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Toward a new sociology of the state: on Roger Brubaker's ‘Citizenship and Nationhood in France and Germany’

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2009

Christian Joppke
Christian Joppke
Affiliation:
European University Institute(Florence).
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Abstract

This article discusses Roger Brubaker's contribution to a new sociology of the state, which considers the state not as a strategic actor or a territorial organization but as a culturally bounded membership association. After pointing out the novelty of Brubaker's approach in light of previous theories of the state, I address some of its shortcomings—a formalistic concept of citizenship, an exclusive focus on elites, a mechanistic fashioning of the relationship between ideas and interests, and no mention of the pending Europeanization of citizenship.

Cet article étudie la contribution de Roger Brubaker à une nouvelle sociologie de l'État qui ne conçoit pas l'état comme acteur stratégique ou organisation territoriale, mais comme une association culturelle à objectifs limités. Aprés avoir insisté sur la nouveauté de l'approche de Brubaker par rapport aux théories connues de l'État, je reléve quelquesunes de ses faiblesses : un concept formaliste de la citoyenneté, une concentration exclusive sur les élites, une vision mécanique de la relation entre idées et intérêts et un silence total sur les problèmes pendants concernant l'européanisation de la citoyenneté.

Dieser Aufsatz untersucht den Beitrag Roger Brubakers zu einer neuen Staatssoziologie, die den Staat nicht als strategisch handelnde Institution oder territoriale Organisation begreift, sondern als eine kulturelle Vereinigung mit begrenzten Zielen. Zu Beginn werde ich erläutern, inwiefern sich Brubakers Ansatz von anderen bekannten Staatstheorien unterscheidet, um dann einige seiner Schwächen aufzuzeigen: das formalistische Konzept der Bürgerschaft, die ausschließliche Konzentrierung auf die Eliten, die mechanische Vision der Verbindung zwischen Ideen und Interessen und das Verschweigen jeglicher der Europäisierung des Bürgerstatus anhängenden Probleme.

Type
Notes Critiques
Information
European Journal of Sociology / Archives Européennes de Sociologie , Volume 36 , Issue 1 , May 1995 , pp. 168 - 178
Copyright
Copyright © Archives Européenes de Sociology 1995

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References

(1) Jean-Pierre Chevènement, À l'Allemagne, parlons franc, Le Monde, 12 October 1994, p. 2.

(2) For functionalism, see Easton, David, A Framework for Political Analysis (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1965)Google Scholar; for Neo-Marxism, see Habermas, Jürgen, Legitimationsprobleme im Spätkapitalismus (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1973)Google Scholar; and for Neo-Weberian state theory, see Badie, Bertrand and Birnbaum, Pierre, The Sociology of the State (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1983).Google Scholar

(3) Prominent examples in sociology and history are Bourdieu, Pierre, Distinction (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1984)Google Scholar; Lamont, Michele, Money, Morals, and Manners (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Sahlins, Peter, Boundaries (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989)Google Scholar.

(4) Hobsbawm, Eric, Nations and Nationalism Since 1780 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1990).Google Scholar

(5) Gellner, Ernest, Nations and Nationalism (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1983).Google Scholar

(6) Anderson, Benedict, Imagined Communities (London: Verso, 1983).Google Scholar

(7) Tilly, Charles, ed., The Formation of National States in Western Europe (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1975), p. 6.Google Scholar

(8) A certain high-point, and exhaustion, of this view of the state has been reached in Evans, Peter et al. , eds., Bringing the State Back In (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1985).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

(9) No wonder that Charles Tilly's review of Brubaker has been rather unenthusiastic (see Contemporary Sociology 22(4), 1994, 501–2).

(10) See Geoff Eley's review in American Journal of Sociology 99(3), 1994, 764–766.

(11) On the various ‘piracies’ of the national principle, see especially B. Anderson, Imagined Communities (op. cit.).

(12) See, for instance, Oberndörfer, Dieter, Der Wahn des Nationalen (Freiburg im Breisgau: Herder, 1993).Google Scholar

(13) See Leicht, Robert, Scheinangebot, Die Zeit, 25 11 1994, p. 4.Google Scholar

(14) A typical (and characteristically German) statement is Glotz, Peter, Der Irrweg des Nationalstaats (Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1990).Google Scholar