The Societalization of Social Problems: Church Pedophilia, Phone Hacking, and the Financial Crisis

Abstract

In this article, I theorize eruptions in the boundaries between civil and non-civil spheres. I elaborate this model with reference to two recent social crises, pedophilia in the U.S. Catholic Church and telephone hacking in the United Kingdom. 1 How do endemic, ongoing institutional strains suddenly burst their sphere-specific boundaries and become explosive scandals in society at large? Intrainstitutional authorities typically "handle" even severe institutional strains. This has the effect of making such strains relatively invisible and untroubling to those on the outside. Problems become crises, I suggest, only when they move outside their own spheres and 803376A SRXXX10.1177

In Troubled Water? European Sports Clubs: Their Problems, Capacities and Opportunities

“…A social problem reflects a misfit between visions and facts: something is not as we want it to be. Neither visions nor perceptions of 'the here and now' are, however, neutral or given, so problems are inherently socially constructed (Alexander, 2018;Seippel et al, 2018;Spector & Kitsuse, 1977). To understand why something is perceived as a problem and how to address it properly, we have to grasp the institutional context of the emergence of problems, the characteristics of the processes producing the problems and the interests and values of the actors involved (Klein et al, 2016;North, 1990;Swierzy et al, 2018).…”

The “Societalization” of pandemic unpreparedness: lessons from Taiwan’s COVID response

“…These debates can enrich instead of fragment civic solidarity because, in most (although not all) cases, holders of opposite opinions share the same cultural grammar, or binary code, for articulating democratic values. For example, agents of the American civil sphere tend to draw on the code of liberty, which sacralizes qualities such as rationality, autonomy, and equality, in opposition to hysteria, dependence, or hierarchy, while they debate vehemently over how such civil/uncivil qualities are manifested (Alexander 1992 , 2006 , 2018 ). Non-Western civil societies, including Taiwan, South Korea, and others, have imported the liberty code as well as incorporated variants of neo-Confucian or other collectivist values, which have developed into binary codes centered on the interdependence of the community or, alternatively, on the benevolence of the bureaucracy (Ku 2001 ; Lo and Bettinger 2009 ; Lo 2019 ; Alexander et al 2019 ).…”

“…Adopting a Civil Sphere Theory (CST) framework, we argue that Taiwan’s effective state-society collaboration to contain COVID-19 largely resulted from the “societalization” of pandemic unpreparedness. From a CST perspective, the “societalization” of a given problem occurs when an issue previously considered an institution-specific dysfunction is transformed into a societal crisis, thereby shifting the weight of the discussion from the jurisdiction of intra-institutional elites into the realm of the civil sphere (Alexander 2018 ). In Taiwan, the problem of pandemic unpreparedness was societalized in the aftermath of the SARS crisis, which led to institutional reforms in the public health administration and medical profession.…”

“…Even though societalization creates pressures from the civil sphere for institutional reforms, these reforms do not guarantee problem-solving and may end instead with impasses or limited social change (Alexander 2018 ). Extending Alexander’s theoretical model, our study shows that, after reaching a temporary closure, societalization can become reactivated at subsequent eventful moments, potentially expanding the initial sets of reforms.…”

Der ‚March for Science‘ als Schauplatz der gesellschaftspolitischen Polarisierung zwischen Elite und Volk: ein interpretativer Beitrag zur Analyse von Postfaktizität

“…Das Skript transportiert die Gründe der Teilnahme oder Nicht-Teilnahme am March for Science und präsentiert ihn als eine Feier, reproduziert aber zugleich die oben genannte gesellschaftspolitische Trennung. Die Analyse kombiniert interpretative Zugänge der Politikwissenschaft (Schwartz-Shea und Yanow 2013; Yanow 2009; Durnova 2011), die politische Phänomene anhand von Diskursen analysieren, mit dem Strong Program der Kultursoziologie (Alexander 2004(Alexander , 2018Alexander und Smith 2001;Binder 2018), da beide Zugänge durch ihre bedeutungsorientierte Perspektive auf gesellschaftspolitische Phänomene die politische Kontingenz des Alltags sichtbar machen können. Diskurs und Kultur sind diesen Ansätzen zufolge Phänomene, deren Bedeutung durch die in der öffentlichen Debatte eingesetzten Sprach-und Interaktionsmittel zustande kommt.…”