Pub Date : 2020-11-18DOI: 10.1332/policypress/9781529213874.003.0009
A. Linklater
Elias’s relatively detached investigation of the civilizing process remains the key starting point for those who wish to understand the nature and legacy of the peculiar civilized self- images that arose in the European region.
{"title":"Summary and Conclusions","authors":"A. Linklater","doi":"10.1332/policypress/9781529213874.003.0009","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1332/policypress/9781529213874.003.0009","url":null,"abstract":"Elias’s relatively detached investigation of the civilizing process remains the key starting point for those who wish to understand the nature and legacy of the peculiar civilized self- images that arose in the European region.","PeriodicalId":383914,"journal":{"name":"The Idea of Civilization and the Making of the Global Order","volume":"30 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-11-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"116139756","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This chapter discusses the fate of the classical standard of civilization and its reconfiguration in the post-European global order. Particular attention is paid to the cultural revolt against the West which illustrated the Eliasian theme that outsiders invariably attempt to free themselves from traditional political and cultural shackles as power relations become less unequal. But analysts have argued that new standards of civilization re-emerged in the form of the universal human rights culture, democracy promotion and state rebuilding, and global market civilization. This chapter locates those developments in the long civilizing process. It provides a process-sociological interpretation of civilizing dynamics in the recent period. Western measures to promote civilization are resisted by powers such as China which associate the strategies with attempts to create a neo-colonial global order A central question is whether world order has reached a transitional point in which the once dominant civilization is losing power and influence and the prospects for a global civilization are receding.
{"title":"Standards of Civilization in the Post-European Global Order","authors":"A. Linklater","doi":"10.2307/j.ctv19cwb5m.10","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv19cwb5m.10","url":null,"abstract":"This chapter discusses the fate of the classical standard of civilization and its reconfiguration in the post-European global order. Particular attention is paid to the cultural revolt against the West which illustrated the Eliasian theme that outsiders invariably attempt to free themselves from traditional political and cultural shackles as power relations become less unequal. But analysts have argued that new standards of civilization re-emerged in the form of the universal human rights culture, democracy promotion and state rebuilding, and global market civilization. This chapter locates those developments in the long civilizing process. It provides a process-sociological interpretation of civilizing dynamics in the recent period. Western measures to promote civilization are resisted by powers such as China which associate the strategies with attempts to create a neo-colonial global order A central question is whether world order has reached a transitional point in which the once dominant civilization is losing power and influence and the prospects for a global civilization are receding.","PeriodicalId":383914,"journal":{"name":"The Idea of Civilization and the Making of the Global Order","volume":"126 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-11-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"116345813","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This chapter explains Elias’s pioneering analysis of the European civilizing process – the process in which they came to regard themselves as uniquely civilized. It discusses his examination of how state formation, internal pacification, and rising interdependencies were linked with the development of new standards of propriety and new expectations of self-restraint. Changing attitudes to violence were integral parts of the overall direction of change. Civilized people came to regard judicial torture and capital punishment as antithetical to their refined ways of life. Changing manners were related developments. Those movements influenced European attitudes to non-European peoples. They underpinned the belief that colonialism was necessary to spread civilization. Elias did not argue that the process of civilization was evidence of human progress. The chapter discusses his analysis of decivilizing processes in Nazi Germany and the argument that sociological inquiry should seek to explain the shifting balances of power between civilizing and decivilizing processes in human figurations.
{"title":"Elias’s Explanation of the European Civilizing Process","authors":"A. Linklater","doi":"10.2307/j.ctv19cwb5m.6","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv19cwb5m.6","url":null,"abstract":"This chapter explains Elias’s pioneering analysis of the European civilizing process – the process in which they came to regard themselves as uniquely civilized. It discusses his examination of how state formation, internal pacification, and rising interdependencies were linked with the development of new standards of propriety and new expectations of self-restraint. Changing attitudes to violence were integral parts of the overall direction of change. Civilized people came to regard judicial torture and capital punishment as antithetical to their refined ways of life. Changing manners were related developments. Those movements influenced European attitudes to non-European peoples. They underpinned the belief that colonialism was necessary to spread civilization. Elias did not argue that the process of civilization was evidence of human progress. The chapter discusses his analysis of decivilizing processes in Nazi Germany and the argument that sociological inquiry should seek to explain the shifting balances of power between civilizing and decivilizing processes in human\u0000figurations.","PeriodicalId":383914,"journal":{"name":"The Idea of Civilization and the Making of the Global Order","volume":"15 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-11-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"127704682","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This chapter explains how civilized standards were globalized as a result of the mimetic behaviour of non-European regimes. Top- down civilizing offensives in China, Japan, Siam, Russia and the Ottoman empire/Turkish Republic are examined to explore dominant patterns of change in the global order. Modernizing regimes set out to reform state structures in the light of European conceptions of civilization. They altered traditional diplomatic mores in order to comply with European conventions. Some engaged in mimetic colonialism to demonstrate their civilized credentials and to press claims to be admitted into international society as equal sovereign powers. The overall pattern of change illustrates Elias’s thesis about how established groups seek to persuade outsiders to internalise feelings of inferiority and to modify behaviour accordingly. As Elias recognised, European notions of civilization spread outward to non-European elites but new social arrangements appeared in the process. The chapter discusses the development of novel combinations of nation and civilization that laid the foundation for challenges to the European global order which accelerated from the middle of the twentieth century.
{"title":"Civilization, Diplomacy and the Enlargement of International Society","authors":"A. Linklater","doi":"10.2307/j.ctv19cwb5m.9","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv19cwb5m.9","url":null,"abstract":"This chapter explains how civilized standards were globalized as a result of the mimetic behaviour of non-European regimes. Top- down civilizing offensives in China, Japan, Siam, Russia and the Ottoman empire/Turkish Republic are examined to explore dominant patterns of change in the global order. Modernizing regimes set out to reform state structures in the light of European conceptions of civilization. They altered traditional diplomatic mores in order to comply with European conventions. Some engaged in mimetic colonialism to demonstrate their civilized credentials and to press claims to be admitted into international society as equal sovereign powers. The overall pattern of change illustrates Elias’s thesis about how established groups seek to persuade outsiders to internalise feelings of inferiority and to modify behaviour accordingly. As Elias recognised, European notions of civilization spread outward to non-European elites but new social arrangements appeared in the process. The chapter discusses the development of novel combinations of nation and civilization that laid the foundation for challenges to the European global order which accelerated from the middle of the twentieth century.","PeriodicalId":383914,"journal":{"name":"The Idea of Civilization and the Making of the Global Order","volume":"18 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-11-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"130795682","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This chapter discusses the revival of discourses of civilization and barbarism in the recent period, specifically in connection with the 'war on 'terror' and the torture debate. It emphasizes continuities between colonial and contemporary perspectives. Drawing on process sociology, it argues that the idea of civilization has been a central part of struggles to shape the way in which people orientate themselves to the social world. Participants in such struggles use the idea of civilization to justify using force against savage enemies but also to constrain violence in those relations. The chapter argues that the torture debate illustrates Elias’s observations about the peculiar entanglements of civilized peoples. It is essential to consider those entanglements and the discourse of civilization that was used in the 'war on terror' in long-term perspective – as aspects of the process of civilization which Elias set out to explain.
{"title":"The Return of Discourses of Civilization and Barbarism","authors":"A. Linklater","doi":"10.2307/j.ctv19cwb5m.5","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv19cwb5m.5","url":null,"abstract":"This chapter discusses the revival of discourses of civilization and barbarism in the recent period, specifically in connection with the 'war on 'terror' and the torture debate. It emphasizes continuities between colonial and contemporary perspectives. Drawing on process sociology, it argues that the idea of civilization has been a central part of struggles to shape the way in which people orientate themselves to the social world. Participants in such struggles use the idea of civilization to justify using force against savage enemies but also to constrain violence in those relations. The chapter argues that the torture debate illustrates Elias’s observations about the peculiar entanglements of civilized peoples. It is essential to consider those entanglements and the discourse of civilization that was used in the 'war on terror' in long-term perspective – as aspects of the process of civilization which Elias set out to explain.","PeriodicalId":383914,"journal":{"name":"The Idea of Civilization and the Making of the Global Order","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-11-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"130715344","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Preface and Acknowledgements","authors":"","doi":"10.2307/j.ctv19cwb5m.3","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv19cwb5m.3","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":383914,"journal":{"name":"The Idea of Civilization and the Making of the Global Order","volume":"73 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-11-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"129311204","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-11-18DOI: 10.1332/POLICYPRESS/9781529213874.003.0001
A. Linklater
The introduction notes that the concept of civilization first rose to prominence in the late eighteenth century French court society and then spread outward to non-European elites and downward to the rest of society. The idea became central to European self- understandings and to the sense of differentiation from the rest of the world. The dominant notions of civilization shaped the global order through colonial offensives to transform supposedly backward societies. Analyses of the civilizational dimensions of the global order have largely ignored Elias’s explanation of the European civilizing process. The introduction explains its contribution to the classical sociological tradition and discusses its relationship with postcolonial investigations and English School studies of international society. Core elements of the method of Eliasian process sociology are explained including the connection between detached social inquiry and the secular humanism that underpinned Elias’s analysis of human societies and their inter-relations.
{"title":"Introduction: A Process-Sociological Approach to Understanding Civilization","authors":"A. Linklater","doi":"10.1332/POLICYPRESS/9781529213874.003.0001","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1332/POLICYPRESS/9781529213874.003.0001","url":null,"abstract":"The introduction notes that the concept of civilization first rose to prominence in the late eighteenth century French court society and then spread outward to non-European elites and downward to the rest of society. The idea became central to European self- understandings and to the sense of differentiation from the rest of the world. The dominant notions of civilization shaped the global order through colonial offensives to transform supposedly backward societies. Analyses of the civilizational dimensions of the global order have largely ignored Elias’s explanation of the European civilizing process. The introduction explains its contribution to the classical sociological tradition and discusses its relationship with postcolonial investigations and English School studies of international society. Core elements of the method of Eliasian process sociology are explained including the connection between detached social inquiry and the secular humanism that underpinned Elias’s analysis of human societies and their inter-relations.","PeriodicalId":383914,"journal":{"name":"The Idea of Civilization and the Making of the Global Order","volume":"216 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-11-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"134117513","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This chapter discusses Elias’s investigation of civilizing processes that have affected humanity as a whole and analyses his criteria for assessing the relative power of civilizing and decivilizing trends. Four criteria are considered – whether controls on violence are increasing or in decline; whether there are significant changes in the rely power of internal and external constraints on conduct; whether emotional identification between peoples is widening or contracting; and whether support for international planning to protect the vulnerable from the problems stemming from global interconnections is on the rise or is weakening. Those yardsticks inform the discussion of Huntington’s idea of a clash of civilizations and English School descriptions of the civilizing potential of international society. The chapter ends with reflections on the importance of shared symbols for a global civilizing process. It considers the complex relations between national-populist movements, images of future global ecological civilizing processes and the political challenges of the Covid-19 health and economic crisis.
{"title":"Civilizing Processes at the Level of Humanity as a Whole","authors":"A. Linklater","doi":"10.2307/j.ctv19cwb5m.11","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv19cwb5m.11","url":null,"abstract":"This chapter discusses Elias’s investigation of civilizing processes that have affected humanity as a whole and analyses his criteria for assessing the relative power of civilizing and decivilizing trends. Four criteria are considered – whether controls on violence are increasing or in decline; whether there are significant changes in the rely power of internal and external constraints on conduct; whether emotional identification between peoples is widening or contracting; and whether support for international planning to protect the vulnerable from the problems stemming from global interconnections is on the rise or is weakening. Those yardsticks inform the discussion of Huntington’s idea of a clash of civilizations and English School descriptions of the civilizing potential of international society. The chapter ends with reflections on the importance of shared symbols for a global civilizing process. It considers the complex relations between national-populist movements, images of future global ecological civilizing processes and the political challenges of the Covid-19 health and economic crisis.","PeriodicalId":383914,"journal":{"name":"The Idea of Civilization and the Making of the Global Order","volume":"77 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-11-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"134118097","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Index","authors":"","doi":"10.2307/j.ctv19cwb5m.15","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv19cwb5m.15","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":383914,"journal":{"name":"The Idea of Civilization and the Making of the Global Order","volume":"15 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-11-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"128900563","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Back Matter","authors":"","doi":"10.2307/j.ctv19cwb5m.16","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv19cwb5m.16","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":383914,"journal":{"name":"The Idea of Civilization and the Making of the Global Order","volume":"29 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-11-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"121785622","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}