New Article by Ali Osman, Anna Lund & Stefan Lund
The present paper delves into how symbolic boundaries in a school that is undergoing a desegregation process come to shape social boundaries of ‘we-ness’ and ‘otherness’. The theoretical framework of the study starts from an interest in analysing whether symbolic and social boundaries emerge…
New Article by Jason L. Mast and Daniel Šuber
This article introduces a theory of societalized politics to investigate crisis events in the German civil sphere between 2015 and 2024, and to proffer an answer to the disputed question of the preconditions that facilitated the rapid rise of right-wing populism in the German context. Drawing on civil sphere and societalization theory, the article specifies the foundational cultural elements, or binary cultural codes (BCCs)...
New Book from Nelson Arteaga Botello
The book addresses the structures of the meaning of politics in Mexico in recent decades. It studies how the symbolic codes of populism, patrimonialism, and democracy...
Neglected Aspects of the Civil Sphere in Cultural Sociology: Testing the Extensions and Limits of a Concept
The editorial team of the journal Philosophy and Society is pleased to announce a call for papers for the 2025 Special Issue, dedicated to the topic “Resilience and/or vulnerability of the civil sphere.”
The Civil Sphere and Authoritarian Trends in Democracies Conference
The conference titled "The Civil Sphere and Authoritarian Trends in Democracies" was held as part of the 2023-2024 cycle "Past and Present of Authoritarianism in Latin America," coordinated by Dr. Nelson Arteaga Botello at FLACSO Mexico…
New Article by Jensen Sass and John S. Dryzek
We develop an account of societal democratization that synthesizes cultural sociology and deliberative democracy. Cultural sociologists emphasize the symbolic inclusion of marginalized groups into the civil sphere. Deliberative democrats stress growth in the deliberative capacity of society…
Civic Action in the Civil Sphere ~ Conference and Book Project
A recent conference at Yale University addressed these crucial issues through the lenses of two prominent cultural theories: Civil Sphere Theory (CST) and Civic Action Theory (CAT). These theories, while distinct, both aim to understand and promote democratic engagement and civil solidarity…
Call for Papers: Post-Transformation and the Civil Sphere in Central and Eastern Europe
The past three and a half decades have witnessed not only transition and tremendous social change in former socialist and communist countries and their civil spheres, but also the emergence of new political dynamics and societal arrangements in a transformation and post- transformation context…
New Article by Anna Lund in Poetics
The article illuminates the emotional reaction of a stage-audience encounter between migrant/non-white youth and a white audience born in Sweden while meeting and interacting with content, including the staging of identities, belonging, and experiences of being “other”.
Call for Papers: Resilience and/or vulnerability of the civil sphere
The editorial team of the journal Philosophy and Society is pleased to announce a call for papers for the 2025 Special Issue, dedicated to the topic “Resilience and/or vulnerability of the civil sphere.”