New Article by Jensen Sass and John S. Dryzek

We are happy to announce a new article “Symbols and reasons in democratization: cultural sociology meets deliberative democracy” 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. We argue that democratization entails the co-evolution of culture and reason. The basis of co-evolution is the performative construction of an inclusive demos, which requires a deliberative background but is also a source of the moral emotions that motivate deliberation. Since moral emotions can also sweep people up and make them do reckless things, they must in turn be redeemable in inclusive deliberation. This synthesis sharpens a normative position for the evaluation of episodes of inclusion, extends current accounts of the place of emotion in cultural sociology and deliberative democracy, and provides a frame for comparative analyses of democratization. We illustrate with an examination of the exclusion and inclusion of Indigenous Australians.

Jensen Sass and John S. Dryzek.


Sass, J., Dryzek, J. Symbols and reasons in democratization: cultural sociology meets deliberative democracy. Theor Soc (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11186-024-09551-w

Bernadette Nadya Jaworsky

Bernadette Nadya Jaworsky is associate professor of sociology at Masaryk University, Brno (Czech Republic), and Faculty Fellow at Yale University’s Center for Cultural Sociology. She is a cultural sociologist in the tradition of the Strong Program, who focuses on the meaning-making process in her research on international migration. She received her B.A. from Wellesley College and her M.A., M.Phil., and PhD from Yale University. Recent books include The Courage for Civil Repair: Narrating the Righteous in International Migration (with Carlo Tognato and Jeffrey C. Alexander, eds., Palgrave, 2020) and Historicizing Roma in Central Europe: Between Critical Whiteness and Epistemic Injustice (with Victoria Shmidt, Routledge 2021), Besides civil sphere theory, her current research focuses on in-depth cultural sociological analysis and reconstruction of public issues such as perceptions of migration, and the cultural sociology of conspiracy theories.

https://www.cstnetwork.org/jaworsky-bio
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