Breaching the Civil Order

Jeffrey C. Alexander is the Lillian Chavenson Saden Professor of Sociology at Yale University, Connecticut. His writings over the last three decades have been foundational to the new discipline of cultural sociology, and his seminal work The Civil Sphere (2006) has come to be regarded as the major sociological theory of democracy. He founded and co-directs the Yale Center for Cultural Sociology. He has authored and edited more than fifty books, and his work has been translated in almost thirty languages. Trevor Stack is Senior Lecturer in Spanish and Latin American Studies at the University of Aberdeen. He is Director of the inter-disciplinary Centre for Citizenship, Civil Society and Rule of Law (CISRUL), which focuses on the study of political concepts in the world. Currently he leads a large (Economic and Social Research Council) ESRC project on Activism in Violent Regions, as well as an EU Marie Curie COFUND grant on Political Concepts in the World. Farhad Khosrokhavar is retired professor at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, Paris and a director of Observatoire de la radicalisation in the Fondation de la Maison des Sciences de l'Homme, Paris. He has published twenty-seven books, five of which are in English; his work has been translated into ten languages.

• Introduction Jeffrey C. Alexander and Trevor Stack; 1. Wedging open established civil spheres: a comparative approach to their emancipatory potential Trevor Stack; 2. Radical protest in a university campus: performances of civil transition in Colombia Carlo Tognato; 3. Antiracism movements and the US civil sphere: the case of Black Lives Matter Stephen F. Ostertag; 4. The civil sphere and its variants in light of the Arab revolutions and jihadism in Europe Farhad Khosrokhavar; 5. Restaging a vital center within radicalized civil societies: the media, performativity, and the Charlie Hebdo attack María Luengo and Karoline Andrea Ihlebæk; 6. Anti-immigrant movements and the self-poisoning of the civil sphere: the case of Germany Volker M. Heins and Christine Unrau; 7. The civil sphere and the Irish Republican movement, 1970–1998 Anne Kane; 8. 'We all came together that day': the 2011 English riots as an enactment of solidarity Yasushi Tanaka-Gutiez; 9. Disobedience in civil regeneration: radical transformations in the civil sphere Maeve Cooke; Commentary Liv Egholm; Conclusion Peter Kivisto and Giuseppe Sciortino.

'This book brings together a fascinating range of contemporary case studies around a central provocative theme: what makes collective actors breach the civil order? And what happens when they do? I particularly appreciate the attention to the nature of the 'civil sphere' and its translation into real world 'flesh and blood' examples of radical action. The intelligent analytical framing of the case studies by the editors makes this a valuable and stimulating contribution to scholarship on contemporary politics and society.' Cristina Flesher Fominaya, Loughborough University