Civil Society and Political Theory

904 Pages·1994·2.89 MB·English

by  Jean L. Cohen

Page i

Civil Society and Political Theory
Page ii

Studies in Contemporary German Social Thought (partial list) Thomas
McCarthy, General Editor

Theodor W. Adorno, Prisms
Seyla Benhabib and Fred Dallmayr, editors, The Communicative Ethics Controversy
Richard J. Bernstein, editor, Habermas and Modernity
Ernst Bloch, Natural Law and Human Dignity
Ernst Bloch, The Principle of Hope
Ernst Bloch, The Utopian Function of Art and Literature: Selected Essays
Hans Blumenberg, The Genesis of the Copernican World
Hans Blumenberg, The Legitimacy of the Modern Age
Hans Blumenberg, Work on Myth
Susan Buck-Morss, The Dialectics of Seeing: Walter Benjamin and the Arcades Project Craig
Calhoun, editor, Habermas and the Public Sphere
Jean Cohen and Andrew Arato, Civil Society and Political Theory
Helmut Dubiel, Theory and Politics: Studies in the Development of Critical Theory
John Forester, editor, Critical Theory and Public Life
David Frisby, Fragments of Modernity: Theories of Modernity in the Work of Simmel, Kracauer and
Benjamin
Jürgen Habermas, On the Logic of the Social Sciences
Jürgen Habermas, Moral Consciousness and Communicative Action
Jürgen Habermas, The New Conservatism: Cultural Criticism and the Historians' Debate
Jürgen Habermas, The Philosophical Discourse of Modernity: Twelve Lectures
Jürgen Habermas, Philosophical-Political Profiles
Jürgen Habermas, Postmetaphysical Thinking: Philosophical Essays
Jürgen Habermas, The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere: An Inquiry into a Category
of Bourgeois Society
Axel Honneth, The Critique of Power: Reflective Stages in a Critical Social Theory
Axel Honneth and Hans Joas, editors, Communicative Action: Essays on Jürgen Habermas's The
Theory of Communicative Action Reinhart Koselleck, Critique and Crisis: Enlightenment and the
Pathogenesis of Modern Society
Reinhart Koselleck, Futures Past: On the Semantics of Historical Time
Harry Liebersohn, Fate and Utopia in German Sociology,1887–1923
Guy Oakes, Weber and Rickert: Concept Formation in the Cultural Sciences
Claus Offe, Contradictions of the Welfare State
Claus Offe, Disorganized Capitalism: Contemporary Transformations of Work and Politics
Joachim Ritter, Hegel and the French Revolution: Essays on the Philosophy of Right Alfred
Schmidt, History and Structure: An Essay on Hegelian-Marxist and Structuralist Theories of History
Dennis Schmidt, The Ubiquity of the Finite: Hegel, Heidegger, and the Entitlements of Philosophy
Carl Schmitt, The Crisis of Parliamentary Democracy
Carl Schmitt, Political Romanticism
Carl Schmitt, Political Theology: Four Chapters on the Concept of Sovereignty
Gary Smith, editor, On Walter Benjamin: Critical Essays and Recollections
Michael Theunissen, The Other: Studies in the Social Ontology of Husserl, Heidegger, Sartre, and
Buber
Ernst Tugendhat, Self-Consciousness and Self-Determination
Mark Warren, Nietzsche and Political Thought
Albrecht Wellmer, The Persistence of Modernity: Essays on Aesthetics, Ethics and Postmodernism
Thomas E. Wren, editor, The Moral Domain: Essays in the Ongoing Discussion between Philosophy
and the Social Sciences
Lambert Zuidervaart, Adorno's Aesthetic Theory: The Redemption of Illusion
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Civil Society and Political Theory

Jean L. Cohen and Andrew Arato

The MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, and London, England
Page iv

To Julian and Rachel

Fourth printing,1997
First MIT Press paperback edition,1994
©1992 Massachusetts Institute of Technology
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or
mechanical means (including information storage and retrieval) without permission in writing
from the publisher.

This book was set in New Baskerville at MIT Press and was printed and bound in the United States
of America.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Cohen, Jean L.
Civil society and political theory / Jean L. Cohen and Andrew Arato p. cm. — (Studies in
contemporary German social thought) Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-262-03177-9 (H), 0-262-53121-6 (P)
1. Civil society.2. Civil society—History. I. Arato, Andrew. II. Title. III. Series.
JC336.C65 1990
306.2—dc20 90-46723
CIP
Page v
CONTENTS
Preface Acknowledgments Introduction 1xixvii
I
The Discourse of Civil Society
1 29
The Contemporary Revival of Civil Society

2 83
Conceptual History and Theoretical Synthesis
3 117
Theoretical Development in the Twentieth Century
II
The Discontents of Civil Society
4 177
The Normative Critique: Hannah Arendt

5 201
The Historicist Critique: Carl Schmitt, Reinhart Koselleck, and Jürgen
Habermas
6 255
The Genealogical Critique: Michel Foucault

7 299
The Systems-Theoretic Critique: Niklas Luhmann
III
The Reconstruction of Civil Society
8 345
Discourse Ethics and Civil Society
9 421
Social Theory and Civil Society

10 492
Social Movements and Civil Society

11 564
Civil Disobedience and Civil Society
Notes 605

Index 745
DETAILED CONTENTS
PREFACE
The Structure of This Book
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
INTRODUCTION
Debates in Contemporary Political Theory
Elite Vs. Participatory Democracy
Rights-Oriented Liberalism Vs. Communitarianism
The Defense of Welfare State Vs. Neoconservative Antistatism
Revival of the Concept of Civil Society
Civil Society and Contemporary Political Theory
I. THE DISCOURSE OF CIVIL SOCIETY
1. The Contemporary Revival of Civil Society
The Polish Democratic Opposition
The Ideology of the "Second Left" in France
A Theory for the West German Greens
Civil Society in the Transition from Latin American Dictatorships
Revisiting Eastern Europe in the Late 1980s
Some Comparisons and Some Problems
2. Conceptual History and Theoretical Synthesis
A Sketch of Early Modern Conceptual History
Hegel's Synthesis
Integration through the State
Social Integration Through Civil Society
3. Theoretical Development in the Twentieth Century
Parsons: Civil Society between Tradition and Modernity
Gramsci and the Idea of Socialist Civil Society
Excursus on Gramsci's Successors: Althusser, Anderson, and Bobbio
II. THE DISCONTENTS OF CIVIL SOCIETY
4. The Normative Critique: Hannah Arendt
5. The Historicist Critique: Carl Schmitt, Reinhart Koselleck, and Jürgen Habermas
The Origins of the Liberal Public Sphere: Carl Schmitt and Reinhart Koselleck
From a Literary to a Political Public Sphere: Jürgen Habermas
The Fusion of Civil Society and State: Carl Schmitt
The Fusion Argument in Habermas's Strukturwandel
6. The Genealogical Critique: Michel Foucault
Marx, Generalized
The Genealogy of Modern Civil Society
The Philosophical and Normative Ambiguities of Genealogy
The Genealogical Account of Modernization
The Negativity of Civil Society and the Loss of the Social
7. The SystemsTheoretic Critique: Niklas Luhmann
III. THE RECONSTRUCTION OF CIVIL SOCIETY
8. Discourse Ethics and Civil Society
The Object Domain of Discourse Ethics
The Charge of Authoritarianism
Discourse Ethics and the Good Life
Excessive Formalism
Universality?
Motivation
An Institutional Deficit?
Discourse Ethics and Civil Society
9. Social Theory and Civil Society
Reconstructing Civil Society
Civil Society, Lifeworld, and the Differentiation of Society
Beyond Traditional Civil Society
The Negative Dimensions of Civil Society
The Utopia of Civil Society
The Institutional Two-Dimensionality of Existing Civil Society
The Politics of Civil Society
Critique of the Welfare State
Reflexive Continuation of the Welfare State and Liberal Democracy
Defense of the Lifeworld
Dualistic Solutions?
The Return of Mediations
Reflexive Law and Postregulatory Regulation
Another Glance to the East
10. Social Movements and Civil Society
New Theoretical Paradigms and Contemporary Social Movements
The ResourceMobilization Paradigm
The New Social Movements Paradigm
Dualistic Social Theory and Contemporary Social Movements
A Feminist Critique of Dualistic Social Theory
Dual Politics: The Example of the Feminist Movement
Civil Society and Dual Politics: A Theoretical Summary