This paper considers the meaning conveyed by the term “dignity” in human rights discourse. It considers various ambiguities associated with the term (e.g. Does it describe the content or the ground of certain rights?) as well as alternative accounts of the kind of meaning that “dignity” has (descriptive or evaluative, technical or ordinary language). The second part of the paper argues that the distinctive contribution that “dignity” makes to human rights discourse is associated, paradoxically, with the idea of rank: once associated with hierarchical differentiations of rank and status, “dignity” now conveys the idea that all human persons belong to the same rank and that, that rank is a very high one indeed, in many ways as high as what were formerly regarded as ranks of nobility.

This article suggests that religion is better understood as a form of rule rather than as a domain of human life naturally distinct from politics and government. Through an examination of an association of Catholic priests active during the 1950s and 1960s, the article suggests that reconceiving religion in terms of authority and rule advances our understanding of the nature of religious power and that of religious discourse and institutions in particular.

In “Laundering ‘money’: on the need for conceptual clarity within the sociology of money”, (Archives Européennes de Sociologie, XLVI, 3 (2005), pp. 387–411, Nigel Dodd tells us that recent work has added further complications to an existing “conceptual muddle” in the sociology of money, and advances a claim to have made matters clearer (Dodd 2005a). The “muddle” is identified in the work of Cohen (2004), Hart (2000), Zelizer (1994, 2000), and in my own book The Nature of Money (Ingham 2004). In the same year, Dodd advanced the same critique – at times verbatim, in Economy and Society (Dodd 2005b), where, subsequently, I responded to what I take to be the misunderstanding and misrepresentation of my work (Ingham 2006). Here, I will briefly reiterate these objections, focusing mainly on the uncertainty, ambiguity, and consequent incoherence, of Dodd's attempt to identify the specific nature of money. On the one hand, he asserts that “any attempt to build a coherent theoretical conception of money is bound to fail” (p. 387). But, on the other, Dodd also argues that that “greater conceptual clarity can be brought to bear” by making a distinction between the monetary medium and money's denomination (p. 406). Leaving aside for a moment the fact that such a distinction has been commonplace in monetary theory at least since Plato and Aristotle (see Schumpeter 1994 [1954]), Dodd appears to be unsure, on rather curious intellectual grounds, about the usefulness of his claim to have provided conceptual clarity.

In “Laundering ‘Money’: On the Need for Conceptual Clarity within the Sociology of Money”, I explored the conceptual ramifications of recent developments in the sociology of money. These developments corresponded to what appear to be two countervailing trends in the world of money: homogenisation and diversification. The second trend, particularly, raises important conceptual questions about how money should be defined, and I sought to address these through an analysis of the work of prominent monetary scholars such as Cohen, Hart, Ingham and Zelizer. My central aim was to bring greater clarity to a field – the sociology of money – lacking a commonly agreed definition of its core object of study, namely money. The article was motivated by an underlying sense that these scholars were talking past each other. One significant reason seemed to be that two terms that should be central to a meaningful engagement among leading sociologists of money – money and currency – were being used in different and incompatible ways. This was the “conceptual confusion” I referred to: not a confusion specific to any individual monetary scholar, but rather a confusion bound to arise from any comparison of their work. I aimed to propose a conceptual framework wherein their different analyses could be more usefully compared (2). Of these scholars, both Hart (3) and Zelizer have constructively responded to my proposals without, of course, agreeing with them all.

This paper's purpose is to exam Turner's (2006a) thesis that Britain neither produced its own public intellectuals nor a distinctive sociology. It aims to outline difficulties with the logic of Turner's argument rather than to discuss any particular public intellectual in Britain. The paper argues that Turner's claim about the comparative insignificance of public intellectuals in Britain reinforces the myth of British exceptionalism and overlooks the significance of the contribution to the public sphere by intellectuals from other disciplines than sociology. It discusses Turner's assumption that intellectual innovation requires massive disruptive and violent change and suggests that such an assertion is not necessarily supported by studies of the conditions of the production of knowledge. Finally, the paper argues that Turner's anguish at the absence of public intellectuals among sociologists in Britain is symptomatic of New Left thinking that models the idea of the intellectual on Gramsci. In conclusion, the paper asserts that Turner's idea of the intellectual fails to note the tension at the heart of the role of public intellectual–the tension between specialist and non-specialist functions.

Today confronting Pareto versus Weber is commonplace. For the majority of contemporary researchers, validating one of the two theoritical constructs means ipso facto rejecting the other. The present paper attempts to prove the lack of scientific ground. The Weberian and Parsonian approaches operate at two different levels. They should be put to work jointly in a sequential manner, Pareto first, Weber thereafter.

This essay looks at Turkish-EU relations with a specific focus on identity narratives from the Turkish point of view. It outlines Turkey's official national narrative in its Ottoman, Turkic, and Islamic supra-national contexts and compares it with the supranational framework of EU member states' national narratives. According to the official Turkish historiography, Turkey is not part of a European family of nations. Turkey's non-European post-imperial identity is found to be comparable to that of Britain.