In the paper, which pretends to be a program manifesto, its authors justify a necessity of the new theoretical approach to culture which they call a “strong program” in sociology of culture. While the existing sociological approaches to culture bear a reductionist character, the “strong program” treats culture in terms of its autonomy. After a general review of the sociological conceptions of culture authors analyze the most significant approaches within the “weak program.” In the core section of the paper they (...) discuss the required steps that will make a “strong program” possible on the grounds of synthesis of structuralism and hermeneutics. (shrink)

The paper promotes a cultural sociological analysis of one of the most significant and hard-to-explain events in American history when the initial act of breaking and entering into the Democratic Party headquarters at the Watergate Hotel first didn't attract any substantial attention of contemporaries but later initiated a widespread political crisis. J. Alexander considers the dynamics, mechanisms and consequences of the event and its public resonance, building an explanatory model based on his cultural sociological theory. This model allows to reconstruct (...) in detail the development and maintenance of the social consensus at the different levels of cultural structures and to explain its connection to the main elements of social and political context, public rituals and performances. (shrink)