Civil Society: Berlin Perspectives

by John Keane (Editor)

Overview

At the moment, no other European city attracts so much fascination as the city of Berlin. An unrivalled symbol of modern urban life, Berlin is a dynamic city whose inhabitants, in the course of the past two centuries, have lived through both the rapid growth and the violent destruction of the institutions of civil society, several times over. This volume situates itself within these developments by presenting, for the first time in English, a sample of the best, recently written essays on contemporary civil societies, their structural problems, and their uncertain future, written by scholars with a close, long-standing relationship with the city. They are pre-occupied with a broad sweep of substantive themes, but in each case they focus upon one or other of the key trends that are shaping actually existing civil societies.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781845453572
Publisher:	Berghahn Books
Publication date:	09/01/2007
Series:	Studies on Civil Society , #2
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	276
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.58(d)

About the Author

John Keane is founder of the Centre for the Study of Democracy, Professor of Politics at the University of Westminster and Research Professor at the Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin (WZB). Born in Australia and educated at the universities of Adelaide, Toronto and Cambridge, he is a frequent contributor to media around the world. He is the author of Global Civil Society? (2003) and Violence and Democracy (2004) and is currently preparing a full-scale history of democracy - the first for over a century.

Table of Contents

Editors’ Preface
Dieter Gosewinkel and Jürgen Kocka

Introduction: Cities and Civil Society
John Keane

Chapter 1. Civil Society in Historical Perspective
Jürgen Kocka

Chapter 2. Corporate Responsibility and Historical Injustice
Susanne-Sophia Spiliotis

Chapter 3. The Faces of Social Inequality
Paul Nolte

Chapter 4. Civil Society: Desperate Wishful Thinking?
Herfried Münkler

Chapter 5. Transformations of German Civil Society: Milieu Change and Community Spirit
Hans Joas and Frank Adloff

Chapter 6. Civility, Violence and Civil Society
Sven Reichardt

Chapter 7. Is There, or Can There Be, a ‘European Society'
Claus Offe

Chapter 8. Social Movements Challenging Neoliberal Globalization
Dieter Rucht

Chapter 9. Entangled Histories: Civil Society, Caste Solidarities and Legal Pluralism in Post-colonial India
Shalini Randeria

Chapter 10. The Temptations of Unfreedom: Erasmus Intellectuals in the Age of Totalitarianism
Ralf Dahrendorf

Notes on Contributors
Index

Editorial Reviews

“The range and depth of this volume is impressive, as evidenced in Keane's excellent introduction, which extends from the philosophical foundations of civil society to its historical antecedents… By providing such a rich canvas of case studies and by illuminating the immanent tensions civil societies contend with, this book will become a standard reference for those interested in Europe and for scholars more generally engaged in state-society relations and the growing field of global studies.” • H-German

From the Publisher