Jeffrey Alexander ~ Published Articles ~ 1978 - Present

Here you can find most of Jeff Alexander’s published journal articles and many of his published book chapters.

Jeffrey Alexander CV - Updated 10/25
Jeffrey Alexander_2025

Jeffrey C. Alexander ~ 2025

“Social Theory between History and Systematics.” Timelines: Newsletter of the History of Sociology and Social Theory Section of the American Sociological Association. October 2025, Issue 33: 24-25.
“What Sociology Is for Me.” Perspectives: Newsletter of the Theory Section of the American Sociological Association. 2025 (Spring): 13-15.
“Introduction: The Doing and Undoing of Civil Repair.” In Alexander, Frontlash/Backlash. Polity, 2025, pp. 1-6.
“The Re-Emergence of Anti-Semitism (2): Inverting ‘The Lessons of the Holocaust” Before, During, and after Gaza.” In Alexander, Frontlash/Backlash. Polity, 2025, pp. 122-132.
“The Political Party between Democracy and Dictatorship.” Perfiles Latinoamericanos 33 (66) 2025: 57-70.
“Introduction: The Indian Civil Sphere between Vitality and Suppression.” In Alexander and Waghmore, eds., The Civil Sphere in India. Polity, 2025, pp. 1-35.

  • Interview (in Chinese): “‘I expect new thinking from non-Western societies’: An Interview with Professor Jeffrey C. Alexander about Journalism, Cultural Sociology, and Social Theory” (by Zikun Liu, Songying Xu, and Yuanhang Zhu). Tsinghua Sociological Review 22 (2024): 259-280.
    “Introduction: Civil Repair and Social Theory.” In Alexander, Civil Repair. Polity 2024, pp. 1-7.

  • “My long friendship with Peter Beilharz, intellectual and otherwise ” Thesis Eleven 79 (1).
    “Office Obligation as Civil Virtue: The Crisis of American Democracy, November 3, 2020 – January 6, 2021, and After.” Society 60 (2023): 651-669.
    “The Return of Antisemitism? Waves of Societalization and What Conditions Them.” American Journal of Cultural Sociology. OnlineFirst: https://doi.org/10.1057/s41290-023-00184-7.
    “Presidential versus Civil Power: Public, Opinion, Second-Wave Feminism, and Party Politics in the USA” (with Willa Sachs). Cultural Sociology. OnlineFirst: https://doi.org/10.1177/17499755221130187.

  • “Populism and Democracy: A Reply.” Book Symposium: Populism in the Civil Sphere (2020). ASA Sociology of Culture Newsletter, Winter/Spring 2022 18-22.

  • “To Be Truly Radical is to Make Hope Possible,” Perspectives, Newsletter of the ASA Theory Section, pp. 22-23
  • “Trauma, solidarity, and division,” Yale News, The legacy of 9/11: Reflections on a global tragedy. September 9, 2021.
  • “In Memoriam: Bernard Giesen,” pp. 238-240 in Soziologie: Forum Der Deutschen Gesellschaft Fur Soziologie. Heft 2.
  • “Anti-Utilitarian Theorizing from Parsons to Durkheim And Cultural Sociology Today.” MAUSS International, #1,
  • “The Prescience and Paradox of Erich Fromm,” Thesis Eleven, 165(1):3-9.
  • “Recovering the Primitive in the Modern: The Cultural Turn and the Origins of Cultural Sociology,” Thesis Eleven, 165(1):10-19.
  • Interview: “Ritual and Myth in the International Corona-Drama: A Conversation with Jeffrey Alexander,” Javier Perez Jara, in Juan del Llano and Lino Camprubí (eds.). La sociedad entre pandemias, pp. 249-264. Madrid: Fundación Gaspar Casal. 2021. (In Spanish)
  • Interview (In Italian): “Sfera civile e radicalismo: il pendolotra “frontlash” e “backlash”,” by Maria Elena Camarda, in La Revista/Revolta, AREL agenzia di ricerche e legislazione fondata da Nino Andreatta.
  • Podcast: “The Cultural Sociology of Political Performance, Icons, and Social Media, with Prof. Jeffrey Alexander,” Social Media and Politics podcast, hosted by Michael Bossetta. #126. May 16, 2021.
  • Podcast: Panelist, “Learning by Comparing Global Protest Politics: BLM, Anti-CAA, Farm Protest,” IMPRI Impact and Policy Research Institute, New Delhi, and Indrastra Global, New York, organized an IMPRI #WebPolicyTalk - Panel Discussion. February 26, 2021.

  • The performativity of objects. Sociologisk Forskning, 57, (3–4).
  • Civil Sphere and Transitions to Peace: Cultural Trauma and Civil Repair. International Journal of Politics, Culture, and Society. 
  • Interview: “Hope and a horizon of solidarity – An interview with Jeffrey C. Alexander,” Anna Lund and Andrea Voyer, Sociologisk Forskning, 57(2). 
  • The Double Whammy Trauma: Narrative and Counter-Narrative during Covid-Floyd. Thesis Eleven, online project: Living and Thinking Crisis. July 9, 2020.  (Brazilian translation, 2020; French translation, 2020)
  • Interview: “Yale’s Jeffrey Alexander on how Today’s Crises Might Shape Tomorrow,” Mike Cummings, Yale News. June 10, 2020.
  • Cultural sociology in a secular age. American Journal of Cultural Sociology. Online first
  • Against the Idea of ‘Western Modernity’: Axial Foundations and Contemporary Civil Spheres in East Asia. Culture: Newsletter of the Culture Section of the American Sociological Association. Volume 32(1): 10-13.
  • Interview: “Kerala Is a Wonderful Example of Democratic Socialism and Planning,” in Kerala Calling, Chandralekha C. S. & Dr. Chitra S. Nair. March 15, 2020.

  • Interview: “From Journalism to Cultural Sociology (and back via Parsons). An Interview with Jeffrey Alexander,” Frédéric Vandenberghe, Sociologia & Antropologia 9(1): 15–40. Jan./Apr. 2019.
  • Frontlash/Backlash: The Crisis of Solidarity and the Threat to Civil Institutions, Contemporary Sociology: A Journal of Reviews: Vol. 48 (1). January 2019. (Spanish translation, 2021)

  • The Societalization of Social Problems: Church Pedophilia, Phone Hacking, and the Financial Crisis, American Sociological Review: Online 2018.

  • Raging Against the Enlightenment: The Ideology of Steven Bannon. ASA Sociology of Culture Newsletter, Vol. 29(1 & 2), Spring/Summer 2017. (Portuguese translation, 2018)
  • Seizing the Stage: Mao, MLK, and Black Lives Matter. The Drama Review, 61/1, Spring 2017. (Portuguese translation, 2017; Chinese translation, 2017)
  • The Facticity of Symbols: A Reply to Morton Keller, with B. Nadya Jaworski. International Journal of Politics, Culture and Society.
  • Interview: “Was the election a ‘shattering’ experience for you? There is hope, says a Yale sociologist,” Yale News, January 27, 2017

  • Performance and Politics: President Obama’s Dramatic Re-Election in 2012. The Drama Review, 60/4, Winter 2016.
  • Dramatic Intellectuals. International Journal of Politics, Culture and Society. 29. (Portuguese translation, Teoria e cultura, 2017)
  • Progress and disillusion: Civil repair and its discontents. Thesis Eleven, 137(1).
  • Culture trauma, morality and solidarity: The social construction of ‘Holocaust’ and other mass murders. Thesis Eleven, 132(1). (Chinese translation, forthcoming; Spanish translation, 2016).
  • Obama’s final State of the Union: Scholars React. The Conversation, January 13, 2016. (Norwegian translation, 2016)

  • Measuring, counting, interpreting: Our debate on methods continues. American Journal of Cultural Sociology, 3(3).
  • Afterword: The Strong Program and the Iconic Turn. Sociologica, Società editrice il Mulino, Bologna 1/15.
  • Introduction to the Special Section on “The Crisis of Journalism Reconsidered: Cultural Power. Fudan Journal of the Humanities and Social Sciences, 8(1). 
  • The Crisis of Journalism Reconsidered: Cultural Power. Fudan Journal of the Humanities and Social Sciences, 8(1), 9–31. 
  • Interview with Jeffrey Alexander. (in Portuguese) Revista Estudos Politicos, Alexandre Werneck, Antonio Brasil Jr., Cristina Buarque e Marcelo de Oliveira, 5(2).

  • In memoriam: Robert Neelly Bellah (23 February, 1927–30 July, 2013). American Journal of Cultural Sociology, 2, 1–2. 2014.
  • The Dark Side of Modernity. Theory (The Newsletter of the Research Committee on Sociological Theory), International Sociological Association, Spring/Summer 2014
  • The Fate of the Dramatic in Modern Society: Social Theory and the Theatrical Avant-Garde. Theory, Culture & Society, 31(1).
  • Interview: Cultural Sociology as Social Research: A conversation with Jeffrey C. Alexander, by Hakon Larsen. Sosiologisk Tidsskrift, 1(22).
  • Symbolic re-inflation: Barack Obama and the last campaign. (Novoe simvolicheskoe napolnenie: Barack Obama i posledniya izbiratel’naya kampaniya). In Symbolic Politics Yearbook -  Simvolicheskaya politika. (in Russian)

  • Afterword. Nations and Nationalism, 19(4).
  • Interview: Five minutes with Jeffrey C. Alexander: “Southern European countries are not just experiencing an economic crisis, but also an identity crisis.” European Policy and Politics Blog, London School of Economics and Political Science, April 2013.
  • The Promise and Contradictions of Axiality. Sociologica, 1.
  • Legitimation Crisis: Recovering the Performance of Power. Culture, 26 (3).
  • Struggling over the Mode of Incorporation: Backlash against Multiculturalism in Europe. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 36(4) (Portuguese translation, 2015)
  • The arc of civil liberation: Obama–Tahrir–Occupy. Philosophy and Social Criticism, 39(4-5).
  • Foreword, in “Neil Smelser: Distinguished Sociologist, University Professor and Servant to the Public” Regional Oral History Office, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley.
  • The sociology of the sacred: A conversation with Jeffrey Alexander. Gordon Lynch and Ruth Sheldon, Culture and Religion.

  • Blog interview: Social Scientists Studying Social Movements, by Sinan Erensu, Kyle Green, and and Sarah Lageson, The Society Pages Blog – Inaugural Round Table Conversation.
  • “The Performance of Politics Election 2012.” HuffPost. 09/19/2012 (Updated Nov 19, 2012). 
  • “Obama’s Downcast Eyes.” HuffPost. 10/04/2012 (Updated Dec 04, 2012). 
  • “Laughing Man and Choir Boy.” HuffPost. 10/12/2012 (Updated Dec 12, 2012). 
  • “Courtroom Drama of Truth and Lies.” HuffPost. 10/17/2012 (Updated Dec 17, 2012). 
  • “A Fallen Hero, or the Once and Future King?” HuffPost. 11/01/2012 (Updated Jan 01, 2013).

  • Market as Narrative and Character: For a Cultural Sociology of Economic Life.  Journal of Cultural Economy, 4(4).
  • Obituary: Shmeul Noah (S.N.) Eisenstadt, (with Bernhard Giesen). Footnotes, the Newsletter of the American Sociological Association, 39(3).
  • Interview: How Obama Is Failing at the Dramatic Side of the Presidency. If he wants to win in 2012 the president must be a better performer. Jessica Rettig, US News and World Report. January 7, 2011.
  • Blog interview: Why Politics is Theater. Zocalo Public Square Chats, January 2011.
  • Fact-Signs and Cultural Sociology: How Meaning-Making Liberates the Social Imagination. Thesis Eleven, 104.
  • American Culture Facing China’s Rise: Can We Make Room at the Top? (with Hans Andersson). Hedgehog Review, 13(1). (Chinese translation, 2011).

  • Heroes, Presidents and Politics. Contexts, Fall.
  • The Celebrity-Icon. Cultural Sociology, 4(3).
  • The ‘Marxism Project’ in The History of Its Times. Thesis Eleven, 100: 81-83
  • Marxism and the Spirit of Socialism: Cultural Origins of Anti-Capitalism, (1982). Thesis Eleven,  100: 84-105.
  • Barack Obama Meets Celebrity Metaphor. Society, 47(5).
  • The Performance of Politics: Obama’s Victory and the Democratic Struggle for Power. Perspectives, Newsletter of the ASA Theory Section,  32(I).

  • Social Science as Reading and Performance: A Cultural-Sociological Understanding of Epistemology. (with Isaac Reed). European Journal of Social Theory, 12(1).
  • On the Autonomy of the Aesthetic: Witkin I versus Witkin II.  Music and Arts in Action, 2(1)
  • Social Subjectivity Psychotherapy as Central Institution. Thesis Eleven, 96:128-134.
  • The Democratic Struggle for Power: The 2008 Presidential Campaign in the United States. The Journal of Power, 2(1).
  • What We Learn from the Humanities. Paper given at conference in honor of Professor Ruth Katz, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, December, 2008 in Culture, the Newsletter of the Culture Section of the American Sociological Association, 23:1.

  • Civil Sphere, State and Citizenship: Replying to Turner and the Fear of Enclavement. Citizenship Studies, 12(2).
  • Clifford Geertz and the Strong Program: The Human Sciences and Cultural Sociology. Cultural Sociology  2.
  • Iconic Consciousness: The Material Feeling of Meaning. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 26.
  • Iconic Experience in Art and Life: Beginning with Giacometti’s “Standing Woman”. Theory, Culture and Society, 25(3).
  • Performing Cultural Sociology: A Conversation with Jeffrey Alexander. Interview by Rodrigo Cordero, Francisco Carballo, and José Ossandón, European Journal of Social Theory 11(4).

  • Remembrance of Things Past: Cultural Trauma, the Nanking Massacre” and Chinese Identity, in Peking-Yale University Conference Publication on Tradition & Modernity: Comparative Perspectives.
  • Performance/Cultural Pragmatics. Monash University Podcast. School of English, Communications and Performance Studies, Monash University - ECPS Conference. Wednesday 19 December 2007
  • Globalization as Collective Representation: The New Dream of a Cosmopolitan Civil Sphere. pp. 371-382 in Frontiers Of Globalization Research: Theoretical And Methodological Approaches, Edited by Ino Rossi. Springer.
  • Keeping Faith with The Civil Sphere, and My Critics . Perspectives, October.
  • Power and Performance: The War on Terror between the Sacred and the Profane, RSCAS Distinguished Lectures, 2007/01, European University Institute, Florence, Italy.
  • On the Interpretation of The Civil Sphere: Understanding and Contention in Contemporary Social Science.  Sociological Quarterly 48.
  • The Meaningful Construction of Inequality and the Struggles Against It: A ‘Strong Program’ Approach to How Social Boundaries Change. Cultural Sociology, Volume 1(1).

  • Introduction: Symbolic Action in Theory and Practice: The Cultural Pragmatics of Symbolic Action.  in J. Alexander, B. Giesen, and J. Mast, eds., Social Performance: Symbolic Action, Cultural Pragmatics and Ritual. Cambridge University Press.
  • Performance and Counter Power-1: The Civil Rights Movement and the Civil Sphere.  Culture, Volume 20, No. 2 (Winter 2006)
  • Performance and Counter Power-2:The Civil Rights Movement and the Civil Sphere.  Culture, Volume 20, No. 3 (Spring 2006)
  • Global Civil Society. Theory, Culture and Society 23 (Problematizing Global Knowledge, special issue) (2-3)
  • Tocqueville’s Two Forms of Association: Interpreting Tocqueville and Debates over Civil Society Today. The Tocqueville Review, Vol. XXVII No. 2.

  • Contradictions in the Societal Community: The Promise and Disappointments of Parsons’ Concept. Pp. 93-110 in R. Fox, V. Lidz, and H. Bershady, eds., After Parsons: A Theory of Social Action for the Twenty-First Century. Russell Sage Foundation.
  • Performance and Power. Culture, 20(1).
  • Central Problems of Cultural Sociology: A Reply to My (Friendly) Critics. Culture, Winter.
  • Introduction: The New Durkheim (with P. Smith). pp. 1-37, in J. Alexander and P. Smith, eds., The Cambridge Companion to Durkheim. Cambridge University Press.
  • The Dark Side of Modernity: Tension Relief, Splitting, and Grace.  Pp. 171-182, in E. Ben-Rafael and Y. Sternberg, eds., Comparing Modernities: Pluralism Versus Homogenity. Essays in Homage to Shmuel N. Eisenstadt. Leiden: Brill.
  • The Sixties and Me: From Cultural Revolution to Cultural Theory. Pp. 37-47, in A. Sica and S. Turner, eds., The Disobedient Generation. University of Chicago Press.
  • Why Cultural Sociology is not ‘Idealist’: A Reply to McClennan. Theory, Culture & Society, 22(6).

  • Rethinking Strangeness.  Thesis Eleven 79, November.
  • Mastering Ambivalence: Neil Smelser as a Sociologist of Synthesis (with M. Marx and C. Williams). Pp. 1-16 in Alexander et al., eds., Self, Social Structure, and Beliefs: Explorations in Sociology, University of California Press.
  • From the Depths of Despair: Performance and Counter-Performance on September 11th. Sociological Theory 22(1).
  • Cultural Pragmatics: Social Performance between Ritual and Strategy. Sociological Theory 22(4).

  • The Meanings of Social Life. Pp. 3-10 in Alexander, The Meanings of Social Life: A Cultural Sociology. New York: Oxford University Press.
  • Towards a New Macrosociological Theory. Yale Journal of Sociology, Volume 3, Spring. Originally printed in Theory, the Newsletter of the Theory Section of the International Sociological Association, Spring.
  • Interview: Jeffrey Alexander.” Nexus: Newsletter of the Australian Sociological Association: 15 (1), Feb., 2003: 5-6.   

  • Mythic Gestures: Robert N. Bellah and Cultural Sociology, with Steven J. Sherwood. In Richard Madsen et al, eds., Meaning and Modernity: Religion, Polity, and Self. Berkeley: University of California Press.
  • On the Social Construction of Moral Universals: The Holocaust from Mass Murder to Trauma Drama. European Journal of Social Theory 5 (1).
  • The Strong Program in Cultural Theory: Elements of a Structural Hermeneutics, with Philip Smith. In J. Turner, ed., Handbook of Sociological Theory. New York: Kluwer Academic.
  • Towards a Theory of Cultural Trauma. In Alexander et al., Cultural Trauma and Collective Identity. University of California Press.

  • Canons, Discourses, and Research Programs: Plurality, Progress and Competition in Classical, Modern and Contemporary Sociology. In Alexander, ed., Mainstream and Critical Social Theory: Classical, Modern and Contemporary, London: Sage.
  • Robust Utopias and Civil Repairs. International Journal of Sociology 16 (4).
  • The Long and Winding Road: Civil Repair of Intimate Injustice. Sociological Theory 19(3).
  • Theorizing the Modes of Incorporation: Assimilation, Hyphenation, and Multiculturalism as Varieties of Civil Participation. Sociological Theory 19(3).
  • Toward a Sociology of Evil: Getting Beyond Modernist Common Sense and the Alternative to “The Good”. In M.P. Lara, ed., Rethinking Evil: Contemporary Perspectives. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press

  • Contradictions: The Uncivilizing Pressures of Space, Time, and Function. Soundings 16. (Portuguese version, 1997.)
  • Theorizing the Good Society: Hermeneutic, Normative, and Empirical Discourses. Canadian Journal of Sociology 25(3). (Italian version, 1997.)
  • This Worldly Mysticism: Inner Peace and World Transformation in the Work and Life of Charles “Skip” Alexander. Journal of Adult Development 7(4).

  • Cultural Structures, Social Action, and the Discourses of American Civil Society: A Reply to Battani, Hall, and Powers, with Philip Smith. Theory and Society, 28.
  • The Ideological Discourse of Cultural Discontent: Paradoxes, Realities and Alternative Ways of Thinking, with Neil J. Smelser. In Diversity and Its Discontents: Cultural Conflict and Common Ground in Contemporary American Society. Princeton University Press.
  • The Public Representation of Culture and History, with Neil J. Smelser. American Behavioral Scientist, 42.
  • Why We Might All be Able to Live Together: An Immanent Critique of Alain Touraine’s Pourrons-nous vivre ensemble? Thesis Eleven 58.

  • Civil Society Between Difference and Solidarity: Rethinking Integration in the Fragmented Public Sphere. Theoria: Journal of Social and Political Theory, 92 . (Spanish translation, 2000.)
  • Mass Communication, Ritual, and Civil Society, with Ronald N. Jacobs.  In T. Leibes and J. Curran (eds.), Media, Ritual and Identity, Routledge.
  • Sociologie culturelle ou sociologie de la culture? Un programme fort pour donner à la sociologie son second souffle, with Philip Smith. Sociologie et Societes, 30(1). (In French.)
  • Sociology, Theories of.  Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 10, Routledge.

  • After Neofunctionalism: Action, Culture, and Civil Society.  In J. C. Alexander, Neofunctionalism and After,  Basil Blackwell. (Russian translation, 1998.)
  • Bush, Hussein and the Cultural Preparation for War: Toward a More Symbolic Theory of Political Legitimation.  Epoche: Journal for the Study of Religions, 2 (1).
  • Civil Society I, II, III: Constructing an Empirical Concept from Normative Controversies and Historical Transformations.  In J. C. Alexander (ed.), Real Civil Societies,  Sage Publications. (Spanish translation, 2000.)
  • From Functionalism to Neofunctionalism: Creating a Position in the Field of Social Theory.  In J. C. Alexander, Neofunctionalism and After,  Basil Blackwell.
  • Les Règles secrètes de Durkheim. In E.H. Cuin (ed.), Durkheim d’un siecle a l’autre: Lectures actuelles des regles de la methode sociologique, Paris: PUF. (In French)
  • General Introduction: The Paradoxical Relations of Self and Society in American Sociological Thought.  In J. C. Alexander, R. Boudon and M. Cherkaoui (eds.), The Classic Tradition in Sociological Theory,  Sage Publications.
  • Une histoire critique de la sociologie allemande: Postface. In F. Vandenberghe, Une histoire critique de la cociologie allemande, Paris: La Decouverte/MAUSS. (In French)

  • Collective Action, Culture and Civil Society: Secularizing, Updating, Inverting, Revising and Displacing the Classical Model of Social Movements. In M. Diani and J. Clarke (eds.), Alain Touraine. Falmer Press. (Portuguese translation, 1998.)
  • Cultural Sociology or Sociology of Culture?  Culture, 10(3-4).
  • Critical Reflections on “Reflexive Modernization” (Review Essay).  Theory, Culture and Society, 13(4).
  • Durkheim’s Religious Revival, with Philip Smith (Review Essay, E. Durkheim/K. E. Fields trans., The Elementary Forms of Religious Life). American Journal of Sociology, 102(2).
  • Honneth’s New Critical Theory of Recognition, with Maria P. Lara.  New Left Review, N. 220.
  • On Choosing One’s Intellectual Predecessors: The Reductionism of Camic’s Treatment of Parsons and the Institutionalists, with G. Sciortino. Sociological Theory, 14(2).
  • Social Science and Salvation: Risk Society as Mythical Discourse, with Philip Smith.  Zeitschrift fur Soziologie, Aug.

  • The Reality of Reduction: The Failed Synthesis of Pierre Bourdieu.  In J. C. Alexander, Fin de Siècle Social Theory, Verso. (Italian translation, 2001.)
  • Watergate.  In S. M. Lipset (ed.), Encyclopedia of Democracy. Quarterly Press and Routledge.

  • Funzionalismo e neofunzionalismo, with Paul Colomy.  Enciclopedia delle Scienze Sociali, 4. (In Italian.)
  • How “National” is Social Theory? A Note on Some Worrying Trends in the Recent Theorizing of Richard Munch. Theory: Newsletter of the Theory Section of the International Sociological Association, Autumn: 2(8). (In English) Full English reprint, 1995; Abridged English reprint, 1995.)
  • Interview with Jeffrey Alexander on Cultural Sociology.  Sociology Newsletter of Hong Kong University, Volume 3.
  • Modern, Anti, Post, and Neo: How Social Theories Have Tried to Understand the “New World” of “Our Time”. Zeitschrift fur Soziologie, 23(3). (In English) (Reprinted in English, 1995)
  • Religio. In C. Mongardini and M. Ruini (eds.), Religio: Ruolo del Sacro, Coesione Sociale e Nuove Forme di Soidarieta nella Societa Contemporanea,  Bulzoni Editore. (In Italian)
  • The Paradoxes of Civil Society.  Social Sciences Research Centre, Occasional Paper 16. University of Hong Kong. (In English) (Spanish translation, 1994; Italian translation, 1995; English reprint, 1997; Ukranian translation, 1999)

  • Citizen and Enemy as Symbolic Classification: On the Polarizing Discourse of Civil Society.  In M. Fournier and M. Lamont (eds.), Where Culture Talks: Exclusion and the Making of Society. Chicago University Press. (Full English version) (Abridged English version, 1991; Italian version, 1990.)
  • Die neue Theoriebewegung: Eine ihrer Erscheinungsformen.  In J. C. Alexander (ed.), Soziale Differenzierund und Kultureller Wandel Studien zur Neofunktionalistischen Gesellschafstheori. Frankfurt, Germany: Campus Verlag. (In German) (Spanish version, 1991)
  • “Formal Sociology” is not Multidimensional: Breaking the “Code” in Parsons’ Fragment on Simmel.  Teoria Sociologica, 1(1): 101-114.
  • More Notes on the Problem of Agency: A Reply. Revue suisse de sociologie, 19.
  • Reduction and Deceit in Social Theory. In H. Martins (ed.), Knowledge and Passion: Essays in Honour of John Rex. I. B. Tauris.
  • Retorno a la democracia: La solidaridad universalista y el mundo. In Modernizacion Economica, Democracia Politica y Democracia Social. Centro de Estudios Sociologicos, el Colegio de Mexico. (In Spanish) (English version, 1991)
  • Risking Enchantment: Theory and Method in Cultural Studies, with Philip Smith and Steven Sherwood. Culture: Newsletter of the Culture Section of the American Sociological Association, 8(1).
  • The British are Coming… Again! The Hidden Agenda of “Cultural Studies”, with Philip Smith and Steven Sherwood. Contemporary Sociology, 22(3).
  • The Discourse of American Civil Society: A New Proposal for Cultural Studies, with Philip Smith. Theory and Society, 22(2). (In English) (German translation, 1994)
  • The Return to Civil Society (A review essay of J. Cohen and A. Arato, Civil Society and Political Theory). Contemporary Sociology, 22(6).

  • Some Remarks on “Agency” in Recent Sociological Theory. Perspectives, The ASA Theory Section Newsletter, 15(1). (English reprint, 1992)
  • Shaky Foundations: The Presuppositions and Internal Contradictions of James Coleman’s Foundations of Social Theory. Theory and Society, 21.
  • The Fallacy of the Scientific Choice Between Structures and Meanings: A Reply to Therborn Theory: Newsletter of the Theory Section of the International Sociological Association, 2(1).
  • The Fragility of Progress: An Interpretation of the Turn Towards Meaning in Eisenstadt’s Later Work.  Acta Sociologica, 35.
  • Traditions and Competition: Preface to a Post-Positivist Approach to Knowledge Cumulation, with Paul Colomy. In G. Ritzer (ed.), Metatheorizing. Sage.

  • Bringing Democracy Back In: Universalistic Solidarity and the Civil Sphere. In C. Lemert (ed.), Intellectuals and Politics: Social Theory in a Changing World. Sage. (Spanish translation, 1993.)
  • Clásicos y contemporáneos en la teoría sociológica: Entrevista con Jeffrey C. Alexander, by Gina Zabludovsky. By Gina Zabludovsky, Acta Sociologica, 4(2-3). (In Spanish.)
  • Neofunctionalism and Modern Society: Introduction. In H. Etzkowitz and R. Glassman (eds.), The Renaissance of Sociological Theory: Classical and Contemporary. F. E. Peacock Publishers.
  • Sobre Theoretical Logic in Sociology: Objetivos Intelectuales y Contexto Histórico y Biográfico.  Acta Sociologica, 4(2-3). (German translation, 1993)
  • Sociological Theory and the Claim to Reason: Why the End Is Not in Sight. Sociological Theory, 10(2).
  • Understanding Social Science: Giving Up the Positivist Ghost. Perspectives: Newsletter of the Theory Section of the American Sociological Association. 14(1).

  • Between Progress and Apocalypse: Social Theory and the Dream of Reason in the Twentieth Century. In J. C. Alexander and P. Sztompka (eds.), Rethinking Progress. Unwin Hyman Limited.
  • Beyond the Epistemological Dilemma: General Theory in a Post-Positivist Mode. Sociological Forum, 5(4).
  • Intelectuales rencidos. Topodrilo, 14 (Nov-Dec). Mexico: Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana. (In Spanish)
  • Must We Choose Between Criticism and Faith? Reflections on the Later Work of Benjamin Barber. Sociological Theory, 9(1).
  • Neofunctionalism Today: Reconstructing a Theoretical Tradition, with Paul Colomy. In G. Ritzer (ed.), Frontiers of Sociological Theory. Columbia University Press. (Russian translation, 1992; German translation, 2000)
  • Structure, Value, Action: On Parson’s “Prolegomena”. American Sociological Review, 55(3). (Italian translation, 1995)
  • Sacred and Profane Information Machine. Archives de sciences sociales des religions, 35e Année, No. 69.

  • Against Historicism For Theory: A Reply to Levine. Sociological Theory, 7(1).

  • Parsons’ “Structure” in American Sociology. Sociological Theory, 6(1).

  • The Social Requisites for Altruism and Voluntarism: Some Notes on What Makes a Sector Independent. Sociological Theory, 5(2).

  • Rethinking Durkheim’s Intellectual Development, II: Working Out a Religious Sociology. International Sociology, 1(2).
  • Rethinking Durkheim’s Intellectual Devt I: On ‘Marxism’ and the Anxiety of Being Understood. International Sociology, 1(1).
  • Science, Sense, and Sensibility: George Homas’s ‘Autobiography’ and Lifework’. Theory and Society, 15.
  • The University and Morality-A Revised Approach to University Autonomy and Its Limits. Journal of Higher Education, 57(5).

  • Habermas’ New Critical Theory: Its Promise and Problems. American Journal of Sociology, 91.
  • Max Weber on Church and Sect in North America: An Alternative Path Toward Rationalization. with C. Loader, Sociological Theory, 3(1).
  • Towards Neofunctionalism: Eisentadt’s Change Theory and Symbolic Interaction. with P. Colomy, Sociological Theory, 3(2).

  • Social-Structural Analysis- Some Notes on Its History and Prospects. Sociological Quarterly 25.
  • The Parsons Revival in German Sociology. Sociological Theory, 2.
  • Three Models of Culture and Society Relations: Toward an Analysis of Watergate. Sociological Theory, 3.

  • Kuhn’s Unsuccessful Revisionism: A Rejoinder to Selby. Canadian Journal of Sociology, 7.
  • Max Weber, la théorie de la rationalisation et le Marxism. Socilogie et Sociétés, 14(2).

  • Looking for Theory: ‘Facts’ and ‘Values’ as the Intellectual Legacy of the 1970’s,”. Theory and Society, 10.
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