Jeffrey Alexander’s Civil Sphere Theory (CST), drawing on the anthropologist Mary Douglas’ Purity and Danger, portrays social progress as the expansion of collective solidarity through the inclusion of stigmatized groups into the ‘'civil" side of a binary moral code. Yet contemporary American polarization and conservative populist backlash expose CST’s progressive blind spots, as Left and Right now form opposing cultural tribes with mutually exclusive moral codes of civility. In this paper, we extend CST by integrating Douglas’ Grid-Group framework with the four-quadrant political matrix (Order-Left, Order-Right, Freedom-Left, Freedom-Right). This synthesis reveals how moral codes drive political dynamics and illuminates tensions, realignments, and reconfigurations in American political culture. Through a study of the “Re-Uniting America" transpartisan movement, active between 2005 and 2011, we explore practices that explicitly used the political matrix to create “micro-civil spheres" that aimed to transcend polarization through a “social alchemy” that honoured all four quadrants.

SPEAKER: PROF. DAVID ALEXANDER PALMER

David A. Palmer is Professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Hong Kong, with research interest in the anthropology of spirituality, religion, and grassroots social organizations. He received his PhD from the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes (Paris) and is co-editor with Jeffrey Alexander of The Civil Sphere in East Asia (2019). His award-winning books include Qigong Fever: Body, Science and Utopia in China (Columbia University Press), The Religious Question in Modern China (University of Chicago Press, co-authored with V. Goossaert) and Dream Trippers: Global Daoism and the Predicament of Modern Spirituality (University of Chicago Press, co-authored with E. Siegler).

Joseph F. McCormick, co-author of this paper, was co-founder of the Reuniting America Project and a transpartisan facilitator. His independent research bridges political theory and practice, focusing on depolarization strategies and Civil Sphere dynamics. He holds an MPPM from the Yale School of Management and has collaborated with major progressive and conservative organizations in the United States.

📅 Date: Tuesday, 10 March, 2026

🕑 Time: 12:00pm – 1:00pm

📍 Venue: CJT-9.29

🗣️ Language: English

🔗 Register here: https://hkuems1.hku.hk/hkuems/ec_hdetail.aspx?guest=Y&ueid=104962