The Civil Sphere (2006) was general theory, an empirical-cum-normative model designed for universal application. Conceptualizing the cultural and institutional foundations of democracy, the work introduced a new social fact – the civil sphere – and a new model to explain how it works: Its cultural codes and institutional structures, simultaneously including and excluding; its often tense boundaries with non-civil spheres in the social surround; the social dynamics triggered by these contradictions, the long-durée social movements and hair-trigger crises and scandals that create conditions for civil repair – new institutions and cultural understandings that widen the reach of civil solidarity even as they create backlash reactions that threaten to narrow it.
The Civil Sphere was more than abstract theory; it was filled with empirical illustrations and detailed, lengthy case studies. Yet, while the former ranged freely across Europe and the U.S., the latter were largely confined to the U.S. – the exclusion and incorporation of women, blacks, and Jews, their social movements, and the transition from assimilative to multicultural modes of incorporation. If CST is to approach its generalizing ambition, this tension between universal aspiration and particular empirical application must be dissolved.