Community, Social Contexts of

Abstract

Community sociology was shaped by Toennies, Weber, and Durkheim to address rural decline, industrialization, and urbanization. In the post-industrial world, globalization is reshaping the basic contours of social life, via global capitalism, world-wide migration, mass communication, and the Internet. City size has less impact on social integration than early theories posited. Later work stresses other characteristics. Authoritarian national governments suppress community civic groups. Such hierarchical policies fuel national opposition parties, which press egalitarian demands to level hierarchies using a strong national state. Globalization weakens both authoritarian national leaders and strong left parties promoting class and party politics. Local civic groups emerge, mobilizing average citizens. Civic groups have been much studied: do they generate trust, teach civic skills, democracy, and citizenship? New Social Movements (NSMs) advance agendas ignored by past parties and civic groups: ecology, women, human rights, etc. NSMs emerged in the 1970s as hierarchies declined; they stressed consumption and lifestyle more than production and jobs. Many political leaders responded to NSMs in the 1980s and 1990s; NSMs then grew more like past civic groups. This successive mobilization of new local groups and issues decentralizes power and policy from the nation to local communities.