COMMUNITARIANISM
Communitarianism is a social philosophy that core assumption is the required shared ("social")
formulations of the good. The assumption is both empirical (social life exhibits shared values) and
normative (shared values ought to be formulated). While many sociologists may consider such an
assumption as subject to little controversy, communitarianism is in effect a highly contested social
philosophy. It is often contrasted with liberalism (based on the works of John Locke, Adam Smith, and
John Stuart Mill, not to be confused with liberalism as the term is used in contemporary American
politics). Liberalism's core assumption is that what people consider right or wrong, their values, should
strictly be a matter for each individual to determine. To the extent that social arrangements and public
policies are needed, these should not be driven by shared values but by voluntary arrangements and
contracts among the individuals involved, thus reflecting their values and interests. Communitarians, in
contrast, see social institutions and policies as affected by tradition and hence by values passed from
generation to generation. These become part of the self through nonrational processes, especially
internalization, and are changed by other processes such as persuasion, religious or political
indoctrination, leadership, and moral dialogues.
In addition, communitarianism emphasizes particularism, the special moral obligations people have to
their families, kin, communities, and societies. In contrast, liberalism stresses the universal rights of all
individuals, regardless of their particular membership. Indeed, liberal philosopher Jeremy Bentham
declared that the very notion of a society is a fiction.
Until 1990, sociological and social psychological researchers and theorists and communitarian
philosophers often ignored one another's works, despite the fact that they dealt with closely related
issues. It should be noted, though, that communitarians were much more inclined to be openly and
systematically normative than many social scientists.
HISTORY
Like many other schools of thought, communitarianism has changed considerably throughout its
history, and has various existing camps that differentiate significantly. As far as can be determined, the
term "communitarian" was not used until 1841, when Goodwyn Barmby, an official of the Communist
Church, founded the Universal Communitarian Association.
Communitarian issues were addressed long before that date, however, for instance in Aristotle's
comparison of the isolated lives of people in the big metropolis to close relationships in the smaller
city. Both the Old and the New Testament deal with various issues one would consider communitarian
today, for instance the obligations to one's community. The social teaching of the Catholic Church (for
instance, concerning subsidiarity) and of early utopian socialism (for example, regarding communal life
and solidarity), all contain strong communitarian elements, although these works are not
comprehensive communitarian statements and are not usually considered as communitarian works
per se.
Among early sociologists whose work is strongly communitarian, although this fact is as a rule
overlooked by social philosophers, are Ferdinand Tönnies, especially his comparison of the
Gemeinschaft and Gessellschaft, (or community and society); Emile Durkheim, especially his
concerns about the integrating role of social values and the relations between the individual and
society; and George Herbert Mead. These works are extensively examined elsewhere in this
encyclopedia and hence are not discussed here.
A communitarian who combined social philosophy and sociology Martin Buber. Especially relevant are
Buber's contrast between I-It and I-Thou relations, his interest in dialogue, and his distinction between
genuine communal relationships and objectified ones.
Page 356 | Top of Article
Other sociologists whose work contains communitarian elements are Robert E. Park, William
Kornhauser, and Robert Nisbet. Philip Selznick, Robert Bellah and his associates, and Amitai Etzioni
wrote books that laid the foundations for new (or responsive) communitarianism, which Etzioni
launched as a "school" and somewhat of a social movement in 1990.
Selznick's The Moral Commonwealth is especially key in forming a strong intellectual grounding for
new communitarian thinking, and presents an integration of moral and social theory in a synthesis of
"communitarian liberalism." According to Selznick, communitarianism does not reject basic liberal
ideals and achievements; it seeks reconstruction of liberal perspectives to mitigate the excesses of
individualism and rationalism, and to encourage an ethic of responsibility (in contrast to liberalism,
where the concept of responsibility has no major role). In a community there is an irrepressible tension
between exclusion and inclusion, and between civility and piety. Thus community is not a restful idea,
a realm of peace and harmony. On the contrary, competing principles must be recognized and dealt
with.
AUTHORITARIAN, POLITICAL THEORETICAL, AND
RESPONSIVE COMMUNITARIANISM
Different communitarian camps are no closer to one another than National Socialists (Nazis) are to
Scandinavian Social Democrats (also considered socialists). It is hence important to keep in mind
which camp one is considering. The differences concern the normative relations between social order
and liberty, and the relations between the community and the individual.
Authoritarian Communitarians. Authoritarian communitarians(some of whom are often referred to as
"Asian" or "East Asian" communitarians) are those who argue that to maintain social order and
harmony, individual rights and political liberties must be curtailed. Some believe in the strong arm of
the state (such as former Singapore Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew and Malaysian head of state
Mahathir Bin Mohamad), and some in strong social bonds and the voice of the family and community
(especially the kind of society Japan had, at least until 1990). Among the arguments made by
authoritarian communitarians is that social order is important to people, while what the West calls
"liberty" actually amounts to social, political, and moral anarchy; that curbing legal and political rights is
essential for rapid economic development; and that legal and political rights are a Western idea, which
the West uses to harshly judge other cultures that have their own inherent values. The extent to which
early sociological works, for instance, by Tönnies and Community and Power by Robert Nisbet,
include authoritarian elements, is open to question.
Political Theoreticians . In the 1980s communitarian thinking became largely associated with three
scholars: Charles Taylor, Michael Sandel, and Michael Walzer. They criticized liberalism for its failure
to realize that people are socially "situated" or contextualized, and its negligence of the greater
common good in favor of individualistic self-interests. In addition, as Chandran Kukathas relates in The
Communitarian Challenge to Liberalism (Paul, Miller, Paul, eds. 1990, p.90), communitarians argue
that political community is an important value which is neglected by liberal political theory. Liberalism,
they contend, views political society as a supposedly neutral framework of rules within which a
diversity of moral traditions coexist. . . .[Such a view] neglects the fact that people have, or can have, a
strong and 'deep' attachment to their societies--to their nations.
While for many outside sociology, especially until 1990, these three scholars were considered the
founding fathers of communitarian thinking, none of them uses the term in their work, possibly to avoid
being confused with authoritarian communitarians. These scholars almost completely ignored
sociological works that preceded them, and were largely ignored by sociologists.
New or Responsive Communitarians. Early in 1990, a school of communitarianism was founded in
which sociologists played a key role, although it included scholars from other disciplines such as
William A. Galston (political theory), Mary Ann Glendon (law), Thomas Spragens, Jr. (political
science), and Alan Ehrenhalt (writer) to mention but a few. The group, founded by Amitai Etzioni, took
communitarianism from a small and somewhat esoteric academic discipline and introducedPage 357 |
Top of Article it into public life, and recast its academic content. Its tools were The Responsive
Communitarian Platform: Rights and Responsibilities, a joint manifesto summarizing the guiding
principles of the group; an intellectual quarterly, The Responsive Community, whose editors include
several sociologists; several books; position papers on issues ranging from a communitarian view of
the family to organ donation and to bicultural education; and numerous public conferences, op-eds,
and a web site (www.gwu.edu/~ccps).
Key Assumptions and Concepts. Responsive communitarianism methodologically is based on the
macro-sociological assumption that societies have multiple and not wholly compatible needs and
values, in contrast to philosophies that derive their core assumptions from one overarching principle,
for instance liberty for libertarianism. Responsive communitarianism assumes that a "good society" is
based on a carefully crafted balance between liberty and social order, between individual rights and
social responsibilities, between particularistic (ethnic, racial, communal) and society-wide values and
bonds. In that sense, far from representing a Western model, the communitarian good society
combines 'Asian' values (also reflecting tenets of Islam and Judaism that stress social responsibilities)
with a Western concern with political liberty and individual rights.
While the model of the good society is applicable to all societies, communitarianism stresses that
different societies, during various historical periods, may be off balance in rather contrasting ways and
hence may need to move in different directions in order to approximate the same balance. Thus,
contemporary East Asian societies require much greater tolerance for individual and communal
differences, while in the American society--especially at the end of the 1980s--excessive
individualism needs to be reigned in. To put it differently, communitarianism suggests that the specific
normative directives that flow from the good society model are historically and culturally contingent.
Responsive communitarians stress that the relationship between liberty and social order is not a zero-
sum situation; up to a point they are mutually supportive. Thus, in situations such as those prevailing
in late-1990s Moscow, where liberty and social order are neglected, increasing order might well also
enhance people's autonomy and life choices. The same might be said about reducing crime in
American cities when it reached the point where people did not venture into parks, and were reluctant
to ride the subway or walk the streets after dark. Moreover, totalitarian regimes, the ultimate loss of
freedom, are said to arise when order is minimized.
While up to a point social order and liberty enhance one another, if the level of social order is
increased further and further, responsive communitarians expect it to reach a level where it will erode
people's liberty. And, if the scope of liberty is extended ever more, it will reach a point where it will
undermine the social order. This idea is expressed in the term inverting symbiosis, which indicates that
up to a point liberty and order nourish one another, and beyond it they turn antagonistic.
The same point applies to the relationship between the self and the community. Political theorists have
tended to depict the self as "encumbered," "situated,"or "contextualized,"all of which imply that it is
constrained by social order. Responsive communitarians stress that individuals within communities are
able to be more reasonable and productive than isolated individuals, but if social pressure to conform
reaches a high level, such pressures undermine the development and expression of the self.
The next question is: Under what conditions can the zone of symbiosis be expanded, and that of
antagonism between liberty and order be minimized? To answer that question the communitarian view
of human nature must be introduced. While sociologists tend to avoid this term, on the grounds that it
is not testible and can lead to racism (as evident in the notion that some groups of people are more
intelligent by nature), communitarians use the term with less reluctance.
The view of human nature most compatible with responsive communitarian thinking is a dynamic
(developmental) view, which holds that people at birth are akin to animals. But unlike social
conservatives, who tend to embrace a dour view of human nature, and tend to view even adults after
socialization as impulsive, irrational, dangerous, or sinful--communitarians maintain that people can
become increasingly virtuous if the proper processes of value-internalization and reinforcement of
undergirding social institutions, the "moralPage 358 | Top of Article infrastructure," are in place. At the
same time, communitarians do not presume that people can be made as virtuous as liberals assume
them to be from the onset. (Liberals tend to assume that crime and forms of deviant behavior reflect
social conditions, especially government interventions that pervert good people, rather than criminals'
innate nature.)
The moral infrastructure, an essential foundation of a good society, draws on four social formations:
families, schools, communities, and the community of communities. The four core elements of the
moral infrastructure are arranged like Chinese nesting boxes, one within the other, and in a
sociological progression. Infants are born into families, which communitarians stress have been
entrusted throughout human history with beginning the process of instilling values and launching the
moral self. Schools join the process as children grow older, further developing the moral self
("character"), or trying to remedy character neglect suffered under family care. Schools are hence
viewed not merely or even primarily as places of teaching, where the passing of knowledge and skills
occur, but as educational institutions in the broadest sense of the term.
Human nature, communitarians note, is such that even if children are reared in families dedicated to
child raising and moral education, and children graduate from strong and dedicated schools, these
youngsters are still not sufficiently equipped for a good, communitarian society. This is a point ignored
by social philosophers who often assume that once people have acquired virtue and are habituated,
they will be guided by their inner moral compass. The very concept of "conscience" assumes the
formation of a perpetual inner gyroscope.
In contrast, communitarians--following standard sociological positions--assume that the good
character of those who have acquired it tends to degrade. If left to their own devices, individuals
gradually lose much of their commitments to their values, unless these are continuously reinforced. A
major function of the community, as a building block of the moral infrastructure, is to reinforce the
character of its members. This is achieved by the community's "moral voice," the informal sanction of
others, built into a web of informal affect-laden relationships, which communities provide. In general,
the weaker the community--because of high population turnover, few shared core values, high
heterogeneity, etc.--the thinner the social web and the slacker the moral voice. The strength of the
moral voice and the values it speaks for have been studied using a series of questions such as,
Should one speak up if child abuse is witnessed? Or if children are seen painting swastikas? What
about less dire situations, such as insisting that friends wear their seatbelts, or admonishing a
nondisabled person one witnesses parking in a handicap space?
Informal surveys show that Americans in the 1980s were very reluctant to raise their moral voice;
many accepted the liberal ideology that what is morally sound is to be determined by each individual,
and one should not pass judgments over others. Alan Wolfe's study, One Nation After All, found that
Americans, even in conservative parts of the country, have grown very tolerant of a great variety of
social behavior. Increase in tolerance is of course by itself virtuous; communitarians, though, raise the
question: At which point does such increased tolerance engendering an amoral culture where spousal
abuse, discrimination, child neglect, drunk drivers, obsessive materialism, and other forms of antisocial
behavior become matters the community should ignore, leaving them to individual discretion or the
law.
More specifically, communitarians inquire various elements of the moral infrastructure whether they
reinforce, neglect, or undermine it. In this context, the special communitarian perspective of voluntary
associations is especially important. Previously, the significance of these associations has been
highlighted as protecting individuals from the state (a protection they would not have if they faced the
state as isolated or "atomized" individuals), and as intermediating bodies that aggregate, transmit, and
underwrite individual signals to the state.
Communitarians argue that, in addition, the very same voluntary associations often fulfill a rather
different role: They serve as social spaces in which members of communities reinforce their social
webs and articulate their moral voice. That is, voluntary associations often constitute a basis of
communal relationships. Thus, the members of a local chapter of the Masons, Elks, or Lions
carePage 359 | Top of Article about one another and reinforce each other's particular brand of
conservative views. Similarly, the members of the New York City Reform Clubs, Americans for
Democratic Action, and local chapters of the ACLU reinforce one another's particular brand of liberal
views.
Communitarians pay special attention to the condition of public spaces as places communities happen
(as distinct from private places like homes and cars). Even though one may carpool with friends or
have them over for a visit, these are mainly activities of small friendship groups (what Robert Putnam
calls "bowling alone"). Communities need more encompassing webs, and those are formed and
reinforced in public gathering places--from school assembly halls to parks, from plazas to
promenades. To the extent that these spaces become unsafe, communities lose one of their major
sources of reinforcement; recapturing them for community use is hence a major element of community
regeneration.
Most important, drawing again on sociology, and particularly on what has been called the "consensus"
rather then the "conflict") model, communitarians tend to maintain that if in addition to strong families
and schools that build character, a society has communities, where social webs are intact and thats
moral voice is clearly articulate, that society will be able to base its social order largely on moral
commitments rather than the forces of the state. This is the case, communitarians argue, drawing on
sociological assumptions and studies, because once moral commitments are internalized and
reinforced they help shape people's preferences in favor of prosocial behavior--thus reducing the
need for coercion by the state and diminishing the tension between liberty and social order.
Many discussions of community and of the moral infrastructure stop at this point, having explored the
moral agency of family, school, and community. However, social and moral communities are not
freestanding; they are often parts of more encompassing social entities. Moreover, communitarians
note that unless communities are bound socially and morally into more encompassing entities, they
may war with one another. Hence, the importance of communities of communities, the society.
Communitarians argue that one should not view society as composed of millions of individuals, but as
pluralism within unity. They further maintain that subcultures and loyalties are not a threat to the
integrity of society as long as a core of shared values and institutions (such as the Constitution and its
Bill of Rights, the democratic way of life, and mutual tolerance) are respected.
Communitarians draw on the four elements of the moral infrastructure--families, schools,
communities, and communities of communities--as a sort of a checklist to help determine the state of
the moral infrastructure in a given society. They argue that the decline of the two-parent family (due to
high divorce rates, growing legitimation of single-parent families, and psychological disinvestment of
parents in children), the deterioration of schools (due to automatic promotions and deterioration of
social order in schools), the decline of communities (due to modernization), and the decline of the
community of communities (as a result of excessive emphasis on diversity without parallel concern
over shared bonds) resulted in the decline of moral and social order in the American society during the
1970s and 1980s. This was evidenced by the sharp rise in violent crime, drug abuse, teen pregnancy,
and in the decline of voluntarism, among other factors. The fact that some of these trends slowed
down and reversed in the 1990s is viewed in part by communitarians as a reflection of changes in
social thinking and practices they helped champion.
Here lies a great difference between the communitarian position and that of various religious social
conservatives. Both groups recognize the need to regenerate the moral infrastructure, but
conservatives favor returning to traditional social formations while communitarians point to new ways
of shoring up society's ethical framework. For instance, many social conservatives favor women
"graciously submitting to their husbands" and returning to homemaking, while communitarians argue
for peer marriage, a concept introduced by Pepper Schwartz. Peer marriage suggests equal rights and
responsibilities for mothers and fathers, but favors marriages that last, as compared to the liberal
argument that single-parent families or child care centers can socialize children as well if not better
than two-parent families. (Among the sociologists who have struck aPage 360 | Top of Article
communitarian position in this matter are Linda Waite, Glen Elder, Alice Rossi, and David Popenoe).
The communitarian argument over the role of communities in maintaining social order is strongly
supported by sociological research of the kind conducted by Robert Sampson on the role of
communities in fighting crime and drug abuse. David Karp and Todd Clear have also studied
community involvement in criminal justice, focusing on ideas of restorative justice and policies that are
concerned more with reintegrating offenders into their communities than merely punishing them.
Other communitarian themes examined by sociologists include topics explored by Edward W.
Lehman, especially his writing on macro-sociology; Martin Whyte's work on the family; and Richard
Coughlin's comparison of communitarian thinking to socioeconomics.
CIVIL SOCIETY, THE THIRD WAY, AND THE GOOD SOCIETY
Much of the normative debate in the West, at least since the middle of the nineteenth century, has
focused on the merit of the free market (or capitalism) versus the role of the state in securing the
citizens' well-being. Communitarians have basically leapfrogged this debate, focusing instead on the
importance of the third element of social life, that of the civic society, which is neither state nor market.
Communitarians have played a key role in the debate over the condition of civic society in the West,
such as examining whether participation in voluntary associations, voting, and trust in institutions have
declined, and to what effect. The work of Robert Bellah and his associates has been particularly
influential here, demonstrating the rise of first expressive and then instrumental individualism, and their
ill effects.
Communitarians have argued that rather than dumping people (often the most vulnerable members of
society) into the marketplace as the welfare state is curtailed, civic society's various institutions can
empower these individuals to help one another in attending to some of their social needs. Communal
institutions (including places of worship) can shoulder important parts of care previously provided by
state agencies, although the state will have to continue to shoulder an important part of the burden.
Communitarians stress that mutuality, rather than charity, is the basis for community-wide action that
is not solely limited to helping one particular vulnerable group or another. The CPR training of some
400,000 Seattle citizens, who are thus able to help one another without public costs or private
charges, is held up as a key case in point. Other examples include voluntary recycling programs,
crime watch patrols, and above all the massive assistance given to immigrants by members of their
own ethnic group. Communitarians have also pointed to the importance of a culture of civility in
maintaining a society's ability to work out differences without excessive conflict.
Communitarians have argued that a civic society is good, but not good enough. Civic society tends to
be morally neutral on many matters other than values concerning its own inherent virtue and the
attributes citizens need to make them into effective members of a civic society, for instance, to be able
to think critically. Thus, all voluntary associations, from the KKK to the Urban League, from militias to
Hadassah, are considered to have the same basic standing. In contrast, a good society seeks to
promote a core of substantive values, and thus views some social associations and activities as more
virtuous than others. In the same vein, communitarians have stressed that while everyone's legal right
to free speech should be respected, there is no denying that some speech--seen from the
community's viewpoint--is morally sound while other speech is abhorrent. For instance, the (legal)
right to speak does not make hate speech (morally) right. Communitarians would not seek to suppress
hate speech by legal means, however, but they urge communities to draw on their moral voice to
chastise those who speak in ways that are offensive.
CRITICS AND RESPONSES
Critics of responsive communitarianism argue that the concept of community is vague; indeed that the
term "community" itself cannot be well defined. In response, community has been defined as a
combination of two elements: a) A web of affect-laden relationships among a group of individuals,
relationships that often crisscross and reinforce one another (rather than merely one-on-one or
chainlike individual relationships)and b) A measure of commitment to a set of shared values,Page 361
| Top of Article norms, and meanings, and a shared history and identity to a particular culture.
Some critics also contend that the quest for community is anachronistic, that contemporary societies
are urban and populations geographically highly mobile, and thus bereft of community.
Communitarians respond that communities exist in contemporary societies in small towns, suburbs,
campuses and within city neighborhoods, often based on ethnic ties in places such as Korea Town in
Los Angeles, Little Italy in New York City, the Irish section of South Boston, and so on. Moreover,
communitarians point out that communities need not be geographic, members can be spread among
nonmembers. For instance, homosexual groups often constitute communities even if they are not all
neighbors.
Critics maintain that communities are authoritarian and oppressive, and have charged communitarians
with seeking "Salem without witches." Communitarians respond that communities vary regarding this
assessment. Contemporary communities tend to be relatively freer, given the relative ease of
intercommunity mobility as well as shifting loyalties and psychic investments among various groups of
which the same person is a member.
Critics also maintain that communities are exclusionary, and hence bigoted. Communitarians respond
that communities must respect the laws of the society in which they are situated, but do tend to thrive
on a measure of homogeneity and on people's desire to be with others of their own kind. Moreover,
given the human benefit of community membership, a measure of self-segregation should be
tolerated.
Critics of responsive communitarianism claim that communitarians ignore matters of power and
injustice as well as economic considerations, and are generally inclined to adopt a consensus rather
than a conflict model. Communitarians agree that they ought to pay more attention to the effects of
these factors on communities. However, they do envision the possibilities of conflict within
communities, and responsive communitarians do propose that one should not treat conflict and
community as mutually exclusive. Extending this idea to the treatment of diversity and multiculturalism,
communitarians argue in favor of a society in which many differences can be celebrated as long as a
set of commitments to the overarching society is upheld.
VALUES AND VIRTUES
While sociologists greatly altered and enriched communitarian thinking, communitarian thinking's main
contribution to sociology is the challenge of facing issues raised by the moral standing of various
values, and the related question of cross-cultural moral judgments. Sociologists tend to treat all values
as conceptually equal; a sociologist may refer to racist Afrikaners' beliefs and to humanitarian beliefs
using the same "neutral" term, calling both "values." Communitarians use the term virtue to denote
that some values (or belief systems) have a higher standing than others because they are compatible
with the good society, while other values are not (and hence aberrant).
In the same vein, communitarians do not shy away from passing cross-cultural moral judgments,
rejecting cultural relativism's claim that all cultures have basically equal moral standing. Thus, they
view female circumcision, sex slaves, and hudud (chopping off the right hand of thieves) as violations
of liberty and individual rights, and abandoning children, violating implicit contracts built into communal
mutuality, or neglecting the environment, as evidence of a lack of commitment to social order and
neglect of social responsibilities.
IMPACT
So far this examination has focused on the place of communitarian thinking in academic, conceptual,
theoretical, and imperial works. Responsive communitarians have also been playing a considerable
public role, presenting themselves as the founders of a new kind of environmental movement, one
dedicated to shoring up society (not the state) rather than nature. Like environmentalism,
communitarianism appeals to audiences across the political spectrum, although it has found greater
acceptance with some groups rather than others. British Prime Minister Tony Blair is reported to have
adopted the communitarian platform, and German Social Democrat Rudolf Scharping has suggested
that his party should meet the communitarians "half way." President Bill Clinton and his wife Hillary
Rodham Clinton (author of ItPage 362 | Top of Article Takes a Village) have combined communitarian
with welfare-liberal themes. Among conservatives, Jack Kemp, a group of Tory members of the British
parliament (especially David Willet), and German governor Kurt Biedenkopf are often listed as
influenced by communitarianism. While this is only a partial list, it serves to illustrate the scope of
communitarianism's influence and its cross over traditional ideological lines.
Communitarian terms have become part of the public vocabulary in the 1990s, especially references
to "assuming responsibilities to match rights," while "communitarianism" itself is used much less often.
The number of articles about communitarian thinking in the popular press increased twelvefold during
the last decade of the twentieth century. The increase in the number of books, articles, and Ph.D.
dissertations in academia for the same period, has been about eightfold. Interestingly, taking
communitarianism from academia to the "streets" in the early 1990s resulted in the middle and late
1990s into a significant increase in acasemic interest. In the process, bridges have been built between
social philosophers, sociologists, and community members and leaders, although they still sometimes
travel on parallel rather than convergent pathways.
An extensive bibliography of communitarian works is also listed on The Communitarian Network's
website, http://www.gwu.edu/~ccps.
REFERENCES
Bellah, Robert et al.1991 The Good Society. New York: Knopf.
----1986 Habits of the Heart. New York: Harper & Row.
Coughlin, Richard 1991 Morality, Rationality, and Efficiency: New Perspectives on Socio-economics.
Armonk. N.Y.: M.E. Sharpe.
Etzioni, Amitai 1998 The Essential Communitarian Reader. New York: Roman & Littlefield.
----1996 The New Golden Rule. New York: Basic Books.
----1995 New Communitarian Thinking. Charlottes-ville, Va.: The University of Virginia Press.
----1993 The Spirit of Community. New York: Touchstone.
Paul, Ellen Franken, Fred Miller, Jr., and Jeffrey Paul (eds.) 1996 The Communitarian Challenge to
Liberalism. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Selznick, Philip 1992 The Moral Commonwealth. Berkeley: University of California Press.
The Responsive Community: Rights and Responsibilities, a quarterly journal.
AMITAI ETZIONI
Document Number: CX3404400058
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American society, communitarianism, 1: 361 Aristotle, on communitarians, 1: 355 Asai, 1: 356 Asia authoritarian
communitarianism, 1: 356 Authoritarianism communitarian, 1: 356 Barmby, Goodwyn, 1: 355 Bellah, Robert, 1:
356, 1: 360, 2: 1197 , 3: 2080 , 4: 2484 , 4: 2713 , 5: 2918 Bentham, Jeremy, 1: 355, 1: 528 , 3: 1599 , 3: 1600 , 3:
2087 , 5: 2963 Bible communitarian issues in, 1: 355 Biedenkopf, Kurt, 1: 362 Bill of Rights (U.S.), 1: 270 , 1: 315
, 1: 359 Blair, Tony, 1: 228 , 1: 361 Buber, Martin, 1: 355-356 Capitalism, and communitarian views, 1: 360
Censorship and the regulation of expression, communitarian view of, 1: 360 Child care centers, 1: 129 , 1: 359
Childhood nonmaternal caretakers, 1: 128-129 , 1: 359 Civic society, 1: 360 Civil liberties, liberalism's emphasis
on, 1: 355 responsive communitarianism and, 1: 357, 1: 361 Clear, Todd, 1: 360 Communist Church, 1: 355
Communitarian Challenge to Liberalism, The (Kukathas), 1: 356 Communitarianism, authoritarian, 1: 356 on civic
society, 1: 360 community and, 1: 359-361 critics and responses, 1: 360-361 history of, 1: 355-356 impact of, 1:
361-362 new school of responsive, 1: 356-361 political theory of, 1: 356, 4: 2337 primary contribution of, 1: 361
Community, as anachronistic, 1: 360 communitarian view of, 1: 358-361 as community of communities, 1: 359, 1:
363 moral infrastructure of, 1: 357-358, 1: 359 political communitarianism and, 1: 356 responsive
communitarianism and, 1: 358-361 Community and Power (Nisbet), 1: 356 Consensus model communitarian, 1:
359 Constitution, U.S. Bill of Rights, 1: 270 , 1: 315 , 1: 359 as shared value, 1: 359 Coughlin, Richard, 1: 360
Crime, theories of, communitarian, 1: 359 Cross-cultural analysis, of communitarian moral judgments, 1: 361 Day-
care facilities for children, 1: 129 , 1: 359 Deviance theories, liberal vs. conservative, 1: 357 Drug abuse, moral
and social decline linked with, 1: 359 Durkheim, Émile, on communitarianism, 1: 355, 4: 2337 Education
communitarian view of, 1: 358, 1: 359 Ehrenhalt, Alan, 1: 356 Elder, Glen H. Jr., 1: 31-32 , 1: 360, 3: 1618 , 3:
1619 , 4: 2662 , 4: 2855 , 4: 2861 Etzioni, Amitai, and new communitarianism school, 1: 356 Family and
household structure, liberal vs. communitarian view of, 1: 359 Galston, William A., 1: 356 Gemeinschaft-
Gessellschaft shift (Tönnies concept), 1: 355, 1: 362 , 1: 363 , 1: 364 , 1: 367 , 3: 1502 , 3: 1506 , 4: 2426 , 4:
2483 , 5: 3130 , 5: 3135 , 5: 3182 Germany communitarianism, 1: 362, 1: 361 Glendon, Mary Ann, 1: 356, 1: 472
Good society model, 1: 357, 1: 360 Hate speech communitarian view of, 1: 360 Human nature, conservative vs.
liberal view of, 1: 357, 3: 1598-1599 responsive communitarianism view of, 1: 357-358 Human rights, children's
rights, and democracy, communitarian view of, 1: 361 liberalism's emphasis on, 1: 355 I-It and I-Thou relations
(Buber concept), 1: 355 Individualism, community and, 1: 359 liberalism's focus on, 1: 355 responsivie
communitarian view of, 1: 357 Inverting symbiosis, 1: 357 It Takes a Village (H. Clinton), 1: 361-362 Japan
authoritarian communitarianism, 1: 356, 5: 3218 Karp, David, 1: 245 , 1: 360 Kemp, Jack, 1: 362 Kornhauser,
William, 1: 356, 3: 1773 Kukathas, Chandran, 1: 356 Lee Kuan Yew, 1: 356 Lehman, Edward W., 1: 360
Liberalism/conservatism, communitarian influences on, 1: 361 communitarianism contrasted with liberalism, 1:
355, 1: 356, 1: 358, 1: 359 communitarianism contrasted with social conservatism, 1: 359 views of human nature,
1: 357, 3: 1598 Locke, John, 1: 268 , 1: 355, 1: 527 , 1: 528 , 2: 1247 , 2: 1248 , 2: 1302 , 4: 2337 Mahathir Bin
Mohamad, 1: 356 Malaysia, authoritarian communitarianism, 1: 356 Marriage, communitarian vs. religious
conservative view of, 1: 359-360 Mill, John Stuart, and liberalism, 1: 355, 3: 1600 Moral Commonwealth, The
(Selznick), 1: 356 Moral development, communitarian view of, 1: 357-358, 1: 359, 1: 422 Moral infrastructure, 1:
357-358, 1: 359 Morality communitarian obligation viewpoint, 1: 355 Nazism as authoritarian communitarianism,
1: 356 Nisbet, Robert, 1: 356, 3: 1599 Nonconformity public tolerance of, 1: 316-317 , 1: 358, 1: 606 Nuclear
family, communitarian support for, 1: 359 One Nation After All (Wolfe), 1: 358 Parental roles, communitarian view
of, 1: 358-359 Park, Robert E., and collective behavior, 1: 356, 3: 2265 Particularism, 1: 355 Peer marriage, 1:
359-360 Political sociology, and communitarianism, 1: 356 Popenoe, David, 1: 106 , 1: 360 Public spaces,
communitarian view of, 1: 359 Putnam, Robert, 1: 359, 1: 368 , 5: 3228 , 5: 3229 Relativism and liberalism, 1: 355
Religious movements, and social conservative vs. communitarian view of moral decline, 1: 359 Responsive
Communitarian Platform, The: Rights and Responsibilities, 1: 357 Responsive communitarians, 1: 355, 1: 356-
360 Responsive Community, The (journal), 1: 356 Roman Catholic Church communitarian elements in social
teachings of, 1: 355 Rossi, Alice S., 1: 360, 2: 989 , 3: 1618 Sandel, Michael, 1: 104 , 1: 356 Scharping, Rudolf, 1:
361 Schwartz, Pepper, 1: 359, 4: 2539 , 4: 2540 , 4: 2542 , 4: 2555 Self-concept, and relationship with
community, 1: 357 Selznick, Philip, 1: 356, 1: 566 Singapore, authoritarian communitarianism, 1: 356 Single-
parent households, 1: 142 , 1: 359, 1: 487 , 1: 488 , 3: 1625 , 3: 2033 Smith, Adam, and liberalism, 1: 355, 3:
1597 Social change, communitarian view of, 1: 359-360 Social conservatism, 1: 357, 1: 359 Social values and
norms, communitarian, 1: 354-356, 1: 358-361 liberalism's core view of, 1: 355 responsive communitarian, 1: 357-
359 Socialism and communism, authoritarian communitarianism and, 1: 356 Socialization, communitarian vs.
liberal views of, 1: 358 Sociology communitarianism and, 1: 361 Sociology among the social sciences, new school
of communitarians and, 1: 356-359 Spragens, Thomas, Jr., 1: 356 State, The, church-state relations models, 1:
356-358 Symbiosis, communitarianism and, 1: 357 Taylor, Charles, 1: 356 Tolerance of variety of social
behaviors, 1: 358 Tönnies, Ferdinand, on Gemeinschaft-Gesellschaft shift, 1: 355, 2: 1074 , 3: 1502 , 3: 1506 , 3:
1772 , 4: 2426 , 4: 2483 , 5: 3130 , 5: 3135 , 5: 3182 Totalitarianism, responsive communitarianism vs., 1: 357
Tradition, communitarianism and, 1: 355 United Kingdom communitarianism, 1: 362, 1: 361 Universal
Communitarian Association, 1: 355 Utopian analysis and design, 1: 355, 1: 460-461 Voluntary associations,
communitarian view of, 1: 358-359, 1: 360 Waite, Linda, 1: 360 Walzer, Michael, 1: 356 Whyte, Martin, 1: 360, 3:
1734 Willet, David, 1: 362 Wolfe, Alan, 1: 358