Engin Isin

This paper explores the different meanings of social cohesion in historical and contemporary societies and identifies some different 'regimes of social cohesion', and their characteristics, that can be found in western and east Asian societies. It adopts a mixed-method and interdisciplinary approach, drawing on the literatures in comparative historical sociology and comparative political economy, and using both qualitative, logical comparative methods, and quantitative statistical analysis. In the first section of the paper we analyse the constituents of social cohesion which are specified in different definitions-in-use in policy and contemporary academic writing. This leads to a definition of social cohesion which is non-normative and non-exclusive and which can be used in empirical analysis. The second section seeks to identify the major historical traditions of writings about social cohesion and the social order in western sociology and political philosophy and the logics they imply as to the forces which bind society together. Sections three and four review some historical evidence for social origins of different traditions of social cohesion in the West, and their subsequent patterns of evolution, based on 'longue durée' accounts of historical development and on 'non-absolute' notions of path dependency. Section five uses the literature on 'varieties of capitalism' and 'welfare state regimes' to develop some provisional theories about different contemporary forms of social cohesion which may be found in particular regions-or clusters of countries-in the West and east Asia. We call these 'regimes of social cohesion', in the same way that Esping-Andersen (1990) refers to 'welfare regimes' and Michael Walzer (1997) to 'regimes of toleration'. The last section of the paper uses international data on social attitudes and institutional characteristics to test empirically whether such regimes can be identified in terms of regions or country clusters which display particular sets of institutional characteristics and aggregate social attitudes. 2 Skills equality and general trust 3 Passive civic participation (WVS wave 4) 4 Active civic participation (WVS wave 4) 5 Cultural versus political conceptions of identity 6 Xenophobia (ISSP 1995) 7 Inequality and crime 8 Wage regulation: union coverage and centralization of wage bargaining 9 Income inequality by centralization of wage bargaining 10 State involvement and employment protection 11 Ethno-racial diversity and welfare state 12 Ethno-racial diversity and value diversity 13 Passive and active civic participation 14 Freedom versus equality and merit versus equality 15 Conceptions of nationhood and xenophobia 16 Ethnic tolerance: xenophobia and acceptance of immigrants as neighbours 17 Social hierarchy and gender equality 18 Output hierarchical cluster analysis on all indicators 19 Cluster analysis based on administrative indicators only 20 Cluster analysis on all administrative indicators including union coverage and centralization of wage bargains 21 Cluster analysis on indicators drawn from opinion surveys 22 Social democracy and liberalism 23 Diversity, tolerance and liberalism Tables 1 Components of social cohesion regimes 2 Countries associated with hypothesised social cohesion regimes 3 Indexes reflecting social cohesion traditions 4 Rank order of countries on the four indexes 5 Results of factor analysis 10 Definitions which invoke equality, shared values and common identities are certainly common in debates about social cohesion. However, they are not ones that everyone would accept. Increasing social diversity, as both Jenson (1998) and Bernard (1999) point out, makes shared values and common identities difficult to achieve, and would not in any case be desirable to many people. As Jenson notes, too much value conformity may be socially stultifying and can contradict other principles of freedom and respect for other cultures. Jenson's own (1998) definition of social cohesion avoids making either equality or 'shared values' a constitutive condition. The term social cohesion, she writes, 'is used to describe a process more than a condition or end state, while it is seen as involving a sense of commitment, and a desire to live together in some harmony.' (op cit, 1) The emphasis on process and 'getting on together', as opposed to more 'demanding' criteria of shared values and identities, can also be found in the British report on 'Our Shared Future' from the Commission on Integration and Cohesion (2007; chaired by Darra Singh). This report makes much of what might be considered old-fashioned procedural protocols of social interaction, including 'courtesy' and 'hospitality', but does not appeal to more expansive notions of shared values and identities. 'Integration and cohesion,' the report states 'is no longer a special programme or project. It is also not about race, faith, or other forms of group status or identity. It is simply about how we all get on and secure benefits that are mutually desirable for our communities and ourselves.' (ibid, 5). The report does not require allegiance to a dominant identity or value system. Rather it envisages a diversity of communities with different identities and values which adapt to each other in a spirit of mutual respect, guided by norms of hospitality and courtesy. Social cohesion and integration are conceptually differentiated but act in mutually reinforcing ways. 'Cohesion is principally the process that must happen in all communities to ensure different groups of people get on together; while integration is principally the process that ensures new residents and existing residents adapt to one another.' (ibid, 36) Common identities and shared values (beyond perhaps the minimum of 'core values' advocated in the Denham (2001) Report in Britain-Denham) are clearly not a precondition for social cohesion in much of the policy writing within the liberal tradition, even though they are more strongly asserted within what may be called the 'republican tradition' (about which distinction more later). Likewise equality only appears in some versions of social cohesion, and only features strongly in the more social democratic traditions. Within liberal discourses

Organizers: Kay Boers (Utrecht) & Thomas Langley (Cambridge)

The Citizen in Late Antiquity
Utrecht University, 25 November 2019
Kanunnikenzaal, Faculty Club (Achter de Dom 7), Utrecht University
09.30 – 18.00

‘Citizen’ in Late Antiquity was an emotive and complex term. In the classical world, the term not only signified the distribution of rights and duties of members of city and empire, but perhaps much more importantly reflected the intricate processes of inclusion and exclusion that shaped Greco-Roman culture in a myriad of ways. Conventional historiography, which tended to focus on legal citizenship almost exclusively, once characterized citizenship as defunct by the onset of Late Antiquity: it has argued that the mass enfranchisement of the edict of Caracalla and the gradual transformation-or collapse-of the classical city, turned the ‘citizen’ into an anachronism, with its social, cultural and political significance returning only at the onset of the Renaissance. Recent scholarship however has started to contest this view by positing that neither the collapse of the Roman Empire in the west nor the transformation of the classical city brought an end to the concept of the citizen. Next to other forms of self-identification, such as gender, class and ethnicity, people in late Roman and post-Roman polities continued to imagine and conduct themselves as citizens and these categories could themselves be understood in terms of legal and social citizenship. The citizen was also omnipresent in religious discourses, most significantly in late antique Christianity where the followers of Christ could either be perceived as citizens par excellence (viz. of the civitas Dei) or as intrinsic strangers and outsiders, namely to the civitas of the transitory world. Furthermore, citizens, of whatever kind, were also represented in material and visual culture, they took part, as citizens, in economic and artistic life and they appear most frequently in a vast number of textual sources and genres. An understanding of the full spectrum of ‘citizenship’ and ‘the citizen’ in Late Antiquity thus requires the use of a wide range of sources and approaches, and the fresh insights of a new generation of scholars.
This workshop, The Citizen in Late Antiquity, aims at providing an informal, constructive environment for post-graduate and early career researchers to present their work, meet others working in the field, and discuss current trends and issues. The Late Antiquity Network provides a single platform for those working on a broad range of geographical and disciplinary areas within the period of Late Antiquity, and participants are thus encouraged to interpret ‘citizen’ in a broad sense, thinking about how the theme intersects with their own research. Papers will be of twenty minutes, with ten minutes allocated for discussion. Facilitating this will be an address by our visiting speaker, Professor Engin Isin of Queen Mary University London, an acclaimed and prolific theorist on the subject of citizenship.
The workshop is generously supported and hosted by the Dutch NWO VICI research project “Citizenship Discourses in the Early Middle Ages” and the Utrecht Centre for Medieval Studies(UCMS) at Utrecht University. Suggested topics for discussion were:
-Different types of citizens-Citizens and material culture and imagery
-Citizens and non-citizens, and interactions between different kinds of citizenship
-The spatial dimensions of citizenship-Citizens, universalism and cosmopolitanism
-Criteria for becoming or ceasing to be a citizen
-Alternatives to citizenship discourse
-Citizens and the city-Citizens and religion
-Poverty and citizenship
-Citizens in different literary genres
-Citizens and law-making

This research aims to explore the consensual democracy model which has many weaknesses in practicing democracy, including diversity of ethnicity, groups, social andeconomic status, race, culture and so on. These became a challenges for consensual democracy. Nowadays, the multi-extreme-identity and the oppression from dominant groups creates a gap in the daily-life of citizens. Using qualitative methods and a phenomenological approach, this research aims to describe and perceive the majorities and minorities gaps as citizens in consensual democracy. The phenomenon of domination and gap in power relations as citizens try to elaborate using an inclusion-differentiated model of policy is discussed. This research also perceives how the ideology and power relation has a deep impact to the public discourse, moreover the majority rules as a policy to distribute the power for the different citizens just made citizens excluded from their public sphere. The findings from this research are domi...

Lifestyle migration is a now-established subfield within the anthropology of migration, and interdisciplinary migration studies, usually justified by its extensive and increasing spread, globally. Yet, bar a few exceptions, the political behaviour of lifestyle migrants has been relatively neglected. I redress this imbalance by critically comparing two overlapping processes where British migrants to Spain act politically: elected councillors in town halls; and campaigning anti-Brexit activists. This pair is as comparable as it is contrastive. In theoretical terms, I argue that modern versions of practice theory are a useful mode for analysing municipal activity by foreign agents, while the Brexit process, because novel, fast-paced, and open-ended, is better understood via Isin's 'enactment of citizenship' approach. Both explanatory modes are powerful, have perspectival slants, and are best applied to different contexts and styles of contest: practice theorists research how people work with change; Isinians research how they produce it. The article also furthers the anthropology of citizenship by investigating a case where citizenship of a country is no longer a prerequisite for legitimate political activity in it.

Scholars in normative political philosophy and citizens of immigrant-receiving countries prominently argue that social cohesion is incompatible with immigration. According to this incompatibility legend, the welfare state can only survive if close-border policies protect the shared national identity. This blog post attempts to demonstrate that the incompatibility between social cohesion and immigration is only a myth and that open borders on the contrary support social cohesion in diverse societies, similarly to urban citizenship policies.

Raised by Wolves follows the aftermath of a war caused by the polarizing strife between two factions: atheists and believers. Failing to find common ground, they resort to violence, nearly leading to mutual annihilation. Sent to uncharted territory where imminent danger is always around the corner, a pair of androids are programmed to foster a new civilization. The series carries all the traits of the sci-fi genre and is a classic Ridley Scott production. The Tyrell Corporation's slogan in Blade Runner (1982), "more human than humans," resonates in the desperate attempt to give humanity another chance, relying on self-intuitive machines designed to express emotions and mimic behavior. Father (Abubakar Salim) is no match for the strength and complexity of Mother, a more evolved android. Mother (Amanda Collin), the benefactress of the newly founded colony, is also a deadly necromancer of astonishing power, going on killing sprees during hysteric attacks when danger is imminent and using her primal sonic scream as a weapon. Her powers emanate from her eyes. She carries another set of regular eyeballs in a pouch and uses them for everyday life, changing to necromancer-superpower eyeballs when in attack mode. Eyes are a window to the soul-or, in this case, to the android's internal struggle between fostering or destroying life. This is similar to Blade Runner, where the Voight-Kampff test monitors physiological responses and determines if the subject is human or replicant. Blade Runner's Los Angeles urban space covered in Japanese billboards, dark streets with multicultural crowds speaking various languages in a time when Japan appeared to be the next global power and Japanese investors flocked to buy US real estate, alludes to real fears and precedes Huntington's anxiety-packed Clash of Civilizations. Rising environmental awareness is seen in the foggy and dusty skyline, while grimy, tarnished streets provide a stark contrast to gleaming skyscrapers, highlighting class division and acting as a prelude to the discourse about the 1%. The series and the genre rely on preying on anxieties. Both Raised by Wolves and Blade Runner reflect the very polarizing world we live in.

The term "citizen" can generally be understood as a "person who coexists in a society," which, however, does not mean that the idea of citizen associated with the nation-state is no longer relevant or applicable.
In this sense, the terms "citizen" and "citizenship" include the idea of "status" and "role," involving issues related to rights and duties, but also to equality, diversity, and social justice. It is no longer enough to limit the idea of "citizenship" to voting. The concept should also include the full range of actions taken by the individual that impacts the life of the community (local, national, regional, and international) and as such, requires a public space in which individuals can act together.
Civil and political rights are mainly associated with freedoms and powers available to individuals and which the State undertakes to respect.

Every institution, serves some specific purpose. It involves some organisation and use of authority. Authority denotes a relationship of command and obedience where the command is generally regarded to be reasonable. When an organisation is designed to regulate the whole community. It takes the character of polity. Polity, therefore denotes an organisation where rules are made and decisions are taken for the whole community, and authority is exercised over each member of the community. The state is the dominant political organization exerting authority over and controlling a defined territory and its inhabitants. It does so by monopolizing the right to create and enforce law, by exercising power, by imposing taxes and other duties and by gaining the acquiescence and loyalty of its citizens. Scientific analysis of political life enables us to understand and solve the problems of our social life. Political science is the key to understand the causes of conflict & violence in society and gives us insights for preventing their outburst. It is the key to secure development of society from our human resources. It guides us to find remedies of political instability and various types of social crises.