Jeffrey Alexander ~ New Article in Contemporary Sociology

Jeffrey Alexander

CCS Director Jeffrey Alexander’s newest article, “Frontlash/Backlash: The Crisis of Solidarity and the Threat to Civil Institutions” in Contemporary Sociology: A Journal of Reviews is now available online.

“Trying to make things more civil always involves defining some others as less, thus evoking the binary discourse over which Trump is a rhetorical master. The challenge is this: The imaginative and inspiring rhetoric that exposes the putative lack of civility of those on the right and left cannot be allowed to become concentrated in the representational capacities of a leader and party. The representation of civil capacity must be disbursed among the communicative and regulative institutions that filter, pluralize, and agonistically specify the principles that allow incorporation and exclusion.”