civilizational analysis and critical theory (delanty)

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Thesis Eleven

DOI: 10.1177/0725513609353703 2010; 100; 46 Thesis Eleven

Gerard Delanty Thesis Eleven: Civilizational Analysis and Critical Theory

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THESIS ELEVEN:

CIVILIZATIONAL ANALYSIS

AND CRITICAL THEORY

Gerard Delanty

In this contribution to the 100th issue of Thesis Eleven I would like to

address the tradition of critical theory with which the journal has been closely

associated. A distinctive feature of Thesis Eleven has been a concern with the

critical analysis of the present as well as a concern with the critical appraisal

of history. This has been refl ected in a particular kind of historical sociology,

which has been developed by one of the journal’s prominent editors, Johann

Arnason, under the title of civilizational analysis. The early work of Arnason

was fi rmly rooted in the tradition of critical theory and more generally western

Marxism, though the author has been heavily infl uenced by Weber, Castoriadis,

and Merleau-Ponty. His later work, some of it published in Thesis Eleven, has

been concerned with what he terms civilizational analysis and the cultural

dimension of state formation in comparative perspective.1

The origins of civilizational theory lie less in the critical theory tradition

than in Weberian comparative historical analysis, as in the seminal works of

Benjamin Nelson and S. N. Eisenstadt. But the infl uence of Marxist histori-

cal analysis is also apparent in his grasp of the intersection of culture and

power. With remarkable scholarship, Arnason has explored the civilizational

background to the emergence and transformation of modernity in cases as

different as Russia and Japan and he has offered a persuasive assessment

of the rise of the West that questions the presuppositions of post-colonial

accounts as well as the received scholarship on the West. What is less clear,

and my topic in this contribution, is the relation of civilizational analysis, with

its characteristic concern with the hermeneutical dimension of power, to criti-

cal theory with its emphasis on the critique of power. If civilizational analysis

is to offer a foundation for a critical theory of modernity, both the norma-

tive implications of the theory need to be clarifi ed as well as a more explicit

account of globalization in the formation of modernity. Until now this remains

Thesis Eleven, Number 100, February 2010: 46–52Copyright © The Author(s), 2010.Reprints and permissions http://www.sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.navDOI: 10.1177/0725513609353703



Delanty: Civilizational Analysis and Critical Theory 47

undeveloped and Arnason has avoided normative conclusions. Indeed, he

insists on terming his approach civilizational analysis as opposed to civiliza-

tional theory to avoid any normative misunderstanding. In this short piece

I wish to make a case for a critical cosmopolitan social theory of modernity

which encompasses both the aims of civilizational analysis and the normative

concerns of critical theory.

CRITICAL THEORY AND MODERNITY

From its Hegelian and Marxist origins, critical theory has been character-

ized by the normative critique of society. It differs from other theory traditions

in that it aims to identify the sources and mechanisms of domination in order

that social actors can improve their circumstances. As a theory of modern

society, the distinctive feature of critical theory has been the identifi cation

of possibilities for self-transformation within the horizons of a given societal

context. In this respect its epistemological approach is one of immanent tran-

scendence in that social reality is presumed to contain within it the means

for its own transformation.2 Thus self-transformation is a key dimension of

the modern condition, as refl ected in political consciousness and collective

identity, cultural self-problematization, and the advancement of the normative

horizons of society. The condition of modernity is one in which social struggles

determine the course of history by the transference of their content into the

political and legal fabric of society.

The starting point for a critical theory of society is the objective reality of

crisis and its perception by social actors who act on the basis of the experience

of injustice or the desire to fi nd an alternative to the status quo. A particular

way of experiencing the present leads to an interpretation that constitutes

the political subject as an agent of history. The social struggles involved, in-

cluding the epistemic struggle to defi ne the problem situation, have given to

critical theory a strong normative direction that has on the whole led it away

from micro-analysis in favour of macro-analysis. While current fashion dictates

micro-analysis, with Foucaultdian theory as the predominant infl uence, criti-

cal theory remains an important source of macro-theorizing. Viewed through

the lens of critical theory, modernity is in the terms of Arnason (1991) ‘a fi eld

of tensions’, in that it is not the product of a single force but the interrelation

of several forces. Thus we can view modernity as set in motion by the inter-

action of state formation, industrialism and capitalist market societies, and civil

society. But to speak of modernity is to invoke a cultural logic by which soci-

eties or collective actors undergo a transformation in their self-understanding.

Modernity is the experience of a world in crisis but a world which the politi-

cal subject can act upon. Thus, in the most general sense, modernity is the

perception that the world can be shaped by conscious human agency.

The social theory of theorists as diverse as Castoridadis, Lefort, Mouffe,

Heller, Habermas, and Touraine has provided the most rigorous defence of a



48 Thesis Eleven (Number 100 2010)

conception of modernity that preserves space for the self-constitution of the

political subject. The political subject is not reducible to the projects of elites or

a meta-narrative of increasing progress or the emancipation of humanity from

domination. It is indeed the case that critical theory, and more generally the

western Marxist tradition, has been much troubled by the apparent obsoles-

cence of a specifi c political agency. Both the social structural conditions and

cultural and political assumptions of the older theories have been rendered

problematic today by numerous developments, not least of which are the

emergence of new kinds of politics. The enduring relevance of critical theory

rather consists of its way of conceiving of the political subject as shaped in

social struggles arising out of particular ways of experiencing and interpreting

the present. The political subject is today being constituted around diverse

streams and is indeterminate since it is the outcome of numerous struggles

by all those seeking to reclaim the political space: migrants, outsiders of all

kinds, industrial workers, low-waged workers, the victims of crimes, even the

middle class.

A challenge for critical theory is that the political subject is no longer

easily conceptualized within the contours of a western defi nition of society.

As is well known, in recent years the very term society has come under fi erce

scrutiny. Global communications, which can be taken to be the principle

mechanism of globalization, have particular implications for how we theorize

the political subject. One of the main weaknesses of the critical theory tradi-

tion has been its failure to addresses alternative histories of the world and

the context of globalization. This has led to accusations of Eurocentrism – an

ill-defi ned term to be sure – and postcolonial critiques of the West. As an

alternative to the polarized positions that have become popular today, which

see either a clash of civilization or colonialism as the only way to theorize

modernity, civilizational analysis offers a more numanced and differentiated

account of civilizational encounters. It is also an alternative to the Agambenian

speculative approach, which projects a unilinear and undifferentiated histori-

cal western narrative onto all facets of the political condition of modernity.

CIVILIZATIONAL ANALYSIS

A key notion in civilizational analysis, as originally elaborated by S. N.

Eisenstadt (1986, 2001, 2003) and taken up by Arnason, is the notion of a radical

refl exivity and creativity built into the civilizations of ‘axial age’ – that is, those

that are associated with the major world religions – and which have provided

the basis for divergent historical paths. Civilizations refer to the cultural modes

of interpretation that fi rst arrive with the onset of writing and which interact

with particular processes of state formation to produce distinct complexes

that are more than national patterns but are also never contained within

geopolitical units. Civilizational analysis draws attention to these modes of

world-interpretation, which of course are variable but have the function of




providing orders of legitimation for political and cultural projects. Civiliza-

tions differ in their patterns of state formation and in their cultural modes of

interpretation, but have in common, according to Eisenstadt, a differentiation

of the world into a transcendent order and a mundane order whereby cultural

and political elites attempt to realize the former in the latter. The result is that

civilizations are perpetually self-transforming since there is no fi nal consensus

and there are always different interpretations. Confl ict is endemic to civiliza-

tions and with the development of modernity this takes ever more refl exive

and creative forms.

There is a further and crucial element to this. Civilizations develop not

in isolation from each other but in interaction with others. This interactive

dimension – fi rst stated by Benjamin Nelson – has been particularly stressed

by Arnason, who has provided the basis for a reappraisal of the Rise of the

West that avoids, on the one side, what might be termed an internalist account,

which attributes to entirely internal characteristics of western ascendancy, and

on the other the externalist account, which attributes everything to Europe’s

appropriation of the non-West. This corrective, as he terms it, is a welcome

one but remains undeveloped, and yet surely has much to offer in providing

civilizational analysis with what it needs, namely a normative theoretical crit-

ique of current political reality.

Civilizational analysis aims to identify common trends while avoiding (1)

the discredited evolutionary theory of western civilization as a universal norma-

tive standard, (2) the idea of distinct civilizations that develop in isolation from

each other and (3) notions of civilizations as engaged in a perpetual clash

(against the latter, the main counter-thesis is that civilizations are internally

plural and the site of divergent orders of world interpretation and it may

indeed be the case that these are more extensive than differences between

civilizations). This is not the place to consider further the debate around

civilizational analysis.

I would like to take up one of the main outcomes of civilizational

analysis for critical theory, namely the notion of multiple modernity. As out-

lined by Eisenstadt, civilizations contain within their cultural modes of world-

interpretation the basic animus of modernity, a heightened kind of refl exivity

that becomes the basis of visions of human autonomy. To varying degrees,

modernity becomes embroiled in the major civilizations. While Eisenstadt

has argued that modernity becomes a new civilization in which there are

multiple forms, Arnason has argued for a less strongly formulated position on

modernity as a new kind of civilization. In Eisenstadt’s formulation, modernity

should be seen as a second axial age.

At this point the discussion becomes somewhat confused and civiliza-

tional analysis has not made much advance in formulating a theory of moder-

nity. The argument appears to be that modernity has been infl uenced by its

civilizational contexts and the diversity of civilizations has produced a diver-

sity of forms of modernity. But to invoke the notion of modernity is to posit




a commonality in that the variety of its forms refl ects a common dynamic.

Without this commonality, modernity would be simply a numerical condi-

tion and of little explanatory value. If this dynamic is the transformative logic

of radical refl exivity and the assertion of human autonomy, then modernity

conceived in post-universalistic terms is not specifi c to the West, with which

it is often related. Indeed, within Europe itself there may be different models

of modernity and different civilizational patterns.3

It is a further and more complicated question whether modernity is

taking a form that undermines its civilizational background, leading to multiple

modernities in which the civilizational content has lost its capacity to deter-

mine a civilizational complex. This is where a perspective on globalization

becomes particularly relevant, since globalization can be seen as the short

term to describe the intensity in inter-civilizational interactions. What we term

globalization today is nothing more than a greatly accelerated scale and in-

tensity of global interconnectivity that commenced with the emergence of the

major civilizations. It may be the case, and it is Eisenstadt’s thesis, that this is

leading to a new kind of civilization, which in his view is disproportionally

infl uenced by western civilization and is global in that it is not rooted in any

one civilization.

Arnason has more cautiously suggested that civilizational contexts still

remain relevant, but only in so far as they interact with modernity. Thus a

more plausible interpretation might be that the current situation is character-

ized by combinations of civilizational contexts and a modernity that has not

broken free of specifi c civilizations in the direction of a post-civilizational

global modernity. However, there is still some confusion here, for if modernity

is conceptualized as emanating from within the dynamics of civilizations, it

is hard to see how it is also a separate entity constituting a civilization of its

own and of which it crystallizes into different civilizational forms.

As a possible way forward, I would like to make the proposal that the

notion of multiple modernity or varieties of modernity – as one of the most

signifi cant contributions from civilizational analysis for social and political

theory – be theorized as a condition of translation whereby civilizations,

and their local forms, interact with transcivilizational modes of interpretation,

producing outcomes that are highly variable. The culture of modernity may

be comparable to the axial age civilizational breakthroughs as a second age

axiality – in which case we are still living in this era of change – but the sig-

nifi cance of the current situation is surely one of an enhanced interaction of

civilizations and their local embodiments.

CONCLUSION: COSMOPOLITAN ORIENTATIONS

The interactive dimension of civilizational encounters, which Arnason

has highlighted, would appear to offer a basis for a critical theory of moder-

nity. It is through interaction in a global context that modernity takes shape.




An interactionist account of the rise of modernity stresses the dynamics and

modes of interaction whereby different parts of the world become linked

through the expansion and diffusion of systems of exchange, networks of

communication, cultural translations, and various forms of cosmopolitan third

culture. The normative implication arising out of a conception of modernity

as a condition of global interaction points in the direction of cosmopolitanism

as a dialogic condition (Delanty and He, 2008).

While Arnason does not see any link between civilizational analysis and

cosmopolitanism, in my view this is the unavoidable conclusion of a post-

universalistic theory of civilizational encounters. Cosmopolitanism, understood

as a condition in which cultures undergo transformation in light of the encoun-

ter with the Other, can be most vividly illustrated with respect to civilizational

encounters. This can take different forms, ranging from major reorientations

in self-understanding in light of global principles to re-evaluations of cultural

heritage and identity as a result of inter-cultural communication. Cosmopoli-

tanism concerns the broadening of horizons when one culture meets another

or when one point of view is forced to re-evaluate its claims in light of the

perspective of an other.

Notes1. See Arnason (2003, 2006a, 2006b) for the most comprehensive statements and

summaries of his civilizational analysis.

2. On imminent transcendence see Strydom and Delanty (forthcoming, 2010).

3. I have pursued this argument in an article published in Thesis Eleven on a post-

western conception of Europe around a notion of an inter-civilizational constel-

lation (Delanty, 2003).

ReferencesArnason, J. (1991) ‘Modernity as a Project and a Field of Tensions’, in A. Honneth and

H. Joas (eds) Communicative Action. Cambridge: Polity Press.

Arnason, J. (2003) Civilizations in Dispute: Historical Questions and Theoretical Tradi-

tions. Leiden: Brill.

Arnason, J. (2006a) ‘Contested Divergence: Rethinking the “Rise of the West”’, in G.

Delanty (ed.) Europe and Asia Beyond East and West. London: Routledge.

Arnason, J. (2006b) ‘Civilizational Analysis, Social Theory and Comparative History’, in

G. Delanty (ed.) Handbook of Contemporary European Social Theory. London:

Routledge.

Delanty, G. (2003) ‘The Making of a Post-Western Europe: A Civilizational Analysis’,

Thesis Eleven 72: 8–24.

Delanty, G. and He, B. (2008) ‘Comparative Perspectives on Cosmopolitanism: Assess-

ing European and Asia Perspectives’, International Sociology 23(3): 323–44.

Eisenstadt, S. N. (ed.) (1986) The Origins and Diversity of the Axial Civilizations. New

York: SUNY Press.

Eisenstadt, S. N. (2001) ‘The Civilizational Dimension of Modernity’, International

Sociology 16(3): 320–40.




Eisenstadt, S. N. (2003) Comparative Civilizations and Multiple Modernities, Vols 1

and 2. Leiden: Brill.

Strydom, P. and Delanty, G. (forthcoming 2010) The Methodology of Contemporary

Critical Theory. London: Routledge.

Gerard Delanty, University of Sussex [email: [email protected]]



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