Molly Sween
Contradictions: The Uncivilising Pressures of Space, Time, and Function
Jeffrey C. Alexander
Alexander’s why question: 1.) Why has civil society typically been viewed in utopian and
idealistic terms (i.e. idealistic fallacy, 98)? 2.) Why have non-civil spheres been ignored as an
empirical research focus?
Alexanders’s motivational mechanism: Inequalities in the civil society are often premised on
faulty assumptions. This is because functional inequalities in non-civil spheres are easily taken
out of context and abstracted to the civil sphere.
Theorist’s Vocabulary:
Civil Society: organized around particular cultural codes (96). Defined elsewhere1 civil society is
a sphere “in which a certain kind of universalising community comes gradually to be defined and
to some degree enforced” (6).
 Exhibited by “public opinion”
 Possess its own cultural codes and narratives
 Patterned by a set of legal institutions (i.e. legal)
Note: Civil society ≠ capitalism.
Primordial qualities: establish group boundaries (in/out) “…attributed to persons by virtue of
their membership in a particular group” (98).
Discourse of Repression: Language of inequality in the non-civil sphere that is used to
legitimize inequality in the civil-sphere. “Institutions and modes of interaction” ripple out from
non-civil spheres and “permeate civil society” (97).
‘Space’, ‘Time’ and ‘Function’ of Civil Society
 Space:
o Conflict over territorywar
 Nationalism-bifurcates space ‘outside’ the nation
 Regionalism-bifurcates space ‘within’ the nation
 Time:
o Civil society is temporal-can be traced back to a point in time
 Creates a rank and order of civility
 Function:
o Different spheres serve different functions (which easily get conflated)
Alexander, Jeffrey C. (2001). “The Past, Present, and Future Prospects of Civil Society,” in
Civil Society, Citizenship, and Learning, edited by Bron A. and Shemmann M. Hamburg,
Germany: Monster.
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Interaction between Civil and Non-Civil Spheres
“Conversely, what happens in other spheres of society-what is possible and what not-has
fundamental effects on the structure and operation of culture, institutions, and interactions in civil
society” (97).
Institutional Interchanges
Economics
Politics
Colonization
Civil Society
Religion
Family
Moral Interchanges
Alexander is critical of philosophers and lay members alike viewing the civil society as a
“universalistic and abstract ‘space’” (99).

As if the civil sphere was impenetrable and “a given”.
He accepts and legitimizes certain inequalities that take place in non-civil spheres, but is critical
of these being abstracted to the civil society.

“Stratification in these other spheres becomes translated into the bifurcating discourse of civil
society” (107).

Example: Bottom full paragraph pg. 110.
o Jews and Protestants excluded from civil life in Catholic countries.
o Patriarchal power in family transferred to lack of status for women in civil society.
Addressing the Problem:
 Study the ‘real’ rather than idealized version of civil society (see last full sentence of the
middle paragraph page 98).
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