action, his, terms, public, society, discourse, agency, habermas, level, ways
Schneiderhan, Erik & Shamus Khan. 2008. "Reasons and Inclusion: the Foundation of Deliberation." Sociological Theory. 26:1 1-24. Link
This article provides two empirical evaluations of deliberation. Given that scholars of deliberation often argue for its importance without empirical support, we first examine whether there is a ``deliberative difference''; if actors engaging in deliberation arrive at different decisions than those who think on their own or ``just talk.'' As we find a general convergence within deliberation scholarship around reasons and inclusion, the second test examines whether these two specific mechanisms are central to deliberation. The first evaluation looks at outcomes within a laboratory setting; the second at videotapes of decision-making processes within this setting. Our results show two things. First, in terms of outcomes, deliberation differs from other forms of interaction. Second, reasons and inclusion are central to the deliberative process. The more reasons provided within each group, the more likely participants were to change their position; similarly, the more inclusive groups were, the more likely participants were to change their position. We conclude by arguing that more work needs to be done, both in evaluating the deliberative difference and in disaggregating deliberation and examining its central explanatory mechanisms.
Rohlinger, Deana. 2007. "American Media and Deliberative Democratic Processes." Sociological Theory. 25:2 122-148. Link
Despite the importance of mass media to deliberative democratic processes, few scholars have focused on how market forces, occupational norms, and competition among outlets affect the quality of media discourse in mainstream and political outlets. Here, I argue that field theory, as outlined by new institutionalism and Pierre Bourdieu, provides a useful theoretical framework for assessing the quality of media discourse in different kinds of media outlets. The value of field theory is that it simultaneously highlights the importance of homogeneity and heterogeneity within a field of action, which provides a framework for discussing the roles different kinds of outlets play in deliberate democratic processes and evaluating the quality of discourse in mainstream and political venues. I illustrate the utility of this conceptualization through an analysis of 1,424 stories on abortion in nine U.S. media outlets and interviews with journalists, editors, and producers in these venues. I find that political media outlets provide higher-quality discourse than that of mainstream venues. Additionally, I find that while market pressures may heighten a focus on conflict in the abortion debate, this emphasis is exacerbated by mainstream journalists themselves, who assume that the general public is familiar with, and has taken a firm position on, abortion. I conclude by discussing the implications of these findings for deliberative democratic processes.
Garcelon, Marc. 2006. "Trajectories of Institutional Disintegration in Late-soviet Russia and Contemporary Iraq." Sociological Theory. 24:3 255-283. Link
How might revolutions and other processes of institutional disintegration inform political processes preceding them ? By mapping paths of agency through processes of institutional disintegration, the trajectory improvisation model of institutional breakdown overcomes ``action-structure'' binaries by framing political revolutions as possible outcomes of such disintegrative processes. The trajectory improvisation approach expands the trajectory adjustment model of social change developed by Gil Eyal, Ivan Szelenyi, and Eleanor Townsley. An overview of political revolution in Soviet Russia between 1989 and 1991 illustrates trajectory improvisation. The recent American invasion and occupation of Iraq shows alternative routes to institutional disintegration, indicating the independence of models of institutional breakdown from those of social movements. These cases illustrate both the diversity of situations the trajectory improvisation model speaks to, and the limitation of models of trajectory adjustment, improvisation, social movements, and invasions, illustrating why such models at best enable what are called ``explanatory narratives'' of actual historical processes.
Beemer, JK. 2006. "Breaching the Theoretical Divide: Reassessing the Ordinary and Everyday in Habermas and Garfinkel." Sociological Theory. 24:1 81-104. Link
This article argues that Habermas and Garfinkel present complementary perspectives on the dynamics of ordinary language and the ways in which communication is configured and prefigured in interactive settings. Together they provide a basis for thinking about action and its environments not simply in terms of the in situ or formal conditions in isolation from one another, but as extensions of an integrated dependency between the local (indexical) contexts in which interactions occur and the rational (pretheoretical) presuppositions that make such interactions possible. The conditions on which actors are identified as rational agents or as being bound by the structured environments in which they move are not differentiated in the course of everyday life. Communication consists of produced events that admit both rational presuppositions and practical accomplishments. Taken concomitantly, these properties constitute the necessary and sufficient conditions for creating the intersubjective links that individuals rely on when interacting.
Whipple, M. 2005. "The Dewey-lippmann Debate Today: Communication Distortions, Reflective Agency, and Participatory Democracy." Sociological Theory. 23:2 156-178. Link
In this article, I introduce the Dewey-Lippmann democracy debate of the 1920s as a vehicle for considering how social theory can enhance the empirical viability of participatory democratic theory within the current context of advanced capitalism. I situate within this broad theoretical framework the theories of Habermas and Dewey. In the process, I argue (a) that while Dewey largely failed to reconcile his democratic ideal with the empirical constraint of large-scale organizations, Habermas, in particular his work on the public sphere, provides an important starting point for considering the state of public participation within the communication distortions of advanced capitalism; (b) that to fully understand the relation between communication distortions and public participation, social theorists must look beyond Habermas and return to Dewey to mobilize his bi-level view of habitual and reflective human agency; and, finally, (c) that the perspective of a Deweyan political theory of reflective agency best furthers our understanding of potential communication distortions and public participation, particularly in the empirical spaces of media centralization and intellectual property rights.
Rabinovitch, E. 2001. "Gender and the Public Sphere: Alternative Forms of Integration in Nineteenth-century America." Sociological Theory. 19:3 344-370. Link
This paper intends to evaluate two competing models of multicultural integration in stratified societies: the ``multiple publics'' model of Nancy Fraser and the ``fragmented public sphere'' model of Jeffrey Alexander. Fraser and Alexander disagree oil whether or not claims to a general ``common good'' or ``common humanity'' are democratically legitimate in light of systemic inequality. Fraser rejects the idea that cultural integration can be democratic in conditions of social inequality, while Alexander accepts it and tries to explain how it may be realized. In order to address this debate, I analyze the cultural foundations of the female-led, maternally themed social movements of nineteenth-century America. The language of these movements supports Alexander's position over Fraser's, though it also suggests that Alexander is mistaken in the specifics of his cultural theory of a general and democratic ``common good.'' While Alexander's model of integration is structured uniquely by what he and Philip Smith have called ``the discourse of civil society,'' the evidence suggests a distinctly alternative, equally democratic code at play in this case, which I have labeled a discourse of affection and compassion.
Fuchs, S. 2001. "Beyond Agency." Sociological Theory. 19:1 24-40. Link
The reason why agency/structure and micro/macro debates remain unresolved is the bad essentialist habit of treating such pairs as opposite natural kinds. Once variation is allowed, agency and structure. or micro and macro, are temporal? poles bracketing a continuum. with serial entities moving along this continuum over time. Explaining these transformations from agency into structure, or micro into macro. and vice versa is the challenge for explanatory theory. This challenge is met by switching to a constructivist level of second-order observing. Then, agency and structure become variable devices or frames different observers might use to perform different sorts of cultural work.
Kamolnick, P. 2001. "Simmel's Legacy for Contemporary Value Theory: a Critical Assessment." Sociological Theory. 19:1 65-85. Link
In this essay I critically assess Georg Simmel's legacy for contemporary value theory and provide the rudiments of an alternative approach. My central thesis is that Simmel fails to satisfactorily, conceptualize the nature ann origin of value because of his duration to an asocial, Cartesian-Kantian conception of mind, human freedom, anti agency. In contrast. I incorporate recent data from neuroscience, social self theory, developmental psychology: and elements of Marx's theory of the commodity form to provide the terms of a postmetaphysical, intersubjective alternative.
Collins, R. 2000. "Situational Stratification: a Micro-macro Theory of Inequality." Sociological Theory. 18:1 17-43. Link
Dillon, M. 1999. "The Authority of the Holy Revisited: Habermas, Religion, and Emancipatory Possibilities." Sociological Theory. 17:3 290-306. Link
This article argues that Jurgen Habermas's view of religion as anathema to rational critical discourse reflects his misunderstanding that religion comprises a monolithic and immutable body of dogma that is closed to reason. Illustrative data from Catholic history and theology and empirical data gathered from contemporary American Catholics are used to show the weaknesses in Habermas's negation of the possibility of a self-critical religious discourse. Specifically, I highlight the doctrinal differentiation within Catholicism , its longstanding theological emphasis on the coupling of faith and reason, institutional reflexivity, and the doctrinally reflexive reasoning that contemporary Catholics us in negotiating what might appear as ``contradictory'' identities (e.g., being gay or lesbian and Catholic). Although the data presented take issue with Habermas's disavowal of religion the article shows that the practical relevance of doctrinal reasoning at both the institutional and the individual level vindicate Habermas's faith in the emancipatory potential of reasoned argumentation to advance participative equality.
Turner, S. 1999. "The Significance of Shils." Sociological Theory. 17:2 125-145. Link
Edward Shils was a widely recognized but misunderstood thinker The original contexts of his thought are not well understood and greatly distorted by associating him with the concerns of Parsons. Shils provides a fully comparable alternative to the thought of Habermas and Foucault, with essentially similar roots: practice theory, the dissolution of Marxism in the twenties, and Carl Schmitt. Though Shils was indebted to the American sociological tradition with respect to these issues his sources were outside it: in Hendrik de Man, T. S. Eliot, and Michael Polanyi. It is shown how Shils responded to Schmitt's argument about the inherent conflict between democracy and liberalism in terms of an account of civility and tradition, and how this argument results in a critique of Foucault, Habermas, and collectivistic liberalism.
Martin, JL. 1998. "Authoritative Knowledge and Heteronomy in Classical Sociological Theory." Sociological Theory. 16:2 99-130. Link
This article traces the impact of philosophical questions regarding the grounds of moral autonomy and heteronomy (rule-from-another as opposed to rule-from-oneself) on classical sociological theory, arguing that both Weber and Durkheim understood sociology to have a contribution to make in the debate,with Kant over the grounds of ethical action. Both insisted that the only possible ethical action was one within the bounds of rational knowledge that was inherently authoritative, but this sat uneasily with their focus on the relation between concrete social authority and the authoritativeness of beliefs in the sociology of religion. In rejecting Comte's explicit avowal of the embodiment of moral authority in the secular priesthood of sociologist, Weber and Durkheim had to paper over the social authority supporting the formulation of this rational knowledge. Each then produced a sociology of knowledge without a well-specified mechanism, in turn encouraging the development of the sociology of knowledge as ct flawed sub-discipline.
Klausner, SZ. 1998. "E. Digby Baltzell: Moral Rhetoric and Research Methodology." Sociological Theory. 16:2 149-171. Link
The ways in which values are assimilated to social research differ according to the theoretical frame of reference informing the research. An example from the writings of E. Digby Baltzell illustrates how a moral commitment shaped his assumptions al,out the nature of the social matrix and his research strategies. A Western moral rhetoric fares well if the researcher chooses a methodologically individualist framework. The framework assists a moral rhetoric by providing it with concrete rather than abstract social actors and with a basis for explanation in terms of motive rather than situational forces. Along the way moral statements can appear in the form of empirical generalizations and historical laws. Should sociologists deem ethically neutral social research desirable, this study suggests that concentration on scientific method, without exploring the value bases for selecting a frame of reference, is not a promising approach. A value analysis, especially around Weber's ``value relevance,'' may function propaedeuticly.
Burawoy, M. 1998. "The Extended Case Method." Sociological Theory. 16:1 4-33. Link
In this article I elaborate and codify the extended case method. which deploys participant observation to locate everyday life in its extralocal and historical context. The extended case method emulates a reflexive model of science that takes as its premise the intersubjectivity of scientist and subject of study: Reflexive science valorizes intervention, process, structuration, and theory reconstruction. It is the Siamese twin of positive science that proscribes reactivity but upholds reliability replicability, and representativeness. Positive science, exemplified by survey research, works on the principle of the separation between scientists and the subjects they examine. Positive science is limited by ``context effects'' (interview: respondent, field, and situational effects) while reflex ive science is limited by ``power effects'' (domination, silencing, objectification, and normalization). The article concludes by considering the implications of having two models of science rather than one, both of which are necessarily flawed. Throughout I use a study of postcolonialism to illustrate both the virtues and the shortcomings of the extended case method. Methodology can only bring us reflective understanding of the means which have demonstrated their value in practice by raising them to the level of explicit consciousness; it is no more the precondition of fruitful intellectual work than the knowledge of anatomy is the precondition of ``correct'' walking.
Bogard, W. 1998. "Sense and Segmentarity: Some Markers of a Deleuzian-guattarian Sociology." Sociological Theory. 16:1 52-74. Link
Although the focus of their work was rarely explicitly sociological, Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari developed concepts that have important and often profound implications for social theory and practice. Two of these, sense and segmentarity provide us,with entirely new ways to view sociological problems of meaning and structure. Deleuze conceives sense independently of both agency and signification, That is, sense is neither the manifestation of a communicating subject nor a structure of language-it is noncorporeal, impersonal, and prelinguistic, in his,words, a ``pure effect or event.'' With Guattari, Deleuze notes that it is not a question of how subjects produce social structures, but how a ``machinics of desire'' produces subjects. In Deleuze and Guattari, desire is not defined as a want or a lack, but as a machinery of forces, flows, and breaks of energy. The functional stratification we witness in social life is only the molar effect of a more primary segmentation of desire that occurs at the molecular level, at the level of bodies. In Deleuze and Guattari, bodies are not just human bodies, but ``anorganic'' composites or mixtures, organic form itself being a mode of the body's subjectification. The problem of the subject, and thus of the constitution of society, is first a problem of how the sense of bodies is produced through the assembly of desiring-machines. The subject, we could sag: is the actualization of desire on the incorporeal surface of bodies.
Schwinn, T. 1998. "False Connections: Systems and Action Theories in Neofunctionalism and in Jurgen Habermas." Sociological Theory. 16:1 75-95. Link
Recent theoretical discussions have served to bridge the gap separating systems- and action-theoretical approaches; however the question of their basic compatibility; has rarely been raised This paper takes up two efforts at linking systems and action theory: those of neofunctionalists and those of Jurgen Habermas. Neofunctionalists start from the inadequacies of systems functionalism and seek to open it to the theory of action. Habermas. on the other hand, seeks to overcome the limits of the theory of action by widening its scope in systems-theoretical terms. Successful synthesis eludes both efforts. either the status of voluntaristic aspects is so enhanced that the systemic whole and its functional imperatives practically vanish, or too much emphasis is placed on the systemic aspect, reducing actors to the mere executing agents of systemic needs. The combination, of theories of structure and action provides a way old of this dilemma.
Dahms, HF. 1997. "Theory in Weberian Marxism: Patterns of Critical Social Theory in Lukacs and Habermas." Sociological Theory. 15:3 181-214. Link
For Weberian Marxists, the social theories of Max Weber and Karl Marx are complementary, contributions to the analysis of modern capitalist society. Combining Weber's theory of rationalization with Marx's critique of commodity fetishism to develop his own critique of reification, Georg Lukacs contended that the combination of Marx's and Weber's social theories is essential to envisioning socially transformative modes of praxis in advanced capitalist society. By comparing Lukacs's theory of reification with Habermas's theory of communicative action as two theories in the tradition of Weberian Marxism, I show how the prevailing mode of ``doing theory'' has shifted from Marx's critique of economic deter terminism to Weber's idea of the inner logic of social value spheres. Today, Weberian Marxism can make an important contribution to theoretical sociology by reconstituting itself as a framework for critically examining prevailing societal definitions of the rationalization imperatives specific to purposive-rational social value spheres (the economy, the administrative state, etc.). In a second step, Weberian Marxists would explore how these value spheres relate to Each other and to value spheres that are open to the type of communicative rationalization characteristic of the lifeworld level of social organization.
Delanty, G. 1997. "Habermas and Occidental Rationalism: the Politics of Identity, Social Learning, and the Cultural Limits of Moral Universalism." Sociological Theory. 15:1 30-59. Link
While Habermas's theory of communicative action is deeply critical of all kinds of ethnocentrism, proposing a discursive concept of universal morality which transcends culture, a residual Eurocentrism still pervades it. habermas's theory rests on a notion of modernity which is tied to Occidental rationalism, and when viewed in the global context or in the context of deeply divided societies it is problematic. The theory fails to grasp that universal morality can be articulated in more than one cultural form and in more than one logic of development. However, his theory can be defended against its Eurocentric bias if it shifts its emphasis from a de-contexualized and transcendental critique of communication rooted in Occidental rationalism to a cosmopolitan model of contemporary cultural transformation. Crucial to that task is a weaker notion of rationality which recognizes that the problem of universality is also a cognitive cultural problem and not just a normative one. Bringing culture and identity to the foreground will involve making room for a level of discourse focused less on consensual agreement than on cultural understanding.
Eliasoph, N. 1996. "Making a Fragile Public: a Talk-centered Study of Citizenship and Power." Sociological Theory. 14:3 262-289. Link
Understanding how citizens create contexts for open-ended political conversation in everyday life is an important task for social research, The lack of theoretical attention to political conversation in the current renaissance of studies of ``civil society'' and ``the public sphere'' precludes a thoroughly social understanding of civic life. Participant-observation in U.S. recreational, volunteer, and activist groups shows how the very act of speaking itself comes to mean different things in different civic contexts. It shows dramatic contextual shifts-the more public the context, the less public-spirited the discourse. Institutions encouraged groups to avoid public, political conversation. One group challenged the dominant etiquette for citizenship; the others considered talking politics ``out of place'' almost everywhere. The ways groups relate to public speech itself are themselves meaningful; the concept of ``civic practices'' highlights how groups develop not just the power to make a particular political program public, but the power to make the public itself.
Emirbayer, M. 1996. "Useful Durkheim." Sociological Theory. 14:2 109-130. Link
From the mid-1960s through much of the 1980s, Durkheim's contributions to historical-comparative sociology were decidedly marginalized; the title of one of Charles Tilly's essays, ``Useless Durkheim,'' conveys this prevailing sensibility with perfect clarity. Here, ky contrast, I draw upon writings from Durkheim's later ``religious'' period to show how Durkheim has special relevance today for debates in the historical-comparative field. I examine how his substantive writings shed light on current discussions regarding civil society; how his analytical insights help to show how action within civil society as well as other historical contexts is channelled by cultural, social-structural, and social-psychological configurations (plus transformative human agency); and how his ontological commitment to a ``relational social realisin'' contributes to ongoing attempts to rethink the foundations of historical-comparative investigation.
Lichterman, P. 1995. "Beyond the Seesaw Model: Public Commitment in a Culture of Self-fulfillment." Sociological Theory. 13:3 275-300. Link
Communitarian sociological theory and research of the past 30 years has often assumed that a growing culture of self-fulfillment, or `'personalism,'' is ultimately incompatible with commitment to the public good. This article argues that this `'seesaw model'' does not exhaust the possible relations between personalism and public commitment. It borrows insights from radical democratic theories to argue the existence of a form of public commitment that is enacted through, rather than impeded by, personalism. A cultural analysis that highlights everyday practices enables us to conceptualize this personalized form of public commitment, which goes unrecognized in communitarian accounts, and which gets discussed only in formal theoretical or social-psychological, terms in radical democratic theories. A case example of personalized public commitment in recent grass-roots environmentalism illustrates the limits in the seesaw model and speaks back to radical democratic theories of public commitment by illuminating how the individualized commitment they theorize may work in everyday cultural practice. I conclude with suggestions for further theoretical work on personalism.
RAMBO, E. 1995. "Conceiving Best Outcomes Within a Theory of Utility Maximization - a Culture-level Critique." Sociological Theory. 13:2 145-162. Link
Coleman's rational choice theory introduces the idea of a `'social optimum'' into sociological theory. This idea of conceiving best outcomes is central to the project of reasoned progress and is an important tonic against the postmodern doubt. The utility maximization approach is inadequate, however because it is locked into an analysis of social structures. As a result it cannot conceptualize common standards, which are essential to best outcomes. These are treated adequately only within a cultural analysis. Welfare economics has dealt with this problem of best outcomes for a long time. Its history with the problem verifies the insuperable difficulties in a conception of action as utility maximization. When Coleman generalizes that approach, he manages only to reduce standards to power. This is inadequate. Some implications of conceiving common standards as culture are discussed.
GOLDSTEIN, J & J RAYNER. 1994. "The Politics of Identity in Late Modern Society." Theory and Society. 23:3 367-384. Link
MEADWELL, H. 1994. "The Foundations of Habermas Universal Pragmatics." Theory and Society. 23:5 711-727. Link
Lowy, M. 1996. "Figures of Weberian Marxism." Theory and Society. 25:3 431-446. Link
Ryan, P. 2000. "Structure, Agency, and the Nicaraguan Revolution." Theory and Society. 29:2 187-213. Link
Alford, CF. 2002. "The Opposite of Totality: Levinas and the Frankfurt School." Theory and Society. 31:2 229-254. Link
Ferree, MM, WA Gamson, J Gerhards & D Rucht. 2002. "Four Models of the Public Sphere in Modern Democracies." Theory and Society. 31:3 289-324. Link
Dahlberg, L. 2005. "The Habermasian Public Sphere: Taking Difference Seriously?." Theory and Society. 34:2 111-136. Link
The public sphere conception continues to hold center stage in debates and visions of radical democratic society, and Jurgen Habermas work continues to be the most popular starting point for developing this conception. However, the Habermasian public sphere has also come under powerful and sustained criticism from many quarters. Here I concentrate upon the critiques of a group of theorists to whom I refer as difference democrats. I examine the three key arguments of these critics:that the public sphere conception involves the exclusion of aesthetic-affective modes of communication and hence the voices of certain groups; that it assumes that power can be separated from public discourse, which masks exclusion and domination; and that it promotes consensus as the purpose of deliberation, which marginalizes voices that do not readily agree. Against these claims I show that the Habermasian public sphere can be read as maximizing the inclusion of difference in deliberative exchange. I demonstrate how the conception extensively accommodates aesthetic-affective modes of discourse, how it accounts for both negative and positive forms of power in discourse, and how it promotes the process over the end-point of rational discourse in public opinion formation.
Browne, Paul. 2010. "The Dialectics of Health and Social Care: Toward a Conceptual Framework." Theory and Society. 39:5 575-591. Link
The difficulty in conceptualizing health and social care resides in its complex and dialectical character: its constitutive social relations are not reducible to a single logic or type of actor; it is both a descriptive and a normative idea, a tool of classification and evaluation, a means of analysis and a weapon of critique. It is both theoretical and practical, a scientific construct and an ethical stance, rooted both in academic disciplines and the manifold practices of health and social care. This article draws out the radical core of the concept of care as a dialogical form of labor that transcends mere instrumental or strategic action; it then explores the contradictions of this praxis in the context of the social division of care in late capitalism.
Gross, Neil & Ethan Fosse. 2012. "Why Are Professors Liberal?." Theory and Society. 41:2 127-168. Link
The political liberalism of professors-an important occupational group and anomaly according to traditional theories of class politics-has long puzzled sociologists. This article sheds new light on the subject by employing a two-step analytic procedure. In the first step, we assess the explanatory power of the main hypotheses proposed over the last half century to account for professors' liberal views. To do so, we examine hypothesized predictors of the political gap between professors and other Americans using General Social Survey data pooled from 1974-2008. Results indicate that professors are more liberal than other Americans because a higher proportion possess advanced educational credentials, exhibit a disparity between their levels of education and income, identify as Jewish, non-religious, or non-theologically conservative Protestant, and express greater tolerance for controversial ideas. In the second step of our article, we develop a new theory of professors' politics on the basis of these findings (though not directly testable with our data) that we think holds more explanatory promise than existing approaches and that sets an agenda for future research.
Onar, Nora & Hande Paker. 2012. "Towards Cosmopolitan Citizenship? Women's Rights in Divided Turkey." Theory and Society. 41:4 375-394. Link
Identity politics and citizenship are often envisaged in dichotomous terms, but cosmopolitan theorists believe commitments to ``thin'' universal values can be generated from divergent ``thick'' positions. Yet, they often gloss over the ways in which the nexus of thick and thin is negotiated in practice-a weak link in the cosmopolitan argument. To understand this nexus better, we turn to women's rights organizations (WROs) in polarized Turkey to show that women affiliated with rival camps (e.g., pro-religious/pro-secular, Turkish/Kurdish, liberal/leftist) can mobilize over issues like empowerment, violence against women, and education. However, thick readings of these issues inflect upon collaboration. This has spurred pro-religious and Kurdish women to develop strategies that flag their specific concerns. As such, mutual recognition along cosmopolitan lines appears possible-and is reinforced through iterative encounters-but is not necessarily negotiated between equally empowered agents and entails complex processes of contestation and concession-making.
Roberts, John. 2012. "Discourse or Dialogue? Habermas, the Bakhtin Circle, and the Question of Concrete Utterances." Theory and Society. 41:4 395-419. Link
This article argues that the Bakhtin Circle presents a more realistic theory of concrete dialogue than the theory of discourse elaborated by Habermas. The Bakhtin Circle places speech within the ``concrete whole utterance'' and by this phrase they mean that the study of everyday language should be analyzed through the mediations of historical social systems such as capitalism. These mediations are also characterized by a determinate set of contradictions-the capital-labor contradiction in capitalism, for example-that are reproduced in unique ways in more concrete forms of life (the state, education, religion, culture, and so on). Utterances always dialectically refract these processes and as such are internal concrete moments, or concrete social forms, of them. Moreover, new and unrepeatable dialogic events arise in these concrete social forms in order to overcome and understand the constant dialectical flux of social life. But this theory of dialogue is different from that expounded by Habermas, who tends to explore speech acts by reproducing a dualism between repeatable and universal ``abstract'' discursive processes (commonly known as the ideal speech situation) and empirical uses of discourse. These critical points against Habermas are developed by focusing on six main areas: sentences and utterances; the lifeworld and background language; active versus passive understandings of language; validity claims; obligation and relevance in language; and dialectical universalism.