Reflecting on the Principles and Problems of Solidarity: Arto Laitinen and Anne Birgitta Pessi (eds.), Solidarity: Theory and Practice, Lexington Books, Lanham, 2015. / Keith Banting and Will Kymlicka (eds.), The Strains of Commitment: the Political Sources of Solidarity in Diverse Societies, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2017.

Jelena Vasiljević

doi:10.2298/FID1704175V

Authors

Jelena Vasiljević Institute for Philosophy and Social Theory, University of Belgrade;

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.2298/FID1704175V

Keywords:

solidarity, political community, communalism, internationalism, social justice, pro-social behaviour, redistribution.

Abstract

This review essay takes a critical look at two recently published edited volumes, both focusing on the notion and problems of solidarity. Solidarity: Theory and Practice (Laitinen and Pessi, eds.) attempts to unpack the complex idea of solidaristic practice by looking at a whole range of related concepts, such as the social brain, collective intentionality, empathy, work, and voluntary organizations. The Strains of Commitment: The Political Sources of Solidarity in Diverse Societies (Banting and Kymlicka, eds.), on the other hand, focuses on a concrete problem: the generation and maintenance of redistributive solidarity within societies marked by diversity. Still, both volumes take a thorough and systematic look at existing scholarship on solidarity, and by encompassing both the theoretical and the empirical, mark a significant step forward in deepening our understanding of the role and place of solidarity in general social theory.

References

Alexander, Jeffrey (2014), “Morality as a Cultural System: On Solidarity Civil and Uncivil”, in Vincent Jeffries (ed.), Palgrave Handbook of Altruism, Morality and Social Solidarity, London: Palgrave, pp. 303–10.
Archer, Margaret (1988), Cultures and Agency: The Place of Culture in Social Theory. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Banting, Keith and Will Kymllicka (eds.) (2017), The Strains of Commitment: the Political Sources of Solidarity in Diverse Societies, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Bayertz K. (1999), “Four Uses of ‘Solidarity‘”, in K. Bayertz K. (ed.), Solidarity: Philosophical Studies in Contemporary Culture vol 5, Dordrecht: Springer, pp. 3–28.
Beiner, Ronald (1995), “Introduction: Why Citizenship Constitutes a Theoretical Problem in the Last Decade of the Twentieth Century”, in Ronald Beiner (ed.), Theorizing Citizenship, Albany: State University of New York Press, pp. 1–28.
Brubaker, Rogers (2009), “Ethnicity, Race, and Nationalism”, Annual Review of Sociology 35 (1): 21– 42.
Brubaker, Rogers (2015), Grounds for Difference. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.
Brunkhorst, Hauke (2005), Solidarity: From Civic Friendship to a Global Legal Community. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.
Gould, Carol C. (2007), “Transnational Solidarities”, Journal of Social Philosophy 38 (1): 148–164.
Laitinen, Arto and Anne Birgitta Pessi (eds.) (2015), Solidarity: Theory and Practice, Lanham: Lexington Books.
Marshall, T. H. (1949), “Citizenship and Social Class”, in T. H. Marshall (ed.), Class, Citizenship and Social Development: Essays by T. H. Marshall, New York: Anchor Books, pp. 71–134.
Sahlins, Marshall (1976), Culture and Practical Reason. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Scholz, Sally J. (2008), Political Solidarity. University Park: The Pennsylvania State University Press.
Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorti (1987), In Other Worlds: Essays in Cultural Politics. New York: Methuen.
Rakopoulos, Theodoros (2014), “Resonance of Solidarity: Meanings of a Local Concept in Anti-austerity Greece”, Journal of Modern Greek Studies 32: 313–338.
Rakopoulos, Theodoros (2016), “Solidarity: the egalitarian tensions of a bridge-concept”, Social Anthropology 24 (2): 142–151.
Vasilev, George (2015), Solidarity Across Divides: Promoting the Moral Point of View. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.