Today it is assumed that we understand contemporary nationalism and nation-building. Researchers rarely consider the very different traditions from which such state-building emerged. Instead, there is almost too much discussion of the "global village," with its supposed uniformity and inevitable trajectories. We need to view modernity as something other than a single condition with a preordained future. New visions of a modern civilization are emerging throughout the world, calliing for a far-reaching appraisal of the older visions of modernization. Following Eisenstadt's and Schluchter's introduction, Bjorn Wittrock explores the varieties and transitions of early modern societies, noting that only by looking at societies' collective identities and their modes of mediating in the public sphere can the distinguishing factors between modernity be appreciated. Sheldon Pollock discusses the use of vernacular language in India through its literary culture and polity, 1000-1500. Sanjay Subrahmanyam, sums up major developments in the recent historiography of South Asia from 1400 to 1750. David L. Howell focuses on the boundaries of the early modern Japanese state, including its political boundaries and the boundaries of collective identity and social status. Mary Elizabeth Berry examines public life in authoritarian Japan. Frederic Wakeman, Jr. probes the boundaries of the political game and how they were affected by the increased political centralization that developed after the disorder of the Ming-Qing transition during the seventeenth century. Alexander Woodside discusses territorial order and collective-identity tensions in Confucian Asia. Bernhard Giesen argues that the French Enlightenment can be described as an extension of absolutist court culture. Finally essay, Victor Perez-Diaz examines the state and public sphere in Spain during the Ancient Regime contrasting two ideal types of states--a "nomocratic" model and a "teleocratic" model. This volume addresses cultural and political practices not only from outside the European and American spheres but also over long periods of time in which the internal dynamics of other civilizations become visible. Its broad-ranging use of empirical materials enables us to think comparatively and historically about the ways in which different modernities took shape.

This text shows how different collective identities in Latin America shape the access to, and participation in, the public domain. Collective identities were previously thought to be primordial components that would not survive the modern world, but now theorists think of them as a modern creation.

In A Community of Europeans?, a thoughtful observer of the ongoing project of European integration evaluates the state of the art about European identity and European public spheres. Thomas Risse argues that integration has had profound and long-term effects on the citizens of EU countries, most of whom now have at least a secondary "European identity" to complement their national identities. Risse also claims that we can see the gradual emergence of transnational European communities of communication.Exploring the outlines of this European identity and of the communicative spaces, Risse sheds light on some pressing questions: What do "Europe" and "the EU" mean in the various public debates? How do European identities and transnational public spheres affect policymaking in the EU? And how do they matter in discussions about enlargement, particularly Turkish accession to the EU? What will be the consequences of the growing contestation and politicization of European affairs for European democracy?This focus on identity allows Risse to address the "democratic deficit" of the EU, the disparity between the level of decision making over increasingly relevant issues for peoples' lives (at the EU) and the level where politics plays itself out—in the member states. He argues that the EU's democratic deficit can only be tackled through politicization and that "debating Europe" might prove the only way to defend modern and cosmopolitan Europe against the increasingly forceful voices of Euroskepticism.

This first systematic study of a wide range of Persian and European archival and primary sources, analyzes how the Muharram rituals changed from being an orginally devotional practice to public events of political significance, setting the stage for the emergence of the early modern Iranian public sphere in the Safavid period.

This book is the first monograph to systematically explore the relationship between citizenship and collective identity in the European Union, integrating two fields of research – citizenship and collective identity. Karolewski argues that various types of citizenship correlate with differing collective identities and demonstrates the link between citizenship and collective identity. He constructs three generic models of citizenship including the republican, the liberal and the caesarean citizenship to which he ascribes types of collective identity. Using a multidisciplinary approach, the book integrates concepts, theories and empirical findings from sociology (in the field of citizenship research), social psychology (in the field of collective identity), legal studies (in the chapter on the European Charter of Fundamental Rights), security studies (in the chapter on the politics of insecurity) and philosophy (in the chapter on pathologies of deliberation) to examine the current trends of European citizenship and European identity politics. This book will be of interest to students and scholars of European politics, political theory, political philosophy, sociology and social psychology.

Sociology, emerging in the 19th century as the study of national societies, is the intellectual product of its time, power relations and social imaginaries. As a discursive practice that was enmeshed in the meta-narratives of modernity, the discipline of sociology bears the inherent capacity to shape socially shared concepts and construct collective identities. This book examines the relationships between sociology and projects of national identity construction, and presents a critique of Shmuel N. Eisenstadt, the prominent Israeli sociologist known as the "father of Israeli sociology". The book focuses on Eisenstadt’s sociology of Israel as a case of knowledge construction within an ideological system and examines the relationships between his various sociological analyses of Israeli society and the Zionist imaginary, namely the deeply entrenched political myths and historiographical narratives that constitute Israel’s hegemonic national identity. By emphasizing the interrelation between textuality, identity, and loaded language, the volume seeks to demythologize Eisenstadt’s sociology of Israel. Three major concepts in Eisenstadt’s scholarship are specifically thematized: integration, civilization, and modernities. In each of these foci, the author shows how Eisenstadt’s sociological conjectures reproduce dominant Zionist historiographical representations of the past, rationalize prevalent social hierarchies, reify the boundaries of a national collective "Self", and render legitimacy to Israel’s governing ethnocratic tendencies, underlying the premises of the Zionist settler-colonial project. Sociological Knowledge and Collective Identity will appeal to those interested in the interconnectedness of sociology and political memory, as well as in a radical postcolonial reconstruction of sociology.

This book discusses the extent to which the theoretical relevance and analytical rigor of the concept of the public sphere is affected by current processes of transnationalization. The contributions address fundamental questions concerning the viability of a socially and politically effective public sphere in a post-Westphalian world.

This book analyzes how the European environmental movement has influenced the problem definitions and solution strategies of European policy issues, examining biodiversity, GMOs, Trans-European Transport Networks, and climate change.

The European Union is often attacked for its ‘democratic deficit’, namely its deficiencies in representation, transparency and accountability, as well as its lack of popular support. Can these shortcomings be counteracted by the development of a viable European public sphere? This book assesses the possible formation of a communicative space that might enable and engender the creation of a transnational or a supranational public. The contributors consider the EU’s democratic credentials and how well it communicates, and they also evaluate the major institutions and their links to general publics. The European Union and the Public Sphere emphasizes a ‘deliberative democratic’ perspective on the public sphere, addressing some key questions: • What are the prospects for a European public sphere? • Should we think in terms of the EU having a single public sphere, or are overlapping public spheres a more viable option? • What do this book’s findings on the question of the public sphere tell us about the EU as a political entity? Students and scholars of European democracy, political communication, and the politics of institutions will all be greatly interested by this book.