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DOI: 10.1177/0190272514522769
2014 77: 5Social Psychology QuarterlyGary Alan Fine
The Hinge: Civil Society, Group Culture, and the Interaction Order
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The Hinge: Civil Society,Group Culture, and theInteraction Order
Gary Alan Fine1
Abstract
Although often perceived as distant, social psychology and political sociology have much tooffer each other. I build upon a meso-level analysis to examine how groups provide the basisfor involvement within civil society. Erving Goffman’s concept of the interaction order provesauspicious for this analysis as it permits the examination of how action routines, organizedthrough groups, connect individuals with larger social systems. Commitments to group cul-tures—idiocultures—permit allegiance to larger social systems and help to solve the Hobbes-ian problem of how order is possible. To demonstrate the value of a meso-sociologicalapproach, I address six themes that provide for a group-centered analysis of civil society:(1) group cultures serve as commitment devices, (2) social capital and social relations provideopportunities for creating efficacy, (3) shared spaces serve as platforms for a public sphere, (4)performances permit the coordination of frames of action, (5) collective pasts create the basisfor a common future, and (6) forms of social control establish interactional stability.
Keywords
group culture, small groups, interaction order, idioculture, civil society, political sociology
After the Stanton children were put tobed, [Susan B.] Anthony and [Eliza-beth Cady] Stanton would stay up dis-cussing a speech. In her autobiogra-phy Stanton claims that the earliestmemories of her children are of theirmother and Aunt Susan sitting atthe table in the evening surroundedby papers. . . . Next morning, Anthonywould care for the children whileStanton wrote the speech. . . . AsHenry Stanton observed, ‘‘Susanstirred up the pudding, Elizabethstirred up Susan, then Susan stirredup the whole state.’’ . . . Throughoutthe 1850s, Stanton forged the ‘‘thun-derbolts’’ and Anthony deliveredthem. (Farrell 2001:234)
The occasion of the Cooley-Mead
address is a moment of consolidation:
a time when with the gift of a podium
a scholar looks backwards with pride
and regret, gazes about in hope and
doubt, and contemplates a future that is
both bright and foggy. For 40 years my
career trajectory has been firm. Over
these decades I have chosen to examine
1Northwestern University, IL, USA
Corresponding Author:Gary Alan Fine, Department of Sociology, 1810
Chicago Avenue, Northwestern University,
Evanston, IL 60208, USA.
Email: g-fine@northwestern.edu
Social Psychology Quarterly2014, Vol. 77(1) 5–26
� American Sociological Association 2014DOI: 10.1177/0190272514522769
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the intersection of three core concepts:
culture, interaction, and structure. These
are concepts that together produce
a meso-level social psychology. This triad,
when considered together, inspired by Erv-
ing Goffman (1983), constitutes the inter-
action order. In the early 1970s, when I
began my work, culture was largely the
domain of anthropologists. Interactionstood outside the mainstream of sociology,
promoted by oppositional communities
including symbolic interactionists, ethno-
methodologists, and sociolinguists. Struc-
ture was the recognized mainstream of
the discipline, relied on by both functional-
ists and critical theorists, but was distant
from the core of social psychology.But this was my agenda: to combine
these three elements, creating an inte-
grated sociology, and to do so through
the lens of the small group. I hoped to
develop the approach to sociological social
psychology that had been pioneered by
Muzafer Sherif in his Robbers’ Cave
experiment with preadolescent boys and
by Erving Goffman in his observations of
patients at St. Elizabeth Hospital. These
were our first two Cooley-Mead Award
recipients, but equally influential was my
graduate mentor Robert Freed Bales, the
sixth recipient, and my undergraduate advi-
sor Jane Piliavin, the thirtieth recipient. I
believe that the meso-level of analysis—the
realm of ongoing, historicized, and self-
reflective group interaction—is essential
for understanding the social order. We
must connect the micro and the macro in
a way that does justice to each. A hinge,
my metaphorical title, connects two realms
that, while semiautonomous, are linked
and never independent. In this I adopt socio-
logical miniaturism, the approach that John
Stolte, Karen Cook, and I developed (Stolte,Fine, and Cook 2001), which asserted that
the claims of microsociology serve as an
interpretive framework through which
a grounded, action-oriented structural
analysis is possible. Culture, understood as
a form of shared, local, and collectively
understood action, is at the heart of how
social order is possible.
I apply my emphasis on microcultures
and those identities that flow from group
embeddedness to understanding the orga-
nization of civil society. A decade ago
Brooke Harrington and I (Fine and Har-
rington 2004) argued for the salience of
‘‘tiny publics;’’ I extend this perspective
today. With the increased attention to
neighborhood effects (Sampson 2012),
networks of allegiance (McPherson,
Smith-Lovin, and Brashears 2006), com-
munity organizations (Eliasoph 2012;
Putnam 2000), and sites of affiliation
(Goldfarb 2006), social psychologists can
draw upon a body of research, often seen
as outside our specialty, to address how
political process and community organi-
zation depend upon the interaction order,
cemented within ongoing relations. I
reject a political sociology that erases
microcultures and contribute to one that
realizes that elites, conformers, the mar-
ginal, and the resistant all depend on
the meaning, the social relations, and
the structural possibilities provided by
local communities.
INTERACTIONAL POLITICS
Underlying the development of the meso-
level analysis of group culture is Erving
Goffman’s ‘‘interaction order,’’ a basis,
he suggests, for examining social systems
comparatively and historically. As his
ASA presidential address was composed
while terminally ill, Goffman’s text leaves
analytic gaps and is largely devoid of
empirical cases, but he makes the crucial
argument that ‘‘at the very center of
interaction life is the cognitive relation
we have with those present before us,
without which relationship our activity,
behavioral and verbal, could not be mean-
ingfully organized’’ (Goffman 1983:4).
This relation is not generated within the
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immediate encounter, but depends on our
social memory. In other words, interac-
tion is based on the mental recognition
of how the past affects the present.
Because successful interaction is a model
for the present, Goffman argued that soci-
ety is built through a tacit agreement to
create orderliness. As a result, trust is
generated through the establishment ofcomforting interactional routines (Misztal
2001). He asserts that those who focus on
interaction regimes have the tools with
which to address social organizations
from the dyad to the globe and from the
bedroom to the State, a point consistent
with Collins’s (1981) description of how
microstructures permit the developmentof macrostructural understandings.
Following Rawls (1987), who sees in
Goffman’s writing a linkage among levels
of analysis, this is the ‘‘interaction order
sui generis.’’ Rawls’s ‘‘imperatives that
are not structurally defined’’ are the orga-
nizing principles that derive from local
commitments. Goffman’s concern in the
essay, as in much of his writing, is to
examine occasioned encounters in which
the parties are not in extended, meaning-
ful contact. He emphasizes fleeting
encounters, such as those between clerks
and customers, while pointing to the
centrality of what he terms ‘‘deeper’’ rela-
tions that depend on biographic aware-
ness and what I have termed idiocultures
(Fine 1979), what also have been calledgroup cultures and microcultures. While
there are nuances in these terms (McFeat
1974), in this analysis I will use them syn-
onymously. However, as a general frame-
work, I follow the definition of idioculture
that I presented 25 years ago:
Idioculture consists of a system ofknowledge, beliefs, behaviors, andcustoms shared by members of aninteracting group to which memberscan refer and that serve as the basisof further interaction. Members
recognize that they share experiences,and these experiences can be referredto with the expectation that they willbe understood by other members,thus being used to construct a socialreality for the participants. (Fine1987:125)
Central to this definition is that cul-
ture is linked to interaction and affiliation
and that the historical and self-referential
quality of the cultural elements is crucial.
In this perspective culture is not primar-
ily cognitive, but is revealed through
behavior.
In extending the construct of the inter-
action order with its cultural traditions to
established social relations I combine
Goffman’s recognition of how interaction
creates practices and routines with the
recognition, too often missing within
micro-analytic studies of interpersonal
relations, that meanings are often situ-
ated within (relatively) stable group cul-
tures. Families, clubs, teams, and cliques
provide such examples. Shared aware-
ness produces continuing social relations.
Collective memories are essential if indi-
viduals are to believe that they are
a shared public that has common interest
or linked fate (Dawson 1995). As Zeruba-
vel (1997) reminds us, thinking is neither
individual nor universal—it is communal.
Collective memory is a fundamental prin-
ciple of social order. Strauss (1978) and
Maines (1977) properly point to negotia-
tion as a tool for building ongoing, flexible
but durable relations in organizations as
well as in families. As they shape the
future, negotiations occur within a context
of joint pasts. The future as an interaction
order depends upon a knowable past
(Fine 2007; Tavory and Eliasoph 2013).
A meso-level analysis that recognizes
the interaction order and the power of
group cultures is a bulwark of civil soci-
ety. If microsociology is to address public
engagement, understanding how civil
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systems are built or are undercut is
crucial. As sociologists, we begin with
Thomas Hobbes who, it is said, perhaps
to his surprise, provided our discipline’s
core challenge. Hobbes proposed that with-
out limits on rival personal interests, the
security necessary for routine tasks would
be absent. Although in Leviathan Hobbes
never refers to ‘‘social order,’’ his problem
has become ours. Hobbes (1651) writes:
Whatsoever therefore is consequent toa time of Warre, where every man isEnemy to every man . . . whereinmen live without other security, thanwhat their own strength, and theirown invention shall furnish themwithall. In such condition, there is . . .no Society; and which is worst of all,continuall feare, and danger of violentdeath; And the life of man, solitary,poore, nasty, brutish, and short.
In such dire circumstances, how can
orchards be fruitful, libraries filled, vil-
lages peaceable, and people die in their
beds? Hobbes’s solution to a world of
uncoordinated interests is a world of con-
trol. Authority is given to the Leviathan,
an ‘‘artificial’’ or corporate person. Society
is either organized from above or from
within. Hobbes dismisses the latter, posing
a world of solitary self-interest against
a world of central power and surveillance.
He poses a choice without a middle: indi-
viduals and institutions lack self-govern-
ing social stability. But democracy exists
and self-determination is possible because
of this middle: a world of tiny publics.This meso-middle is the hinge, the
linkage of external structures and per-
sonal interest. Order can be built horizon-
tally, and not only vertically. Even vertical
control depends on the existence of groups
at each level of authority. Oppression
relies on interactional routines as much
as democracy. In contrast to Hobbesian
red-in-tooth-and-claw individualism, local-
ism and social relations contribute to
security and routine. The first place to
search for a haven from behavioral and
epistemic turmoil is in the small communi-
ties in which one participates (Hallett
2010).
The intersection of micro, meso, and
macro creates an integrated sociology
(Turner 2012). This cultural sociology is
simultaneously social psychology and
political sociology. In speaking of the devel-
opment of a civil society, I reach beyond
a narrowly defined political analysis, recog-
nizing that individuals are committed to
their communities. They do this through
social relations and through the emotional
linkages that flow from these relations, as
in the case of Elizabeth Stanton and Susan
B. Anthony, described previously.
Affiliation need not stop at the bound-
ary of interaction, but can extend to
other groups with similar character. We
often consider ourselves to be members
of a set of groups, in effect creating
a social category. Once this affiliation is
established, actions (voting, contributing,
or demonstrating), tied to interaction,
generate broader commitments. Once
benefiting a tiny public, such connections
are subsequently tied to a desire to shape
a ‘‘good society’’ (Bellah et al. 1991). But
good societies depend on good groups:
groups that are morally virtuous and
groups that are effective. This social
imaginary is based in a belief that the
strong ties of family and friendship can
be extended, creating voluntary commu-
nities. In being linked to group cultures,
people believe that they belong to scenes
(Silver, Clark, and Yanez 2010). This is
true even if the community has internal
splits or disputed boundaries. Conflict is
as evident as consensus, and dispute
may be an expected part of a group cul-
ture (Weeks 2003) as long as participants
feel that there are resources or norms
that are worth disputing.
Studies of civil society often ignore
group interaction in favor of individual
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preferences or structural pressures. As
Walzer (1992:107) recognizes, ‘‘Civil soci-
ety itself is sustained by groups much
smaller than the demos or the working
class or the mass of consumers or the
nation. All these are necessarily plural-
ized as they are incorporated. They
become part of the fabric of family,
friends, comrades, and colleagues, where
people are connected to one another andmade responsible for one another.’’ Soci-
ety requires a mesh of groups (Back and
Polisar 1983; Cohen and Arato 1992).
Social media with its strands of ‘‘friends’’
reveals the importance of affiliative ties,
even if these ties never involve face-to-
face interaction, once considered the
‘‘gold standard’’ of social psychology.In this article I address six concepts
that provide a group-centered analysis of
civil society, each linked to idiocultures
or microcultures: (1) commitment, (2)
social capital, (3) place, (4) performance,
(5) collective pasts, and (6) control. Affili-
ation, relations, space, action, memory,
and power are hinges of a self-referential
interaction order that connects the person
to society. I begin with the linkage of self
and others, move to stages of action, and
conclude with the creation of constraining
expectations. For society to thrive, people
must care, act in concert, and willingly
accept limits on action. With these in
place, life need not be solitary, poor,
nasty, brutish, or short. Civic life prospers
when interaction orders flourish.
Idioculture and Commitment
A local sociology starts with affiliation
and the commitments that public selves
entail. In a world in which we recognize
that we depend upon others, lasting ties
are essential. Civil engagement stems
from an interaction order that presumes
the possibility of reciprocal sharing
through common identities and common
moralities (Greene 2013). As Fligstein
(2001) writes, identities can be mobilized
by those with the social skills to create
local orders. We help those whom we con-
sider situated within the boundaries of
our community. This explains the pres-
ence of barn-raisings and comparable
forms of agricultural cooperation (Gal-
braith 1964; Harper 2001; Vickers 1994),
recognizing that those within local and
committed communities hold an expecta-
tion of help, given and received. But
even in smaller spaces, such as the house-
hold of Elizabeth Cady Stanton, help
given and received can make all the dif-
ference. As Richard Sennett (2012)
argues, cooperation is a force that has
the potential to build society. ‘‘Favor
banks,’’ in which personal services are
traded, operate smoothly in circumstan-
ces in which micro-credit is exchanged.
We are the kind of people who aid others
in our social surroundings.
Definitions of the community, often
informed by local institutions such as
churches or schools, bolster this belief.
We find similar aid in ethnic self-help
organizations in which individuals or
families contribute to a fund that is
loaned as needed (Mitchell 1978; Nee
and Nee 1973). This has been institution-
alized in the form of micro-credit associa-
tions, transformed from communal-help
agencies into banks making tiny loans.
While the money lent through these
banks comes from outside of the commu-
nity through supportive nongovernmen-
tal organizations (NGOs), banks may
require gatherings of borrowers to pro-
vide mutual support (Sanyal 2009). Such
a system operates through the charity of
small numbers, tied to a belief in reciproc-
ity both as a moral requirement, as an
expectation of mutual exchange, andbecause of the power of conformity.
Groups transform collective concern into
a powerfully held and publically acknowl-
edged value. These tiny publics become
collaborative circles (Corte 2013; Farrell
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2001). Perhaps the origin of reciprocity is
based in self-interest, but commitment to
group life quickly takes priority. Affilia-
tion becomes a virtue and, when publicly
enacted, leads to acceptance.
Even in moments of dispute, affiliation
tempers conflict. Ellickson (1991) empha-
sizes the prevalence of order without law.
By this he means that individuals settledisputes without resorting to external
control, even when their interests differ.
The negotiation of divergent interests
of neighboring farmers and ranchers
reveals this process. Despite incompatible
desires, ongoing relationships hold sway
and are treated as too valuable to breach.
The commitment of the group to its con-tinuation protects against rupture, lead-
ing to civil negotiations, a model for all
politics. Current negotiations build upon
past negotiations, creating a history of
adjustments. Of course, negotiations can
fail and lasting conflicts occur when indi-
viduals draw on different pieces of the
past or on different models of negotiation.These may include unresolved grievan-
ces, unreciprocated benefits, or competing
practices of dispute resolution. History
is potentially unstable as actors are
replaced and new cohorts replace old
(Whittier 1997); in consequence, patterns
of micro-relations that had once been
established must occasionally be revised.The memory of a group’s past and the
commitment to it permit disagreements
to be coordinated within a broader social
organization. We need no single all-
powerful Leviathan if we embrace a duty
to maintain stability. With group affilia-
tion as a guiding principle of collective
life, affection can work as well as disci-
pline. Soft communities operate as effec-
tively as hard (Fine 2013). Societies are
organized through group coordination at
the level of the local and at levels with
broader authority, establishing translocal
order and responding to dissent and resis-
tance. While coordination is essential for
state governance, at each level interac-
tion routines are to be found. We find
groups all the way up.In a different sense from Benedict
Anderson (1991), I speak of imagined
communities. Anderson examines state
systems, focusing on the creation and
the impact of national literatures and lan-guages. However, micro-communities are
imagined as well and this has greater
interactional effects than for those com-
munities that are built upon fixed texts.
While Anderson properly addresses the
role of the imagined community in linking
individuals to systems of governance, it is
potent because citizens see other citizensas being like them. Affiliation is most pow-
erful when neighbors serve as stand-ins
for all citizens. Ritual events such as cer-
emonies or parades (Lane 1981; Warner
1959) create idiocultures that are treated
as national cultures, just as degradation
ceremonies (Garfinkel 1956) use separa-
tion from a community to support a sharedpolitics.
Tiny publics are the building blocks
from which political order is possible
through threads of emotional entrain-
ment (Collins 2004). If, as Eliasoph
(1998) argues, group cultures can create
a commitment to apathy, that apathy
exists because members believe, given
their shared experiences, that their role
as citizens makes no further demands.
But inevitably group belongingness is
a model for societal belongingness.
The person without connections—the
stranger, the hermit, or the detached—
rejects meaningful participation in civil
society. Participation depends on the exis-
tence of established social relations.
Further, categorizing one’s interaction
partners into a named group creates the
basis of belonging. The salience of group
membership in identity work harkens
back to Durkheim’s ([1912] 1965) empha-
sis on collective representations that
bolster social participation. The Iowa
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symbolic interactionists (Kuhn and
McPartland 1954) who developed the
Twenty Statements test emphasize that
individuals define themselves through
action groups: families, clubs, or workpla-
ces. We recognize ourselves not only
through Charles Horton Cooley’s
‘‘looking-glass self’’ but through looking-
glass communities. Identity work (Snow
and Anderson 1987) emphasizes the
salience of the group in which performan-
ces occur. One does not simply have an
identity, but has an identity in light of
a bounded public.
Idioculture and Social Capital
Affiliation becomes real through engage-
ment, a skill that depends on social capi-
tal. By social capital, I refer to the ability
of individuals to create a web of support-
ive friends and acquaintances. We seethis in the early feminist movement of
Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B.
Anthony, but also in engaged communi-
ties of all types. Following Portes (1998),
social capital depends upon sociability.
Although the social capital approach
has a lengthy history, its contemporary
prominence developed from the insight
of James Coleman (1990) who treated
social capital as a strategy by which
individuals maximized their interests,
building community by creating dense
networks. Less tied to rational choice
arguments, but equally as influential in
emphasizing a meso-level analysis, Rob-
ert Putnam (2000) has doggedly asserted
that a robust civil sphere depends
upon the prevalence of strong relations
and supportive institutions. Putnam’s
(1995:167) definition of civic engagement,
‘‘trust, norms, and networks that can
improve the efficiency of society by facili-
tating coordinated action,’’ emphasizes
the connection between social capital
and commitment to local domains. Put-
nam frets about the decline of this capital,
but what he emphasizes throughout
Bowling Alone is that established groups
or small organizations are weakening,
leading to declining interest in civic par-
ticipation generally, a reality that has
continued and is linked to class-linked
social relations (Petev 2013). He points
to the decline of organizations such as
the Parent-Teacher Association to exem-plify this decline. While other institutions
may have replaced the PTA, Putnam’s
point is that society depends on an ecology
of groups and that idioculture supports
forms of social capital that undergird suc-
cessful societies. In their analysis of reli-
gion Putnam and Campbell (2010) argue
for the essential place of churches. Follow-ing those who recognize the local cultures
of congregations, Putnam suggests that
the shared sense of belonging and the effi-
cacy and networking that this creates
makes religious gatherings powerful for
social cohesion. While organized groups
are surely important, this emphasis
ignores the less formal, often nameless,groups that continue to flourish. An abun-
dance of groups, even outside formal
organizations, reveals a healthy civil
society.
Through intersecting groups, social
capital builds expansive networks, creat-
ing the possibility of organizational
recruitment through who one knows and
how one knows them. As is true in the
Nichiren Shoshu Buddhist movement,
groups recruit through networks, build-
ing on established relations and differen-
tial association (Snow, Zurcher, and
Ekland-Olson 1980). Only later does pub-
licity bolster personal, direct recruitment.
While not denying the importance of
resources, movements thrive if they
have close-knit supporters, even if these
local chapters have only occasional link-
ages with groups of greater power and
authority. Groups are motivated through
the social capital of participants, poten-
tially generating commitment to costly
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action (Della Porta 1988) and overcoming
the collective action problem (Olson
1965). Sageman (2008) speaks of a leader-
less jihad in the post–9/11 era, arguing
that terrorism consists of ‘‘informal local
groups . . . conceiving and executing
from the bottom up.’’ Who needs Bin
Laden in a world of Facebook and hookah
bars? Any clique can be a violent cell. Of
course, it is not only terrorist cells that
are at issue. Many revolutions and insur-
rections are provoked by partisan bands
no larger than a small group. These
groups have the power of conviction, the
ability to move swiftly, and, because of
their tight boundaries, are resistant to
state surveillance.
Through their social relations, small-
scale networks build solidarity through
grievance frames that larger units cannot
easily generate, overcoming fears of retri-
bution by state actors (Gamson, Fireman,
and Rytina 1982; Gould 1993; Pfaff 1996).
Commitment may be so powerful that
even failure does not produce disillusion-
ment (Summers-Effler 2010).
The analysis of efficacy provides social
capital with its most consequential empir-
ical grounding. Central to this concept is
the neighborhood effects literature in
which researchers of urban poverty, oth-
erwise at some remove from the examina-
tion of small group cultures, recognize
that characteristics of local communities
determine how social systems are orga-
nized through collective efficacy, linked
to the presence of social capital. This
approach emphasizes that the contextual
features of an urban interaction order
are crucial for analyzing the organization
of inequality (Quillian and Pager 2001;
Sampson, Morenoff, and Gannon-Rowley
2002). Sampson and his colleagues claim
that broad structural forces are mediated
through the lifeworlds of particular com-
munities with their distinctive cultures,
linked to local institutions that encourage
or retard the development of collective
action and meso-level social control. In
other words, collective efficacy develops
from local conditions (Sampson, Morenoff,
and Earls 1999; Sampson and Rauden-
bush 1999). This research tradition
challenges the view that all poor neigh-
borhoods are alike because of their struc-
tural similarities and recognizes that
community feeling can buffer external
threats (Fischer 1982).
As valuable as this model of urban life
is, it demands attention to the specifics of
how historical processes affect neighbor-
hoods. Japonica Brown-Saracino (2009)
demonstrates how gentrifiers depend on
the backstory—real and imagined—of
the neighborhood that they are in the pro-
cess of transforming. While the micro-
structural perspective on neighborhood
effects is insightful in recognizing neigh-
borhood diversity, this research tradition
often downplays the processual how of
local effects. The neighborhoods effectsliterature requires an urban ethnography
to demonstrate how social capital oper-
ates not only in principle, but in practice.
For instance, as Harding (2010) points
out, the dynamics of collective efficacy
can lead to within-group control, preserv-
ing social relations, or can create preemp-
tive violence between groups, groundedon the defense of turf. Social capital is
not merely an idea of social relations,
but a force that aggregates skills made
concrete within group contexts.
Idioculture and Place
As spaces are everywhere, communities
can be as well. This explains the ethno-
graphic trope of the corner as the setting
for community (Anderson 1979; Liebow
1967; Whyte 1943). As Grannis (2009)argues, the ecological features of neigh-
borhoods affect the social relations and
local cultures that develop within them.
Streets, cul-de-sacs, parks, and buildings
make meetings or gatherings more or
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less likely. These material structures
must not be dismissed. Their obdurate
reality permits the arrangement of
groups, scenes, and interaction patterns
(Fine 1992).
Ultimately group cultures require
spaces for shared action, providing dra-
maturgical moments that create a commu-
nal history. Places and scenes permit the
public display of commitment and connec-
tion and, by generalization of the local,create commitment and connection to
socially and geographically extended sys-
tems. Groups are constrained if they
lack places in which interaction is possi-
ble. Politics, whether supportive of or
resistant to the status quo, require loca-
tions in which people come together in
common cause. In this I draw on Gold-farb’s (2006) analysis of the intimate
spaces in which civil society is organized.
The sociology of small things depends
upon a sociology of small places. Here
the kitchen table, whether that of Eliza-
beth Cady Stanton or Lech Walesa, is
the center of political life. For Goldfarb
it is the interaction order of places thatcreates shared perspectives and common
purposes. Goldfarb (2006:15) places the
hearth on a stage, asserting, ‘‘When
friends and relatives met in their kitch-
ens, they presented themselves to each
other in such a way that they defined
the situation in terms of an independent
frame rather than that of officialdom.’’While the existence of these gathering
points has been noticed in the creation
of the modern public sphere, their posi-
tion in an interaction regime must be
emphasized. If, as Calhoun (2001) argues,
civil society depends on the self-organiza-
tion of social relations, then the ability of
embedded small groups to gather is cen-tral, no matter whether they are explicitly
politically self-conscious. Could a vibrant
public sphere have existed without the
coffeehouse (Back and Polisar 1983; Hab-
ermas 1989), the lodge (Koselleck 1988;
Levtzion 2002), the club (Agulhon 1982;
Amann 1975), the saloon (Bell 1983;
LeMasters 1975; May 2001), or the salon
(Giesen 2001)? Today urban daycare cen-
ters provide parents with information to
obtain family resources that their ownlimited knowledge does not permit (Small
2009). These nodes of talk permit partici-
pants to recognize the larger structures
that shape them. Spaces in which tiny
publics challenge and debate provide
the basis of a civil culture. Political dis-
course occurs in settings where argument
is legitimate, even desired (Emirbayerand Sheller 1999; Ikegami 2000; Mische
and White 1998). Ann Mische’s (2008)
research on Brazilian youth politics dem-
onstrates that it is not grievance or ideol-
ogy as such that creates action, but the
ability of a network of locally based
groups to connect. Spaces in which indi-
viduals gather, either through a focusedinteraction ritual (e.g., an award cere-
mony) (Collins 1981) or through circulat-
ing discussions (e.g., the archetypal
cocktail party) (Riesman, Potter, and
Watson 1960) generate the recognition
of community.
Calhoun (1982:149–50) analyzes the
development of radicalism and revolt in
nineteenth-century British artisan com-
munities, which were facing the strains
of the Industrial Revolution. This work
demonstrates the value of recognizing
the meso-level as the foundation of collec-
tive action. Calhoun argues that a close-
knit community can generate a sense of
injustice and awareness of techniques of
resistance. As he writes, ‘‘These move-
ments were largely based on the social
foundations of local communities. The
people they mobilized were knit together
through personal bonds within these
communities much more than they were
unified by class. As such movements
attempted to go beyond local communities
in their mobilization or objects, they foun-
dered.’’ In place of class consciousness,
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Calhoun asserts the centrality of group
consciousness, tied to place. Radicalism
depended on preserving traditional social
relations.
Tilly (2006) makes a similar argument
in recognizing the importance of transac-
tions within a bounded public, rather
than an approach that emphasized per-
sonal dispositions or structures of institu-
tions (Gould 2003). These movements
depend on the recognition of oppression
in spaces in which collective action is pos-
sible, even as they make adjustments
to the power of an authoritarian state
(Chua 2012). Repertoires of action, of
which the weapons of the weak described
by James Scott (1985) form a part, are not
merely abstract techniques of resistance
but emerge from action spaces in which
close-knit communities fight for their
own preservation. Yet, while these theo-
rists refer to groups, chains, relations, or
clusters, they do not explore the micro-
cultures that lead to the perception of
common interests and, like Tilly,
retreat from the interaction order to
describe durable categories of actors,
less grounded in local perspectives.
Civil society operates not just in
domains that are explicitly political, but
in ostensibly apolitical locations as well.
These constitute ‘‘third places’’ as defined
by Ray Oldenberg (1989). We are familiar
with ‘‘Slim’s Table,’’ made famous by
Mitchell Duneier (1992). At a table in
Hyde Park’s Valois Cafeteria a group of
black and white men talked about the
issues of the day, overcoming racial
boundaries. They relied on community
and built that community in their talk.
As Duneier (1992:159) reports, ‘‘In com-
ing to a cafeteria in the integrated Hyde
Park district, some of these men are
expressing a desire to participate in the
larger, more comprehensive society. . . .
The wider society . . . is a vehicle for
them to express their own civility.’’ Slim’s
table provides a hinge that transforms
these marginal actors into citizens. More
explicitly political is Walsh’s (2003) obser-
vation of the daily discourse among
a group of men in a small coffee shop.
These men process the events of the day
through their generally conservative
world view; their continuing interaction
emphasizes that political beliefs are
shaped by and are responsive to the pla-
ces that neighbors gather (Eliasoph
2012; Lichterman 2005).
As their methodology demands, eth-
nographers are place-based, depicting
places linked to group life. This is true
of the many observations of gang life
(Venkatesh 2008), simultaneously aes-
thetic, normative, and political. Erickson
(2009), describing a neighborhood restau-
rant, discovered that despite it being
a place of business, a group of regulars
care for each other and for the staff. The
same happens in beauty salons (Furman
1997), baseball bleachers (Swyers 2010),
and opera loges (Benzecry 2011), odd but
real sites for revealing mutual care,
becoming a public sphere of a sort.
Beyond being places in which individuals
debate, these third places permit the for-
mation of communities of common pur-
pose. They are Tocqueville’s ‘‘minute com-
munities,’’ social orders that develop from
spatial propinquity. Tocqueville ([1835]
1966:232) presents an example, perhaps
apocryphal, from his travels, ‘‘If some
obstacle blocks the public road, halting
the circulation of traffic, the neighbors
at once form a deliberative body; this
improvised assembly produces an execu-
tive authority which remedies the trouble
before anyone has thought of the possibil-
ity of some previously constituted author-
ity beyond that of those concerned.’’ Our
relations with those who surround us con-
firm that our own opinions are worth-
while and, if threatened, should be
defended.
The more formal organization of public
events such as community gatherings and
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town meetings creates spaces for dialogue
(Baiocchi 2003; Bryan 2004). The town
meeting is the archetypal form in which
social relations are transformed into polit-
ical involvement as a consequence of
a shared environment. It is not that all
agree on the appropriate action—often
disagreements have lengthy afterlives
and participants may be known for con-
trary views—but all are engaged in the
same civic project (Deener 2012). While
such spaces of action may create conflict
and disagreement, by virtue of a shared
presence participants assume that others
share history, emotional concern, and
a sense of belonging. Tiny publics provide
the basis of civil society when settings are
established in which politics is discussed
and enacted (Fraser 1992). Commitment,
linked to identity, provides part of the
process by which meso-level identifica-
tions create shared action, but for action
to be possible the interaction order must
bring actors together in places that ratify
the significance of their copresence
(Campos-Castillo and Hitlin 2013; Zhao
2003). Of course, technology changes the
rules of copresence. Postal systems and
subsequent telegraphic and telephonic
systems provide opportunities for a type
of copresence that does not require the
physical proximity of bodies. Computer-
mediated communities, especially social
media, are perhaps not so different from
mail except by being more temporally
insistent and more expansive in scope.
Cyber culture permits coordinated action,
recognizing that space need not be geo-
graphical, but can be communicative.
Idioculture and Performance
Once we gather, what to do? We act, mobi-
lized in common cause. A meso-sociologi-
cal theory of group culture is a theory
that is not in the head, but on the stage.
Returning to our opening example, it
was not sufficient for Stanton and
Anthony to gather in Stanton’s kitchen,
but they had to arrange stage performan-
ces in which Anthony could move the
crowd with her passionate speeches.
This approach builds on the sociological
tradition of seeing action as a basis of
social organization, treating skilled per-
formers as central to the reproduction of
social relations (Fligstein 2001; Giddens
1984). While recognizing logics and affect,
logics and affect gain meaning through
action, and especially interaction (Hallett
2010; Hallett and Ventresca 2006). An
interaction order is a domain of perfor-
mance, a world of rituals and responses,not mere reflex.
Civil society depends on individuals
sharing common perspectives or, alterna-
tively, opposing each other in rivalrous
dispute (or an ambivalent mix). As I
describe in my research on high school
debate teams (Fine 2000), political
systems often depend on groups that per-
ceive themselves in long-standing opposi-
tion. Structured contention is part of
democratic decision making, and the
breaking of conventions of group debate
can potentially spark civil strife. It is not
sufficient to feel that one belongs to a group
through affiliation, the linkages that come
with social capital, or sharing a space, but
one must act so as to reaffirm this belong-
ingness publicly. While mass rituals are
set by states (or by groups that represent
state systems), these mass events are com-
prised of groups that merge, creating a grid
of groups. Singles may attend rallies,
marches, protests, or events, but often do
so with friends and acquaintances (Aveni
1977; McPhail 1991). What appears to be
a mass is a collection of groups, forming
an evanescent, ‘‘wispy community’’ (Fine
and Van den Scott 2011). In times of disas-
ter, moments that depend on immediate
response (Shibutani 1966), such action
platforms emerge as citizens search for
common meaning and social support. As
Xu (2009) describes in examining the
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aftermath of the massive Sichuan earth-
quake of 2008, groups quickly mobilized
to aid the needy, and these nodes of action
stood apart from the official state response.
They created an intimate culture through
the aid that they provided to devastated
locales. Social relations healed society
when the fabric was rent. At symbolic
moments, people, acting together, reveal,
forge, and refine allegiances.
The salience of performance as a politi-
cal act is evident in the meso-analysis of
social movements. At times a group can
become, in effect, a stage troupe; actors
gain confidence from their audiences.
This is evident in instances in which emo-
tional support bolsters high-risk activism,
as Goodwin (1997) described in the case of
the Huk rebellion in the Philippines. Con-
sciousness-raising in women’s groups in
the 1970s served a similar end, providing
collective support for performances of
gender that might otherwise be rejected
(Cassell 1977). Staged high school
drunk-driving tragedies, such as ‘‘Every
15 Minutes,’’ provide a performance con-
text in which adolescents can feel those
dangers of which adults believe they
should be aware (Miller 2012). Shared
communal emotions generate such
moments of collective effervescence (Dur-
kheim [1912] 1965). The challenge is to
sustain this emotional attachment in the
face of interactional routines and socialcontrol (Bartkowski 2000; Collins 2004).
The challenge of stoking emotion is
especially evident in the constructed
rituals of oppositional groups. Although
much social movement scholarship
examines the relationship between the
movement and the state, between
the movement and the individual, or the
search for resources among organizations,
movements depend on the willingness of
actors to perform opposition. Movements
are effective tools of revolt and reform if
they can galvanize supporters to demon-
strate that support to others through
action (Freedman and Fraser 1966).
Given their desire to shape public percep-
tions, social movement organizations,
more than most groupings, depend upon
the performance of passion to generate
commitment. While movements can beextensive, often they are organized
through interlocking groups, cells, or
chapters (Lofland and Jamison 1984).
This intimacy makes the behavioral dem-
onstration of political desire more power-
ful in that the performance occurs in front
of others with whom the performer has
a salient relation.To the extent that movements are com-
prised of local groupings (Gerlach and
Hine 1970), they can have distinctive cul-
tures, resources, and leadership, produc-
ing variable ideologies or outcomes
(Andrews et al. 2010; Reger 2002). One
group may look quite different from
others that are ostensibly similar, a diver-
gence that is evident in groups as diverse
as cells of the Communist Party of Amer-
ica, Tea Party branches, or chapters of
Mothers Against Drunk Driving. Depend-
ing on the ability of a central force to coor-
dinate action or institute surveillance, the
cultural or ideological relations among
movement groups or service organiza-
tions may be tight or loosely coupled.
For a movement to grow, become insti-
tutionally stable, and cement allegiance,
the public announcement of commitment
by participants is essential. In this way
individuals become part of a community
and the community can rely on them to
create public pressure. The performance
of solidarity helps groups transcend the
free rider problem (Olson 1965) by having
the performance and reactions to it bol-
ster the actor’s core identity.
From separate tight-knit groups an
effective widespread organization creates
a transcendent culture, creating perfor-
mance points at rallies, conferences, or
committees. These events establish
cross-cutting connections where people
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can act together (Robnett 1996; Whyte
1974). McAdam (1988) writes of ‘‘Free-
dom High’’ as an integral component of
the Civil Rights Movement. He refers to
efforts by organizers of the Mississippi
Freedom Summer project to build cohe-
sion through communal activities, such
as classes, parties, and discussions. Polit-
ical leftists sponsored camps and joint
activities that fostered a congenial per-
spective, such as Unity House in the Cats-
kills. The goal was to make Marxism
a ‘‘way of life’’ and ‘‘a movement of fami-
lies’’ (Mishler 1999:2). A similar sen-
sibility was evident in the Ku Klux
Klan, recognizing the fiery entertainment
of witnessing cross burnings as building
cohesion (Blee 1992:167). Camps for sur-
vivalists also promote sociable action
amid guns and apocalyptic narratives
(Mitchell 2002). Each movement reflects
a commitment to performative democracy
by sponsoring action and audience in
pushing for social change.
Francesca Polletta (2002) suggests
that focused meetings and the narratives
that are embedded within them build
organizations. Meetings are more effec-
tive vectors for action than are amor-
phous gatherings. They provide struc-
tures for discourse and for decisions
(Schwartzman 1989). Gibson’s (2012)
exemplary case study of committee dis-
course during the American government
response to the Cuban missile crisis
reveals just how powerful the performan-
ces around a table can be in setting a gov-
ernment on a path to war or peace (Janis
1972). Here was a moment in which
group discussion reverberated beyond
walls of the room. By performing locally,
responding to each other’s concerns, the
participants mattered globally as other
committees in Havana and Moscow
judged these outcomes through their
own discussions.
Whether we examine powerful decision
makers or those who counter those
decisions, the performance of one’s belief
and the practice of persuasion is a neces-
sary path by which groups create or
retard change. This local practice creates
choices said to be those of ‘‘society’’ writ
large.
Idioculture and Collective Memory
Central to the mediated relationship of
citizens and the State is the role of shared
memories. Olick (1999) describes two
cultures of memory and in this he distin-
guishes between collected memories,
commonly held memories of many indi-
viduals, and collective memories, which
are memories that ‘‘belong’’ to institu-
tions. He distinguishes between parallel
micro-memories and macro-memories
that operate as social facts, often backed
by institutional support. Olick (1999:
333) writes, ‘‘Two different concepts of
collective memory compete—one refers
to the aggregation of socially framed
individual memories and one refers to col-
lective phenomena sui generis.’’ In
attempting to connect these two, he
ignores meso-level spaces of memory.
Olick is not alone in posing a choice
between the micro and the macro in the
creation of nationalism and state history
(Brubaker and Cooper 2000; Spillman
1997). In examining the establishment of
German national memory and how that
memory shifts, as Olick does, it is impor-
tant to recall that power does not reside
in an unpeopled state, but that certain
state actors make moments of memory
salient and that groups of citizens in their
interactions judge whether the rhetorical
claims are proper. Individuals connect
to history through group discussions,
supported by interaction orders. While
individuals are the keepers of personal
memory as recall is lodged in the brain,
and while institutional systems provide
for the material storage and ritual conse-
cration of memory (Schudson 1989),
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memory becomes part of identity as
embraced and used by communities of
recall. Thus, it is the fact that groups
attend and meet at political events, such
as the 1848 Seneca Falls Convention,
attended by Elizabeth Cady Stanton,
Lucretia Mott, and Frederick Douglas.
This gathering gave rise to the organiza-
tion of the ‘‘Ultras’’ in which Stanton
and Mott participated, providing a struc-
ture for the subsequent involvement of
Susan B. Anthony.
National holidays and the constructed
memories that stand behind them become
real in part because families or friends
attend fireworks celebrations (Santino
1994). Successful holidays bring people
together with a mandate to embrace fam-
ily (Thanksgiving), faith (Easter, Pass-
over, Ramadan), age (Halloween), or
nation (Independence Day). These are
not occasions that individuals celebrate
nor are they occasions whose celebration
is wholly collective (despite large gather-
ings, services, or broadcasts), but they
gain power from an in-gathering of
acquaintances. This is demonstrated pow-erfully in Bronner’s (2011) analysis of
how local Jewish communities bond and
express their commitment to religious
practice and to each other by building
Sukkot huts. These huts represent shel-
ters in the wilderness, but, as Bronner
emphasizes, their construction and their
sharing for the weeklong holiday, includ-ing eating and sleeping in the huts, bol-
ster micro-communities in a way that con-
nects to the community’s past as well as to
the larger Jewish past. Building these
structures stems from social relations at
the same time it historicizes these social
relations and the religious beliefs that
are treated as constituting them. Holi-days that lack an interpersonal compo-
nent (e.g., Columbus Day or President’s
Day) are less effective in bolstering
a social system. The challenge of Martin
Luther King’s Birthday is to find
strategies, perhaps through volunteering,
that transform a day absent of work to
a day that creates a shared public. Mutual
presence and the emotional energy that
this brings contribute to the political
and moral socialization of the partici-pants. The sharing of an event, and the
recognition of common narratives, makes
history collective (Tilly 2006). States can
provide for social control and individuals
can provide for personal recognition, but
it is the group that permits communal
memories to become integrated into the
self.
Idioculture and Social Control
For a tiny public to be effective it must
enforce standards and encourage predict-
ability. This is the Hobbesian problem
once again, creating a balance between
extended and narrow boundaries on
action. Ideally social control should be
implicit—and welcome—given estab-
lished social relations. Limits on action
should not be based on external force,
but on the desires of participants. Control
should be internal, but collective. As
Ellickson (1991) underlines, through the
moral weight of a group, ‘‘order without
law’’ emerges. In the words of Scott
(2012:30), this creates a ‘‘vernacular
order,’’ in contrast to the ‘‘official order.’’
In small-scale social systems, such as
roommate dyads (Emerson 2008) or
school meetings (Hallett, Harger, and
Eder 2009), strategies of informal control
arise, building on an overwhelming desire
to maintain easy interaction, encouraging
accommodation and local remediation
(Morrill 1995). Formal control happens,
but small groups are more effective
when power is gloved, as through teasing
or gossip.When a need for a more powerful and
extended social control is perceived, group
boundaries are solidified, either through
pronouncements by those who lead the
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group or through a consensus of mem-
bers. A group can coalesce to erect bar-
riers to participation by an individual or
a subgroup that it finds disruptive, offen-
sive, or resistant. This became clear in
the nineteenth-century suffrage, women’s
rights, and temperance movements. Far-
rell (2001:259) describes the splits in the
National American Woman Suffrage Asso-
ciation that required Susan B. Anthony to
use her considerable prestige to cement
Elizabeth Cady Stanton’s acceptance as
president of the organization.
Recognizing the attempt to limit
action, Weiner (2013) speaks of a funda-
mental division between a constraining
system of ‘‘clans’’ and a more open liberal
individualism. Despite Weiner’s concern,
groups can and often do accept conflict
rather than suffer the costs that could
flow from exclusion. Depending on those
forces that bind the group (e.g., common
resources), contending subgroups may
either split or the conflict may continue.
Mechanisms of social control are not
invariably successful in tamping conflict
and some level of dispute might be trea-
ted as legitimate or even desirable.
An interaction order may include space
for opposing interests or divergent
claims.
How groups enforce control in such
a way as to link with larger concerns is
evident in the case of those who are seen
as undermining the idea of a nation or
people. Kim (2013) analyzes how Koreans
who collaborated with the Japanese were
treated by their fellow nationals. Kim,
tracing the interactional routines in
Japanese-controlled Korea, finds that
Koreans had to make choices about their
relations with the Japanese, taking into
account the benefits that they could
receive from participating in the Japa-
nese-run state system, but at the same
time recognizing the condemnation that
they might receive from others within
their interactional sphere. The dangers
were not only from official shaming, lim-
ited because of Japanese presence, but
from local disgrace. Only after the Japa-
nese were overthrown could a more for-
mal condemnation arise, but even here,
the choices of who would be condemned
were made by groups and small collec-
tives—reputational entrepreneurs—that
assumed responsibility for shaping the
collective memory of this period in Korean
history through the establishment of an
encyclopedia that listed those collabora-
tors whom the organizers considered trai-
tors to the nation (Kim and Fine 2013).
This is but one instance, although a pow-
erful one, that reveals decisions about jus-
tice and control are organized on the levelof the group that is given or takes the
authority to evaluate the allegiances of
others. While courts (and juries) are them-
selves small groups (Burnett 2001; Dia-
mond and Rose 2005; Manzo 1993), often
communal stability occurs through the
recognition that law is not the most effec-
tive source of control. Groups provideimmediate surveillance that combine insti-
tution and interaction to maintain what is
considered to be morality and justice.
TINY PUBLICS AND THEIR FRIENDS
I praise the illuminating reality of the
meso-level of action, treating it as a hinge
that connects persons and institutions.
The examination of small group dynamics
and idiocultures (Fine 2012) can open the
black box of social organization. I take
this argument a step further and suggest
that focusing on the meso-level brings us
closer to recognizing how individuals
affiliate with political systems through
their tiny publics. This is how society
operates: by groups mobilizing them-
selves as the vectors of commitment. To
be sure, the properties of these tiny pub-
lics are highly variable, and each needs
to be considered in light of those institu-
tions and publics that surround them.
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Some publics strive to incorporate plural-
istic perspectives, while in other cases the
boundaries are more tightly controlled
and the character of the group is more
homogeneous.
By ignoring the interaction order, soci-
ology has neglected the link between indi-
vidual actions and how these actions
generate affiliation within civil society,
providing political structures with tensile
strength. The public sphere is a realm of
local action, and without this recognition
the linkage between individual and state
is uncertain. While sociologists should
analyze the creation of communities of
affiliation at a distance, for citizens that
linkage operates up close. Civic affiliation
becomes real through families, class-
rooms, clubs, social movements, union
locals, and political campaigns. The pres-
ence of like-minded others creates the col-
lective representations on which institu-
tions depend. Belonging to a political
system is not merely an idea, but depends
on action. In this, political sociology is
tethered to social psychology. Citizenship
develops from the reality of the interac-
tion order.
Civil society requires the idea of civility
that in turn builds upon microcommun-
ities in which this civility is modeled.
The idea of the citizen, whether patriotic
or in revolt, depends on the idea that
one is not alone. But what does this
mean? One is not alone because one
believes in a linked fate with others.
One is part of a group of similar selves.
But simply believing that one is like
others is not sufficient. The creation of
sets of relations, constituting social capi-
tal, recognizes a community of others
with whom one is in common cause and
with whom one can work, building what
one cannot create alone (Sennett 2012).
One needs places in which selves can
meet and recognize their common partici-
pation. The provisioning of places of
action is essential. Combining spaces
and persons permits the demonstration
of one’s commitment through the perfor-
mance of civic selves, and then becoming
solidified through the sharing of histories.
Finally, tiny publics cause or become the
target of control, either through the rele-
vance of shared beliefs or because those
groups that run institutional systems
have access to resources that permit
them to enforce their preferred rules and
regulations. These processes are as evi-
dent in Cairo’s Tahrir Square in 2011 as
in Seneca Falls in 1848. To be sure the
moral order, characteristics of actors, spa-
tial opportunities, and apparatus of con-
trol differed, but the role of the group as
the core of social action remained central.
In this article I attempt to present the
general conditions and processes of a the-
ory of ‘‘tiny publics.’’ However, we should
not assume that all groups provide
equally effective conditions for organizing
and generating public engagement. We
must examine variability in the forms of
group culture and the uses to which they
are put. Some societies operate with
robust and lasting groups, whereas else-
where, perhaps because of distinct styles
of interaction, levels of surveillance, or
forms of social control, local participation
may be truncated. Examining how varia-
tion arises and creates effects is an impor-
tant future direction for research and the-
orizing. If we think about the properties of
tiny publics as variables, we can compare
the networks of tiny publics of nations
and regions (personal communication,
Michael Farrell, 2013). This potentially
provides a more sophisticated under-
standing of how properties of tiny publics
shape the social order and the choices of
individuals.
Ultimately individuals become part of
political systems not through the system
as such, but because they are surrounded
by others with whom they recognize that
they have similar interests. A Leviathan
is not necessary when there are many
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schools of fish. Meso-structures reduce
the need for a single overarching power
center.
We who believe in the power of groups
to create an interaction order must make
this case persuasively to our colleagues.Affiliations among persons create affilia-
tion with society. Allegiance is constituted
in the local worlds in which citizens par-
ticipate and then extends to allegiance
to a world that is more expansive, but per-
ceived as similar in kind. This is the hinge
on which society depends.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I thank Michael Farrell, Tim Hallett, and CalvinMorrill for their helpful critiques.
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BIO
Gary Alan Fine is John Evans Professor
of Sociology at Northwestern University.
He received his PhD in social psychology
in 1976 from the Department of Psychol-
ogy and Social Relations at Harvard Uni-
versity and has taught at the Universityof Minnesota and the University of Geor-
gia. He is recently the author of Tiny Pub-
lics: A Theory of Group Action and Cul-
ture (2012). His current research is an
ethnographic study of the socialization of
MFA students in the visual arts, examin-
ing the politics of intentionality.
26 Social Psychology Quarterly 77(1)
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