George M. Thomas

World Society and the Nation‐State

The authors analyze the nation‐state as a worldwide institution constructed by worldwide cultural and associational processes, developing four main topics: (1) properties of nation‐states that result from their exogenously driven construction, including isomorphism, decoupling, and expansive structuration; (2) processes by which rationalistic world culture affects national states; (3) characteristics of world society that enhance the impact of world culture on national states and societies, including conditions favoring the diffusion of world models, expansion of world‐level associations, and rationalized scientific and professional authority; (4) dynamic features of world culture and society that generate expansion, conflict, and change, especially the statelessness of world society, legitimation of multiple levels of rationalized actors, and internal inconsistencies and contradictions.

Constructing world culture : international nongovernmental organizations since 1875

Contents BOLI JOHN THOMAS GEORGE M. Part One: 1. BOLI JOHN THOMAS GEORGE M. 2. BOLI JOHN LOYA THOMAS A. LOFTIN TERESA Part Two: 3. FRANK DAVID JOHN HIRONAKA ANN MEYER JOHN W. SCHOFER EVAN TUMA NANCY BRANDON 4. BERKOVITCH NITZA 5. KIM YOUNG S. 6. FINNEMORE MARTHA Part Three: 7. LOYA THOMAS A. BOLI JOHN 8. BARRETT DEBORAH FRANK DAVID JOHN 9. CHABBOTT COLETTE 10. SCHOFER EVAN BOLI JOHN

World culture in the world polity: A century of international non-governmental organization

The authors analyze the growth of international non-governmental organizations between 1875 and 1973 using a data set on almost 6,000 organizations. Although these organizations are highly interconnected with the expanding state system and world economy, as reflections of and contributors to world culture they have helped construct a world polity that cannot be reduced to networks of economic and political interaction. Their analysis of the structure and aims of these organizations identifies the principles of universalism, individualism, voluntaristic authority, rational progress, and world citizenship as central elements of world culture. They also describe the structure of world culture by studying the distribution of these organizations across major social sectors, highlighting the centrality of rationalizing scientific, technical, economic, and infrastructural organizations that go largely unnoticed. Finally, they review sectoral historical studies showing how these organizations shape world culture and influence states and intergovernmental organizations

Institutional structure : constituting state, society, and the individual

PART ONE: THEORETICAL ISSUES Ontology and Rationalization in the Western Cultural Account PART TWO: THE WORLD-POLITY AND STATE STRUCTURE The World-Polity and the Authority of the Nation-State World-Polity Sources of Expanding State Authority and Organization, 1870-1970 Regime Changes and State Power in an Intensifying World-State-System Structural Antecedents and Consequences of Statism PART THREE: CONSTITUTING NATION AND CITIZEN Human Rights or State Expansion? Cross-National Definitions of Constitutional Rights, 1870-1970 Global Patterns of Educational Institutionalization On the Union of States and Schools World-Polity Sources of National Welfare and Land Reform PART FOUR: CONSTRUCTING THE MODERN INDIVIDUAL The Ideology of Childhood and the State Rules Distinguishing Children in National Constitutions, 1870-1970 Self and Life Course Institutionalization and Its Effects The Political Construction of Rape PART FIVE: RATIONALIZATION AND COLLECTIVE ACTION Comparative Social Movements Revivalism, Nation-Building and Institutional Change PART SIX: THE POSSIBILITY OF A GENERAL HISTORICAL THEORY Institutional Analysis

Religion and Intergroup Conflict Findings From the Global Group Relations Project

How might religion shape intergroup conflict? We tested whether religious infusion—the extent to which religious rituals and discourse permeate the everyday activities of groups and their members—moderated the effects of two factors known to increase intergroup conflict: competition for limited resources and incompatibility of values held by potentially conflicting groups. We used data from the Global Group Relations Project to investigate 194 groups (e.g., ethnic, religious, national) at 97 sites around the world. When religion was infused in group life, groups were especially prejudiced against those groups that held incompatible values, and they were likely to discriminate against such groups. Moreover, whereas disadvantaged groups with low levels of religious infusion typically avoided directing aggression against their resource-rich and powerful counterparts, disadvantaged groups with high levels of religious infusion directed significant aggression against them—despite the significant tangible costs to the disadvantaged groups potentially posed by enacting such aggression. This research suggests mechanisms through which religion may increase intergroup conflict and introduces an innovative method for performing nuanced, cross-societal research.

Religions in Global Civil Society

This paper explores the nature and place of religion in global civil society by analyzing emerging models of religious freedom. After briefly presenting the basis for inferring the emergence of a global civil society, I note the importance of individual and collective conversion in modern civil society envisioned as a moral project. I then identify contemporary world-cultural themes: the individual and ethno-cultural group are essential carriers of humanity, and religion is a relativistic human expression. Resulting cultural contradictions are played out in how religions constitute themselves and in conflicts over models of religious freedom, especially over converting and proselytizing. Conversion is an individual right but also is viewed as a threat to ethno-cultural groups. Proselytizing is stigmatized as cultural supremacy and for violating the principle that there is no need for other-worldly salvation. I conclude by noting contentious areas important for emerging models of religious freedom.

State authority and national welfare programs in the world system context

Recent research on national welfare programs focuses upon the organizational capacity of nation-states, but it does not directly address the issue of why state bureaucracies institute such programs. We develop an institutionalist theory that views the rationalization of authority and concomitant national welfare programs as products of a world culture. By examining the interplay between national characteristics and world-system context, we are able to interpret worldwide adoption of welfare programs as well as the difference between formal programs and their implementation. We provide preliminary tests of hypotheses predicting worldwide patterns of welfare expenditures. We find that a states incorporation in intergovernmental organizations and its level of investment dependence positively affect social security expenditures in 1965 and 1970. We conclude by briefly discussing implications of our research for further work on the relationship between state structures and national programs.

Legitimacy and the Rise of NGOs: the Global and Local in South Asia

We extend sociological institutionalist theory and draw on evidence from South Asia to develop a research agenda for studying how nongovernmental organization (NGO) legitimacy plays out in national and local arenas. After first presenting a sociological institutionalist approach to nongovernmental organizing, we extend it into three areas: national laws governing international and domestic NGOs, growth in domestic NGOs, and the situated interactions among international organizations, nation-states, local organizations, and other actors. (1) International and domestic NGOs are governed by national laws, and we sketch the history of such laws in South Asia to hypothesize a pattern of legal change leading to the present social concern about accountability. (2) Sociological institutionalism suggests that domestic NGO growth is related to the presence of international NGOs and can be interpreted as the diffusion of formal organization. (3) We conceptualize the situated interactions of the plethora of actors as a meso realm at the interface of the global and local. The interrelations of these actors are marked by tensions and conflict. There are many permutations of how they coalesce, not always along a global—local cleavage, and there is a need to examine the full range of interactions. We explore some of these and it seems that actors use accountability strategically in their conflicts with others. The ‘uses of accountability’ in contesting legitimacy within such situations is proposed as a fruitful research direction.

Commentary: Democracy, Performance, and Polities

In the article in the special section of this issue on subterranean politics in Europe, Kaldor and Selchow (2013) use a conceptual framework and initial findings from a transnational research group studying European politics to open up a range of questions about changes in democratic participation in different polity orientations (local, national, and transnational) in the context of Internet 2.0 culture. Scholarship has for awhile now become comfortable, although still not without controversy, with studying civil society and voluntary associations from local to transnational levels, but there has been the tendency to focus on formal organizations (such as registered nongovernmental organizations [NGOs]) and on their interests and networks in ways that miss both the larger institutional contexts and the on-the-ground ebb and flow of all types of social, political actions. The article shows that the larger research project is producing a timely, in-depth record of the diversity of movements, groups, and activities across Europe. The article does two significant things. First, it breaks the stranglehold of organizational analysis, getting at the subterranean activism that otherwise would not show up. Second, it shows that the substance of that activism might be out of sync with the substance of the organized projects attempting to reform European institutions. The article raises many questions: Some that might be answered by the larger project and some that might reflect its limits. Thus, the present comments, while in part critical, are intended as suggestions for consideration as the project progresses. To begin, I think to pursue the insights and realize the potential of this research, it would be helpful to use comparative-historical analyses to link the subterranean action they document to the long tradition of direct democratic participation. Also, it seems necessary to have a fuller analysis of the institutional, cultural structures of Europe, and the dynamic nature of polities in the context of global processes. These additional lines of analysis would build on the many insights of the article but also would critically engage important points in at least a couple of ways. For one, consider reinterpreting the interviewees’ reporting of anger and frustration: rather than taking them as evidence that emotions are the driving mechanism of subterranean action, we should pursue a more interpretative analysis that views them in terms of constitutive discourse. I also question the view that Journal of Civil Society, 2013 Vol. 9, No. 1, 105–110, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17448689.2013.784506

Modern Subjectivities, Religious Belief and Irony in Everyday Life

This chapter analyzes the religious individual as a “religious modern subject” arguing that religious identity, belief and practice involve technologies of the self that are revealing and even critical of the modern subject given the location of sovereignty in modern society. The chapter analyzes the discourse and interaction rituals (technologies of the self) through which religious people enact modern subjectivities in everyday life. It explores belief and irony as useful for bridging religious and modern subjectivities, contrasting different conceptualizations of irony by Kierkegaard and by Richard Rorty and their practical implications for religions and religious people. The paper concludes by considering belief as a political category.