Pub Date : 2020-11-26DOI: 10.1177/0735275120968256
Tad Skotnicki
With the aid of Hannah Arendt’s distinction between authentic and inauthentic semblances, this article reconstructs Karl Marx’s notion of commodity fetishism as a phenomenological concept. It reveals two distinct interpretive moments in the fetish: the interpretation of goods as anonymous in exchange and the interpretation of commodity-exchange as natural. As authentic semblances, interpretations in commodity-exchange cannot be “seen through” or corrected with a shift in perspective; in contrast, as inauthentic semblances, interpretations of commodity-exchange can be corrected with such a shift. This reconsideration of commodity fetishism suggests phenomenology and interpretive analysis should contribute to an analysis of region and globe-defining social systems.
{"title":"Commodity Fetishism as Semblance","authors":"Tad Skotnicki","doi":"10.1177/0735275120968256","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/0735275120968256","url":null,"abstract":"With the aid of Hannah Arendt’s distinction between authentic and inauthentic semblances, this article reconstructs Karl Marx’s notion of commodity fetishism as a phenomenological concept. It reveals two distinct interpretive moments in the fetish: the interpretation of goods as anonymous in exchange and the interpretation of commodity-exchange as natural. As authentic semblances, interpretations in commodity-exchange cannot be “seen through” or corrected with a shift in perspective; in contrast, as inauthentic semblances, interpretations of commodity-exchange can be corrected with such a shift. This reconsideration of commodity fetishism suggests phenomenology and interpretive analysis should contribute to an analysis of region and globe-defining social systems.","PeriodicalId":48131,"journal":{"name":"Sociological Theory","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":4.4,"publicationDate":"2020-11-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1177/0735275120968256","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43568581","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-11-26DOI: 10.1177/0735275120973248
Ryan S. D. Calder
In Islam, the extension of religious regulation and certification to new product types and economic sectors—“halalization”—has become widespread. There are now Islamic mortgages, halal ports, halal refrigerators, halal blockchain, and shariah-compliant cryptocurrencies. Yet classical secularization theory says religious authority cannot regulate modern economic activity. So what explains halalization? I point to an elective affinity between fiqh (Islamic jurisprudence) and twenty-first-century markets. Contemporary fiqh offers widely respected religious jurists who issue fatwas certifying products. Entrepreneurs empanel the jurists on certification boards, allowing fiqh to function as a regime of voluntary regulation layered atop secular state law instead of conflicting with it. Indeed, secular liberal markets provide ideal conditions for halalization and religious meaning-making through consumption. Case studies of Islamic finance and halal logistics show how entrepreneurs assuage consumers’ religious anxieties—and generate new ones—in the context of globalization and liberalization in secular markets.
{"title":"Halalization: Religious Product Certification in Secular Markets","authors":"Ryan S. D. Calder","doi":"10.1177/0735275120973248","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/0735275120973248","url":null,"abstract":"In Islam, the extension of religious regulation and certification to new product types and economic sectors—“halalization”—has become widespread. There are now Islamic mortgages, halal ports, halal refrigerators, halal blockchain, and shariah-compliant cryptocurrencies. Yet classical secularization theory says religious authority cannot regulate modern economic activity. So what explains halalization? I point to an elective affinity between fiqh (Islamic jurisprudence) and twenty-first-century markets. Contemporary fiqh offers widely respected religious jurists who issue fatwas certifying products. Entrepreneurs empanel the jurists on certification boards, allowing fiqh to function as a regime of voluntary regulation layered atop secular state law instead of conflicting with it. Indeed, secular liberal markets provide ideal conditions for halalization and religious meaning-making through consumption. Case studies of Islamic finance and halal logistics show how entrepreneurs assuage consumers’ religious anxieties—and generate new ones—in the context of globalization and liberalization in secular markets.","PeriodicalId":48131,"journal":{"name":"Sociological Theory","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":4.4,"publicationDate":"2020-11-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1177/0735275120973248","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45786289","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-10-09DOI: 10.1177/0735275120960792
Yuchen Yang
Raewyn Connell’s theoretical concept of hegemonic masculinity has been profoundly influential in feminist sociology. Despite the rich literature inspired by her theory, conceptual ambiguities have compromised its full potential. In this article, I critique a pessimistic tendency in the interpretation and application of hegemonic masculinity, which focuses on its regressive role in reproducing/legitimating heteronormative patriarchy while overlooking its progressive potential. I propose that revisiting Antonio Gramsci’s theorization of hegemony can help us understand hegemonic masculinity by its mechanism of domination—force accompanied by consent—rather than via certain pregiven masculine qualities. This reformulation of hegemonic masculinity not only pushes us to maintain a relational understanding of masculinities in empirical research, but also brings attention to Connell’s vision for social change.
{"title":"What’s Hegemonic about Hegemonic Masculinity? Legitimation and Beyond","authors":"Yuchen Yang","doi":"10.1177/0735275120960792","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/0735275120960792","url":null,"abstract":"Raewyn Connell’s theoretical concept of hegemonic masculinity has been profoundly influential in feminist sociology. Despite the rich literature inspired by her theory, conceptual ambiguities have compromised its full potential. In this article, I critique a pessimistic tendency in the interpretation and application of hegemonic masculinity, which focuses on its regressive role in reproducing/legitimating heteronormative patriarchy while overlooking its progressive potential. I propose that revisiting Antonio Gramsci’s theorization of hegemony can help us understand hegemonic masculinity by its mechanism of domination—force accompanied by consent—rather than via certain pregiven masculine qualities. This reformulation of hegemonic masculinity not only pushes us to maintain a relational understanding of masculinities in empirical research, but also brings attention to Connell’s vision for social change.","PeriodicalId":48131,"journal":{"name":"Sociological Theory","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":4.4,"publicationDate":"2020-10-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1177/0735275120960792","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43276781","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-10-09DOI: 10.1177/0735275120961414
S. Timmermans, Iddo Tavory
Complementing discourse-analytic approaches, we develop C. S. Peirce’s semiotic theory to analyze how racism is enacted and countered in everyday interactions. We examine how the semiotic structure of racist encounters depends on acts of signification that can be deflected and that take shape in the ways actors negotiate interactions in situ. After outlining the semiotic apparatus Peirce pioneered, we trace the dynamic processes of generalization and specification in recorded racist encounters as specific forms of semiotic upshifting and downshifting. We demonstrate how attending to racist encounters and engaging the sociology of race sharpen key assumptions that pragmatist semiotics makes about the structure of signification, as it forces one to examine the interplay of marked and unmarked categories and identities in interaction, and to take the differential power to signify into account in shaping the potential effects of semiotic strategies.
{"title":"Racist Encounters: A Pragmatist Semiotic Analysis of Interaction","authors":"S. Timmermans, Iddo Tavory","doi":"10.1177/0735275120961414","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/0735275120961414","url":null,"abstract":"Complementing discourse-analytic approaches, we develop C. S. Peirce’s semiotic theory to analyze how racism is enacted and countered in everyday interactions. We examine how the semiotic structure of racist encounters depends on acts of signification that can be deflected and that take shape in the ways actors negotiate interactions in situ. After outlining the semiotic apparatus Peirce pioneered, we trace the dynamic processes of generalization and specification in recorded racist encounters as specific forms of semiotic upshifting and downshifting. We demonstrate how attending to racist encounters and engaging the sociology of race sharpen key assumptions that pragmatist semiotics makes about the structure of signification, as it forces one to examine the interplay of marked and unmarked categories and identities in interaction, and to take the differential power to signify into account in shaping the potential effects of semiotic strategies.","PeriodicalId":48131,"journal":{"name":"Sociological Theory","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":4.4,"publicationDate":"2020-10-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1177/0735275120961414","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46019336","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-09-01DOI: 10.1177/0735275120946085
M. Verweij, P. Alexandrova, Henrik Jacobsen, P. Béziat, Diana M. Branduse, Yonca Dege, J. Hensing, James Hollway, Lea Kliem, Gabriela Ponce, Inga Reichelt, Mareile Wiegmann
Recently, neuroscientists have argued that elementary ways of organizing, perceiving, and justifying social relations lurk behind the diversity of social life. In developing grid-group typology, anthropologist Mary Douglas proposed such universal forms. If these are universal, then we could expect other widely cited classifications to overlap with grid-group typology. We tested this expectation by examining to which extent the elements of Douglas’s typology overlap with those of 39 highly influential classifications proposed since 1970. We established overlap by calculating the interrater agreement among 11 coders. Fair to good interrater agreement, despite a complex coding exercise and minimal training, suggests that such overlap exists. Nevertheless, limits to our research design call for further studies. These findings should contribute to a rekindling of the question whether universal forms of organizing and perceiving social relations exist and to a further consideration of whether Douglas has managed to uncover these.
{"title":"Four Galore? The Overlap between Mary Douglas’s Grid-Group Typology and Other Highly Cited Social Science Classifications","authors":"M. Verweij, P. Alexandrova, Henrik Jacobsen, P. Béziat, Diana M. Branduse, Yonca Dege, J. Hensing, James Hollway, Lea Kliem, Gabriela Ponce, Inga Reichelt, Mareile Wiegmann","doi":"10.1177/0735275120946085","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/0735275120946085","url":null,"abstract":"Recently, neuroscientists have argued that elementary ways of organizing, perceiving, and justifying social relations lurk behind the diversity of social life. In developing grid-group typology, anthropologist Mary Douglas proposed such universal forms. If these are universal, then we could expect other widely cited classifications to overlap with grid-group typology. We tested this expectation by examining to which extent the elements of Douglas’s typology overlap with those of 39 highly influential classifications proposed since 1970. We established overlap by calculating the interrater agreement among 11 coders. Fair to good interrater agreement, despite a complex coding exercise and minimal training, suggests that such overlap exists. Nevertheless, limits to our research design call for further studies. These findings should contribute to a rekindling of the question whether universal forms of organizing and perceiving social relations exist and to a further consideration of whether Douglas has managed to uncover these.","PeriodicalId":48131,"journal":{"name":"Sociological Theory","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":4.4,"publicationDate":"2020-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1177/0735275120946085","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45031250","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-09-01DOI: 10.1177/0735275120941176
Alison J. Bianchi, Robert Shelly
Do the ties that bind also create social inequality? Using an expectation states theoretical framework, we elaborate status characteristics and behavior-status theories to explore how sentiments, network connections based on liking and disliking, may affect processes entailing status, the prestige based on one’s differentially valued social distinctions. Within task groups, we theorize that positive and negative sentiments may themselves be status elements capable of evoking performance expectations within dyadic configurations typically modeled by expectation states theorists. Having a reputation for being liked or disliked “imported” into the group may enact status generalization. Alternatively, a status element based on sentiments may emerge during task group interaction as group members ascertain if alters are liked or disliked. Finally, we conclude by discussing how our theorizing motivates future theories and empirical studies.
{"title":"Sentiments as Status Processes? A Theoretical Reformulation from the Expectation States Tradition","authors":"Alison J. Bianchi, Robert Shelly","doi":"10.1177/0735275120941176","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/0735275120941176","url":null,"abstract":"Do the ties that bind also create social inequality? Using an expectation states theoretical framework, we elaborate status characteristics and behavior-status theories to explore how sentiments, network connections based on liking and disliking, may affect processes entailing status, the prestige based on one’s differentially valued social distinctions. Within task groups, we theorize that positive and negative sentiments may themselves be status elements capable of evoking performance expectations within dyadic configurations typically modeled by expectation states theorists. Having a reputation for being liked or disliked “imported” into the group may enact status generalization. Alternatively, a status element based on sentiments may emerge during task group interaction as group members ascertain if alters are liked or disliked. Finally, we conclude by discussing how our theorizing motivates future theories and empirical studies.","PeriodicalId":48131,"journal":{"name":"Sociological Theory","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":4.4,"publicationDate":"2020-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1177/0735275120941176","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42572036","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-08-28DOI: 10.1177/0735275120947133
Paul R. Lichterman, Kushan Dasgupta
Conceptual approaches to claimsmaking often feature the overarching symbolic templates of political culture or else the strategic actor of the social movement framing approach. Both approaches have value, but neither shows adequately how cultural context influences claimsmaking in everyday situations. To better understand cultural context and situated claimsmaking together, we retheorize the concept of discursive field, showing how such a field is sustained through interaction. Claimsmakers craft claims from basic symbolic categories, in line with the appropriate style for a scene of interaction. Scene style induces external and internal boundaries to a discursive field, making some claims illegitimate and others inappropriate or else subordinate in a given scene. Conceptualizing how culture works in a discursive field helps us better understand what claimsmakers can say, how, and where. We illustrate the theoretical reconstruction with an ethnographic and archival study of different settings of a housing advocacy campaign.
{"title":"From Culture to Claimsmaking","authors":"Paul R. Lichterman, Kushan Dasgupta","doi":"10.1177/0735275120947133","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/0735275120947133","url":null,"abstract":"Conceptual approaches to claimsmaking often feature the overarching symbolic templates of political culture or else the strategic actor of the social movement framing approach. Both approaches have value, but neither shows adequately how cultural context influences claimsmaking in everyday situations. To better understand cultural context and situated claimsmaking together, we retheorize the concept of discursive field, showing how such a field is sustained through interaction. Claimsmakers craft claims from basic symbolic categories, in line with the appropriate style for a scene of interaction. Scene style induces external and internal boundaries to a discursive field, making some claims illegitimate and others inappropriate or else subordinate in a given scene. Conceptualizing how culture works in a discursive field helps us better understand what claimsmakers can say, how, and where. We illustrate the theoretical reconstruction with an ethnographic and archival study of different settings of a housing advocacy campaign.","PeriodicalId":48131,"journal":{"name":"Sociological Theory","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":4.4,"publicationDate":"2020-08-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1177/0735275120947133","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49349405","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-08-19DOI: 10.1177/0735275120941178
Michael Sauder
Sociology has been curiously silent about the concept of luck. The present article argues that this omission is, in fact, an oversight: An explicit and systematic engagement with luck provides a more accurate portrayal of the social world, opens potentially rich veins of empirical and theoretical inquiry, and offers a compelling alternative for challenging dominant meritocratic frames about inequality and the distribution of rewards. This article develops a framework for studying luck, first by proposing a working definition of luck, examining why sociology has ignored luck in the past, and making the case for the value of including luck in sociology’s conceptual repertoire. The article then demonstrates the fertile research potential of studying luck by identifying a host of research questions and hypotheses pertaining to the social construction of luck, the real effects of luck, and theoretical interventions related to luck. It concludes by highlighting the distinctive contributions sociology can make to the growing interdisciplinary interest in this topic.
{"title":"A Sociology of Luck","authors":"Michael Sauder","doi":"10.1177/0735275120941178","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/0735275120941178","url":null,"abstract":"Sociology has been curiously silent about the concept of luck. The present article argues that this omission is, in fact, an oversight: An explicit and systematic engagement with luck provides a more accurate portrayal of the social world, opens potentially rich veins of empirical and theoretical inquiry, and offers a compelling alternative for challenging dominant meritocratic frames about inequality and the distribution of rewards. This article develops a framework for studying luck, first by proposing a working definition of luck, examining why sociology has ignored luck in the past, and making the case for the value of including luck in sociology’s conceptual repertoire. The article then demonstrates the fertile research potential of studying luck by identifying a host of research questions and hypotheses pertaining to the social construction of luck, the real effects of luck, and theoretical interventions related to luck. It concludes by highlighting the distinctive contributions sociology can make to the growing interdisciplinary interest in this topic.","PeriodicalId":48131,"journal":{"name":"Sociological Theory","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":4.4,"publicationDate":"2020-08-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1177/0735275120941178","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49518933","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-06-01DOI: 10.1177/0735275120926222
Arthur McLuhan
The “cloak of competence” concept captures attempts to disguise limitations and exaggerate abilities. The author examines the conceptual converse: the “cloak of incompetence,” or the various ways people deliberately disregard, disguise, downplay, or diminish their personal abilities. Drawing on a comparative analysis of manifold empirical cases, the author identifies three generic competence-concealing techniques—avoidance, performance, and neutralization—and considers some of the interactional contingencies that can enhance or reduce their effectiveness. Avoidance and performance techniques are used to manage creditable competence. Neutralization techniques are used to manage credited competence. Each strategy obstructs the appearance and attribution of competence in a particular way: avoidance techniques prevent the dramatic realization of competence, performance techniques dramatically realize incompetence, and neutralization techniques discount, downplay, distance, or otherwise explain away evident but undesirable competent performances. The author concludes by discussing some implications for sociologies of persons, culture, and structure.
{"title":"Adopting a Cloak of Incompetence: Impression Management Techniques for Feigning Lesser Selves","authors":"Arthur McLuhan","doi":"10.1177/0735275120926222","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/0735275120926222","url":null,"abstract":"The “cloak of competence” concept captures attempts to disguise limitations and exaggerate abilities. The author examines the conceptual converse: the “cloak of incompetence,” or the various ways people deliberately disregard, disguise, downplay, or diminish their personal abilities. Drawing on a comparative analysis of manifold empirical cases, the author identifies three generic competence-concealing techniques—avoidance, performance, and neutralization—and considers some of the interactional contingencies that can enhance or reduce their effectiveness. Avoidance and performance techniques are used to manage creditable competence. Neutralization techniques are used to manage credited competence. Each strategy obstructs the appearance and attribution of competence in a particular way: avoidance techniques prevent the dramatic realization of competence, performance techniques dramatically realize incompetence, and neutralization techniques discount, downplay, distance, or otherwise explain away evident but undesirable competent performances. The author concludes by discussing some implications for sociologies of persons, culture, and structure.","PeriodicalId":48131,"journal":{"name":"Sociological Theory","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":4.4,"publicationDate":"2020-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1177/0735275120926222","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41522393","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-06-01DOI: 10.1177/0735275120926205
Evan Stewart, Douglas Hartmann
Set against the background of mid-twentieth-century institutional changes analyzed by Jürgen Habermas, we provide an account of new social conditions that compose “the public sphere” in the contemporary United States. First, we review recent developments in theorizing the public sphere, arguing they benefit from renewed attention to institutional changes in how that sphere operates. Second, we identify and summarize three lines of recent sociological research that document a new structural transformation of the contemporary public sphere: (1) civic communication through new media; (2) the professionalization of social movements; and (3) new, hybrid institutions such as think tanks, nonprofit foundations, and other public-private partnerships. Third, we argue that these new formations define a uniquely autonomous, interstitial social field. We conclude by discussing the implications of this synthesis for sociological theories of public life, arguing it can inform more effective study of the social infrastructure of democratic practice.
{"title":"The New Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere","authors":"Evan Stewart, Douglas Hartmann","doi":"10.1177/0735275120926205","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/0735275120926205","url":null,"abstract":"Set against the background of mid-twentieth-century institutional changes analyzed by Jürgen Habermas, we provide an account of new social conditions that compose “the public sphere” in the contemporary United States. First, we review recent developments in theorizing the public sphere, arguing they benefit from renewed attention to institutional changes in how that sphere operates. Second, we identify and summarize three lines of recent sociological research that document a new structural transformation of the contemporary public sphere: (1) civic communication through new media; (2) the professionalization of social movements; and (3) new, hybrid institutions such as think tanks, nonprofit foundations, and other public-private partnerships. Third, we argue that these new formations define a uniquely autonomous, interstitial social field. We conclude by discussing the implications of this synthesis for sociological theories of public life, arguing it can inform more effective study of the social infrastructure of democratic practice.","PeriodicalId":48131,"journal":{"name":"Sociological Theory","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":4.4,"publicationDate":"2020-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1177/0735275120926205","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47883115","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}