Introduction

In 2006 the Scottish Executive published an Action Plan on Tackling Sectarianism in Scotland (Scottish Executive, 2006a). The action plan was the culmination of a growing governmental focus upon acknowledging and addressing inter-Christian sectarianism within Scottish society. This chapter applies the work of Norbert Elias on the Civilising Process (Elias, 2000 [1939]) and The Established and the Outsiders (Elias and Scotson, 1994 [1965]) to explore how norms, values and habits become inculcated and reformed within populations. We argue that the unprecedented contemporary policy crusade to address sectarianism in Scotland represents an example of a civilising offensive, a concept developed from the work of Elias to describe governmental attempts to reform the orientations, manners and conduct of citizens.

The chapter begins with an account of the key concepts within Elias's social theory of the civilising process and continues by describing how both the anti-sectarianism and Respect agendas may be characterised as civilising offensives. The chapter then provides an account of key elements of the governance of sectarianism in Scotland, focusing on the arenas of education and football. We argue that the anti-sectarianism agenda symbolises an ambitious attempt to reframe the values and traditions of sections of the Scottish population within a ‘respect’ paradigm and to build an ever-wider apparatus of governmental (including non-state) mechanisms for reshaping the conduct of citizens. We attempt to identify common rationales and techniques shared by both the anti-sectarianism and Respect agendas, and suggest that Elias's theories provide an important conceptual framework for understanding and critiquing social processes and government attempts to realign these processes.

The civilising process and established-outsider relations

The work of Elias is concerned with the relationship between the individual and society and can be seen as a critique of the homo clausus (the closed person). Elias argued that the concept of an isolated individual person, unaffected by group processes beyond those of early childhood and socialisation,2 is an intellectual aberration, as society cannot be separated from the units from which it is made (Elias, 1978). This is illustrated to great effect in The Civilizing Process, in which Elias shows how long-term3 changes in human behaviour, power and habitus are inextricably linked to the wider development of society.