s reflections were themselves a trans-Atlantic metastasis of a distinctly US ‘American’ hegemonic sociological commonsense with regard to, but actively disregarding, the fact of white supremacy. Habermas’s thoughts are critically situated alongside their subsequent metastasis, back across the Atlantic, into Francis Fukuyama’s recent invocations of ‘terrorism’ and his advocacy of the ‘American melting pot’ model as a trans-Atlantic prescription for Europe’s ailments. Treating ‘immigrants’ as a kind of societal illness, both are preoccupied by the same ‘problem’ — non-Europeans (as disaffected ‘minorit...
TL;DR: In this article, the authors contribute to the formulation of a non-excluding concept of solidarity which is of relevance to contemporary society, based on the assumption that in the present individuali...
Abstract: The aim of this article is to contribute to the formulation of a non-excluding concept of solidarity which is of relevance to contemporary society. The assumption is that in the present individuali...
TL;DR: In this paper, Foucault and Agamben argue that a crucial distinction exists between what can be called zoēpolitics and biopolitics, arguing that the former takes the biological body as its object and is only indirectly geared towards the social body.
Abstract: Giorgio Agamben’s work on biopower thematizes the biopolitical distinction between what the 1789 Declaration distinguishes as citoyen and homme. In this contribution, Foucault’s and Agamben’s views on biopolitics are critically discussed. It argues that a crucial distinction exists between what can be called zoēpolitics and biopolitics. Whereas the former takes the biological body as its object and is only indirectly geared towards the social body, the latter more directly has the social body as its object. Citizenship can be regarded a crucial form of population control that is both zoēpolitical and biopolitical in scope. It is zoēpolitical in that it distinguishes citizens from non-citizens. It is biopolitical in that it separates the life of ‘society’ from what is today, for instance, in discourse on immigrant integration, discursively articulated as the ‘outside society’. It is thus crucial to take seriously a discourse on what ‘society’ is, who belongs to it, and who resides ‘outside of society’, ins...
TL;DR: In this article, the authors focus on the negatory, apophatic aspects of reflexivity, i.e. attempts at removing obstacles (mainly thinking, decision-making processes) which prevent the spontaneous emergence of open-ended self-self and self-other relationships.
Abstract: By referring to mundane practices as well as to more systematic or theoretical discourses (those of Krishnamurti and Buber), this article shows the utility of focusing on the negatory, apophatic aspects of reflexivity, i.e. on attempts at removing obstacles (mainly thinking, decision-making processes) which prevent the spontaneous emergence of open-ended self—self and self—other relationships.
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TL;DR: The authors examines the use of organic and mechanistic metaphors that have underpinned the classical paradigm for understanding of mobility in the social sciences and argues that the global patterns of migration and the co...
Abstract: In the aftermath of 9/11, world leaders addressed the nation as a body under threat and hastened in new policies to bolster border protection and ‘securitize’ immigration. While the terrorist attacks cast new forms of public attention on the risks posed by mobile agents, the link between national security and regulating migration has always been at the forefront of the constitution of the nation state. Despite this persistent anxiety towards the social impact of migration and the status of people on the move, a more general understanding of mobility is not only missing in public debates, but has been a lacunae in the social sciences. What is mobility — a state, a force, a set of shifting co-ordinates? How does the definition of mobility shape social attitudes and personal experiences? This article examines the use of organic and mechanistic metaphors that have underpinned the classical paradigm for understanding of mobility in the social sciences. It argues that the global patterns of migration and the co...
TL;DR: This article explored the particularity of this Western orientation to pain by situating it against processes of instrumentalization and medicalization, and within a broader context of other social developments conducive to a heightening of affect control.
Abstract: Contemporary sociology mirrors Western society in its general aversion and sensitivity to pain, and in its view of pain as an unproductive threat to cultures and identities. This highlights the deconstructive capacities of pain, and marginalizes collectively authorized practices that embrace it as constitutive of cultural meanings and social relationships. After exploring the particularity of this Western orientation to pain — by situating it against processes of instrumentalization and medicalization, and within a broader context of other social developments conducive to a heightening of affect control — this article builds on Mauss’s analysis of ‘body techniques’ in suggesting that the cultural, physiological and psychological dimensions of pain can be combined in various ways. In examining this point further, we then compare contrasting religious engagements with pain as a way of detailing how it can be positively productive of cultural meanings and identities, and conclude by using these comparisons t...
TL;DR: This paper argued that many classics were preoccupied with the study of war and violence and have devised complex concepts and models to detect and analyse its social manifestations; and most of the classical social thought was in fact sympathetic to the "militarist" understanding of social life.
Abstract: Most commentators agree that the study of war and collective violence remains the Achilles heel of sociology. However, this apparent neglect is often wrongly attributed to the classics of social thought. This article contests such a view by arguing: (1) that many classics were preoccupied with the study of war and violence and have devised complex concepts and models to detect and analyse its social manifestations; and (2) most of the classical social thought was in fact sympathetic to the ‘militarist’ understanding of social life. In many respects, classical social thought shared the analytical, epistemological and even moral universe that understood war and violence as the key mechanisms of social change. The structural neglect of this rich and versatile theoretical tradition is linked to the hegemony of the normative ‘pacifist’ re-interpretation of the classics in the aftermath of two total wars of the twentieth century. The author argues that the contemporary sociology of war and violence can gain muc...
TL;DR: The strong program, also described as cultural sociology, stresses the constitutive role of culture in all domains and across the field of social life; the weak program, more precisely the sociology of culture, treats culture as a variable factor among others, and in some important respects subordinate to others as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: The revival of civilizational analysis is closely linked to a broader cultural turn in the human sciences. Comparative civilizational approaches accept the primacy of culture, but at the same time, they strive to avoid the cultural determinism familiar from twentieth-century sociology, especially from the Parsonian version of functionalism. To situate this twofold strategy within contemporary cultural sociology, it seems useful to link up with the distinction between a strong and a weak program for the sociological analysis of culture, proposed by Jeffrey Alexander and Philip Smith. The strong program, also described as cultural sociology, stresses the constitutive role of culture in all domains and across the field of social life; the weak program, more precisely the sociology of culture, treats culture as a variable factor among others, and in some important respects subordinate to others. From this point of view, civilizational analysis is, first and foremost, a particularly ambitious version of the st...
TL;DR: The authors argue that traditional theories of the market are increasingly losing their basis for analysing economic relationships as purely rational acts of exchange and utility maximization, and that what can be witnessed is an increase in the influence of values and norms on markets, guiding our attention to how deeply embedded economic action is in modern culture.
Abstract: At a time when the formerly strictly separated roles of citizen and consumer are arguably blurry, and when once powerful social institutions increasingly must yield to new social forces based on heightened knowledgeability and historically unprecedented wealth, it is likely that the economy of modern society is also subject to implicit changes. In this article, we argue that traditional theories of the market are increasingly losing their basis for analysing economic relationships as purely rational acts of exchange and utility maximization. Instead, what can be witnessed is an increase in the influence of values and norms on markets, guiding our attention to how deeply embedded economic action is in modern culture. We put forward the idea of a moralization of markets, which has begun to change our conceptions and theories regarding what is at stake in a modern economy fundamentally. We conclude that in the future, production processes and standards, codes of conduct and consumer reasoning will become all...
TL;DR: This paper argued that current civilizational analysis as exemplified by the work of Shmuel N. Eisenstadt still shares the strengths and weaknesses of the original approach as developed by Marcel Mauss (and Emile Durkheim) a century ago.
Abstract: This article argues that current civilizational analysis as exemplified by the work of Shmuel N. Eisenstadt still shares the strengths and weaknesses of the original approach as developed by Marcel Mauss (and Emile Durkheim) a century ago. Eisenstadt’s approach basically relies on a particular understanding of path dependency which immediately raises the question how civilizational patterns are reproduced after the crucial turning point of the Axial Age. This problem of civilizational persistence, however, remains largely unresolved and will not even be resolved in the future as long as civilizational analysis relies on mostly culturalist premises. Only a combination of arguments from the field of political sociology and the sociology of religion — as suggested by Johann P. Arnason — promises to explain how civilizations are able to reproduce their patterns over and over again.
TL;DR: In this paper, a comparative-civilizational multiple modernities perspective on political sociology is proposed, which emphasizes the fragility, contradictions and openness as well as the civilizational multiplicity of political modernity and political modernization processes.
Abstract: This article outlines a comparative-civilizational multiple modernities perspective on political sociology. In the context of the major currents within political sociology — modernization approaches, critical and neo-Marxist as well as postmodern and global approaches — it is argued that a comparative-civilizational multiple modernities perspective is defined by several characteristics. First, against functionalist-evolutionist modernization approaches it emphasizes the fragility, contradictions and openness as well as civilizational multiplicity of political modernity and political modernization processes. Second, against critical and neo-Marxist approaches, it insists on the cultural and institutional contradictions of political power, social protest and political conflict. Third, against post-modern and post-colonial micro-sociological approaches, often primarily micro-sociological, it holds to a macro-sociological constructivist orientation. Fourth, against the primarily socio-economic and political-i...
TL;DR: In the field of historical sociology, civilizational analysis represents perhaps the most ambitious attempt to fuse the two disciplines that have been drawing closer to each other, and it does not seem no more likely than other new approaches emerging at the same time to overcome the multi-paradigmatic condition of the social sciences as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: The revival of civilizational analysis, most apparent after 1980, but linked to earlier beginnings and other rediscoveries of classical thought, has been accompanied by growing awareness of conceptual problems and empirical challenges. Civilizational analysis is, as the present author has argued elsewhere, a paradigm in the making (Arnason, 2007); it faces major consolidating and demarcating tasks, and it seems no more likely than other new approaches emerging at the same time to overcome the multi-paradigmatic condition of the social sciences. It does, however, stand out as particularly sensitive to a broad spectrum of diverse problems, and as a prime example of interdisciplinary perspectives. Within the expanding field of historical sociology, civilizational analysis represents perhaps the most ambitious attempt to fuse the two disciplines that have been drawing closer to each other. Connections to philosophy should also be noted: the concept of cultural ontology, used by both Benjamin Nelson and S.N. Eisenstadt, is a good example of such implications, and they merit more attention than they have so far received. Civilizational approaches have also entered into closer contact with the history of ideas. The work of Benjamin Schwartz (1985), and more recently Michael Puett (2001), on the history of Chinese thought, seems particularly relevant to such implications. Civilizational perspectives on the history of science, explored by Benjamin Nelson (1981) and Toby Huff (1995), have opened up a promising and controversial field. At the same time, the internal structure of the civilizational paradigm and its relations to the main areas of social inquiry have been clarified. The contributions to this issue will centre on the thematic domains that seem most fundamental (cultural, political and economic sociology), as well as on questions arising at the conceptual and historical frontiers of civilizational analysis. But some introductory remarks on another aspect of the problematic may be useful. If the research program of civilizational analysis is still taking shape, we can expect particular orientations and preferences to reflect the angle or the background from which the civilizational dimension was discovered and explored. There is no doubt that the most salient and most widely debated civilizational themes have emerged from interpretations of the Axial Age and the traditions that go back to it; the notion of axial civilizations is a later redefinition of this European Journal of Social Theory 13(1): 5–13
TL;DR: A more far-reaching analysis of the distinctiveness of diverse American societies can be developed that goes beyond the image of a Protestant North America contrasted with southern Latin cultures as mentioned in this paper, which is the basis for a more nuanced approach in three steps: a focus on inter-civilizational engagement, examination of civilizational factors neglected by Eisenstadt and reconsideration of the conceptual range of the notion of "civilization" itself.
Abstract: Civilizational analysis has not concerned itself too greatly with the historical experiences of the American New World. There are good reasons to correct this position and Shmuel Eisenstadt’s principal work on America’s distinct modernities goes some way to establishing the colonization of the Atlantic world as an opening phase of modernity. Nonetheless, a more far-reaching analysis of the distinctiveness of diverse American societies can be developed that goes beyond the image of a Protestant North America contrasted with southern Latin cultures. This article outlines the basis for a more nuanced approach in three steps: a focus on intercivilizational engagement (which goes beyond the notion of ‘intercivilizational encounters’ developed by Benjamin Nelson and Johann Arnason), examination of civilizational factors neglected by Eisenstadt and reconsideration of the conceptual range of the notion of ‘civilization’ itself. The archetype of two Americas is replaced by a model of four with some consideration g...
TL;DR: In this paper, a focus on inter-civilizational interactions can lead to productive rapprochements between civilizational analysis and globalization theory, as it allows some of the themes of the latter to be analysed through civilization-analytic lenses.
Abstract: Civilizational analysis of the kind propounded by Eisenstadt and globalization theory are apparently wholly incommensurate paradigms, with radically differing visions of the contemporary world order, the former championing the notion of ‘multiple modernities’ and the latter envisioning a world of trans-national processes and institutions. This articles challenges such a dichotomizing view, and seeks to illustrate how in various ways they overlap and can come to inform each other. Particular attention is given to how a focus on inter-civilizational interactions can lead to productive rapprochements between civilizational analysis and globalization theory, as it allows some of the themes of the latter to be analysed through civilization-analytic lenses. The pioneering work in this regard of Benjamin Nelson is shown to provide a basis for future civilizational analyses of globalization, especially in the pre-modern world.
TL;DR: The authors argue that the analytic and empirical space in which we can better observe the meeting between the contingent and normative aspects of critique is that of the social movements, that unsurprisingly have been important reference points for many of the different sociological traditions of critique.
Abstract: This article aims to confront the principal arguments of the concept of critique in sociology and to demonstrate the emergence in recent years of a re-dimensioned conception of critique, on the one hand, of a pragmatic, pluralistic and contingent nature, and, on the other, show how the need for a strong and transcendental concept of critique that does not renounce the possibility of individual and collective emancipation is still present. This article argues that the analytic and empirical space in which we can better observe the meeting between the contingent and normative aspects of critique is that of the social movements, that unsurprisingly have been important reference points for many of the different sociological traditions of critique.
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors approach the topic of civilizations and economies through a discussion of two key texts that appeared during the first wave of interest among social scientists for the phenomenon of...
Abstract: This article approaches the topic of civilizations and economies through a discussion of two key texts that appeared during the first wave of interest among social scientists for the phenomenon of ...
TL;DR: The authors articulates the leitmotif of civilizational analysis (the interaction of power and culture) with regard to the relation between religion and the state within the Islamic civilization or...
Abstract: This study articulates the leitmotif of civilizational analysis (the interaction of power and culture) with regard to the relation between religion and the state within the Islamic civilization or ...
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors attempt to link some central motives in the thought of Jurgen Habermas with the biographical experiences of the philosopher and social theorist, and discuss the question of how plausible it is that there is no alternative to capitalism and to what extent democracy can tame capitalism.
Abstract: This article attempts, for the first time, to link some central motives in the thought of Jurgen Habermas with the biographical experiences of the philosopher and social theorist. What are the relations which Habermas himself thematizes in his life story by means of discursive analysis? Three elements are central: the change in significance of the nation state against the backdrop of the process of European integration, the concept of a deliberative democracy, and the timely and controversial issue of the taming of world capitalism. Finally, the article discusses the question of how plausible it is that there is no alternative to capitalism and to what extent democracy can tame capitalism.
TL;DR: The authors examines the relation between world images and the so-called tracks of society, which in this metaphor resemble the current concept of institution, and employs the terms to analyze differences in the principles of legitimacy between those emerging in the West and those in China, differences that Weber himself did not recognize.
Abstract: Max Weber famously wrote that world images determine the tracks along which societies move. This article examines the relation between world images and the so-called tracks of society, which in this metaphor resemble the current concept of institution. This concept is now associated with the ‘new institutionalisms’ in social science and has no connection to the civilizational level of analysis that Weber used. This article reexamines Weber’s usage of the terms and employs the terms to analyze differences in the principles of legitimacy between those emerging in the West and those in China, differences that Weber himself did not recognize.