Examines a range of contemporary social and cultural conflicts in East Asia and the echoes they have throughout the world.

Introduction. The civil sphere in the cultural and political transformations of modern East Asia David A. Palmer and Jeffrey C. Alexander; 1. South Korea's presidential scandal and civil repair Jongryul Choi; 2. System crisis and the civil sphere: media discourse on the crisis of education in South Korea Sunwoong Park; 3. Boundary tension and reconstruction: credit information crises and the civil sphere in Korea Hee-Jeong Lee; 4. Performing civil disobedience in Hong Kong Agnes Shuk-mei Ku; 5. Fault line in the civil sphere: explaining new divisions in Hong Kong's opposition movement Andrew Junker and Cheris Chan; 6. Three moral codes and microcivil spheres in China David A. Palmer; 7. Attempting civil repair in China: SACOM's campaigns and the challenge to digital capitalism Pun Ngai and Kenneth Tsz Fung Ng; 8. Fantasy is more believable: the shadow civil sphere in Chinese online fiction Xiaoli Tian; 9. Institutions and civil instantiation: the case of modern Japanese police Mayumi Shimizu; 10. What constitutes 'autonomy' in the Japanese civil sphere? The struggle over surrogacy Yoshie Yanagihara; 11. Developing communicative institutions in local communities: the practice of participatory budgeting in Taiwan Kuo-ming Lin; 12. Reconciliation through the transnational civil sphere? Historical dialogue and the tri-national joint history project in East Asia Horng-luen Wang; Commentary. Opening up civil sphere theory: from the United States through Latin America to East Asia Carlo Tognato; Conclusion. Theoretical issues in comparative perspective Peter Kivisto and Giuseppe Sciortino.