Current Perspectives in Social Theory – serie

This is the 16th volume in the series discussing a variety of topics in the field of current perspectives in social theory.

Current Perspectives in Social Theory (CPST) presents essays on major issues in contemporary theoretical sociology, providing both critical overviews of major debates and original contributions by specialists working in social theory, sociological theory, and critical theory.

This is the 18th volume in a series discussing a topics in social theory. It is divided into three parts which address: critical social theory beyond critical theory; critical social theory and contemporary social structures; and critical and contemporary social H locies.

"Current Perspectives in Social Theory" presents essays on the major issues in contemporary theoretical work in sociology, providing both a critical overview of the development of major debates and original formulations by specialists working in various fields. Emphasis is put upon the presentation of new developments in special areas. Intended to cover the discipline as a whole, "Current Perspectives in Social Theory" seeks to maintain a balance between the general and the particular by dividing each volume into two parts, the first consisting of field statements by recognized academics in major areas of sociology, the second consisting of pieces focused on more detailed theoretical issues.

Current Perspectives in Social Theory (CPST) presents essays on major issues in contemporary theoretical sociology, providing both critical overviews of major debates and original contributions by specialists working in social theory, sociological theory, and critical theory.

Reflecting the cultural diversity in critical theory, Current perspectives in social theory presents work from a variety of theoretical traditions demonstrating the problems of sociological theorizing. Volume 21 echoes a current trend by publishing articles that reconsider Marx, Althusser and Gramsci.

The contributions in this 22nd volume of "Current Perspectives in Social Theory" explore the arguments for and against a view of the world in which multiple, distinct and conflicting societies differ both over time and contemporaneously.

This volume discusses, and manifests, three interrelated perspectives in social theory. First, that all knowledge, including scientific knowledge, is theoretical: there are alternative perspectives, or theories, about any phenomenon. Second, that all knowledge, including scientific knowledge is political: these alternative perspectives are contested, as they are related to different groups with different interests. Third, that all knowledge, including scientific knowledge, is social: alternative perspectives have alternative social causes and alternative social effects.

This work contains an Introduction by Harry F. Dahms. It includes contents such as: Periodizing Globalization: From Cold War Modernization to the Bush Doctrine Robert J. Antonio and Alessandro Bonanno; Recognizing Empire: Alienation, Authority, and Delusions of Grandeur David Norman Smith; Corporate Warriors: Changing Forms of Private Armed Force in America Harry W. Isaac and Daniel M. Harrison; From Exceptionalism to Imperialism: Culture, Character and American Foreign Policy Lauren Langman and Meghan Burke; 9.11.01 and Its Global Aftermath: Empire Strikes Back? Timothy Luke. It also includes commentaries - Globalization and Social Justice: Working the Tensions of the Dialectics of National Character Karen Monkman; Neoliberalism and its Discontents: Comments on Three Views of the American Empire Barney Warf. It includes five chapters and two commentaries from some of the most respected personalities in the field. It takes a broad and diverse look at the development of globalization.

Since the linguistic turn in Frankfurt School critical theory during the 1970s, philosophical concerns have become increasingly important to its overall agenda, at the expense of concrete social-scientific inquiries. At the same time, each of the individual social sciences especially economics and psychology, but also political science and sociology have been moving further and further away from the challenge key representatives of the so-called first generation of Frankfurt School critical theorists (Adorno, Horkheimer, and Marcuse) identified as central to the promise and responsibility of social science: to illuminate those dimensions of modern societies that prevent the reconciliation of facts and norms. As professional disciplines, each individual social science, and even philosophy, is prone to ignoring both the actuality and the relevance for research of alienation and reification as the mediating processes that constitute the reference frames for critical theory. Consequently, mainstream social-scientific research tends to progress in the hypothetical: we study the social world as if alienation, reification, and more recent incarnations of those mediating processes had lost their shaping forcewhile, in the context of globalization, their manifestations are ever more apparent, and tangible. The chapters included in this volume of "Current Perspectives in Social Theory" highlight the problematic nature of mainstream perspectives, and the growing need to reaffirm how the specific kind of critique the early Frankfurt School theorists advocated is not less, but far more important today. Contributions examine the links between political geographies and globalization; Marxism and public sociology; anti-Semitic workers and Jewish stereotypes; governmental rationality and state power; restricted eros and contemporary politics; Marcuse and the psycho-politics of transformation; contemporary theory and consumer society; and the theory of C. Wright Mills. This book includes nine chapters from some of the most respected personalities in the field and a broad and diverse look at social science and critical theory.

The chapters in this volume represent steps in the direction of demonstrating the importance of efforts to theorize the dynamics of specific social, cultural, political, and/or economic processes to the social sciences in general. They aim to clarify how those efforts are central to the core mission of each of the social sciences, and how social theory is both especially well positioned to tackle this challenge and to accept responsibility for illuminating related possibilities. The papers address the nature and importance of 'process' in studying modern (industrialized, post-industrial, capitalist, postmodern, globalizing, etc.) societies - at macro, meso, or micro-scale. The volume's overall purpose is to assemble a set of essays that invent, develop, and/or demonstrate strategies for theorizing one or several dynamic processes, so as to identify, illustrate by example, and analyze specific problems as well as connect theorizations of process across different disciplines of inquiry.

The common theme of this volume is that the critical theory of the Frankfurt School is as important today, if not more so, as it was at its inception during the 1930s. It looks at the distinguishing features of this tradition and how it is critical, yet also complementary, of other approaches in the social sciences, especially in sociology. The vanishing point of critical theory is not the replacement of diverse endeavors to illuminate the nature of modern society, rather, its purpose is to bundle overly fragmented perspectives that have been developed in theoretical sociology. It includes essays that address: the problematic analysis of political economy at the center of the early Frankfurt School, and the subsequent neglect of political economy; the continuing importance of alienation and reification as focal points of critical theory; differences in modes of critical theorizing during the twentieth century (with special emphases on Lukacs, Adorno, Habermas, and Postone); globalization as an analytical and normative challenge critical theorists are uniquely positioned to confront; and, the most problematic feature mainstream approaches in the social sciences have in common.

Since the time when Talcott Parsons pursued the project of one overarching "general theory of society", the landscape of social theory has vastly changed, and the pluralism and multidimensionality increased tremendously. Today, with so many different approaches in and to social theory, and multiple ways of defining and describing their relationship to and relevance for the social sciences, there has been a growing danger of diversity and pluralism tipping into fragmentation, making the prospect of social scientists and sociologists being able to communicate with the expectation of reaching some kind of understanding, ever less likely. This volume presents alternative trajectories for how to take steps toward achieving a theoretically informed understanding of the present analytical and practical challenges (in terms of social, sociological, and critical theory), and looks beyond pluralism and fragmentation to the kind of roles social theorists may be playing in the future. These essays revisit the issue of common agenda (or lack thereof) in social theory and provide critical overviews by specialists working in social theory, sociological theory, and critical theory.

"Recent Developments in the Theory of Social Structure" is an integrated collection of essays reviewing and assessing progress in social structural analysis since 1970. Organizationally, the book is divided into six parts corresponding to six analytical levels of social structure: social relationships, social networks, intraorganizational relations, interorganizational relations, societal stratification and the world system. The ten essays expound and assess what has been learned about the influences of social structure on human behaviour at each level of analysis. In the introduction, the editors examine the metatheoretical issues in structural analysis and promote the cause of theory integration.

While it was evident to the classics of social theory that modern societies are highly dynamic forms of social organization, and that this dynamic nature must be reflected explicitly and confronted directly in modes of analysis across the social sciences, over the course of the twentieth century, the acknowledgement of this fact has been weakening. As the social sciences became increasingly concerned with issues of professionalization and standards of validity inspired by more established disciplines, especially the natural sciences and economics, the focus on dynamic processes gave way to efforts to illuminate structural (i.e., static) features of modern social life. In recent decades, however, this preoccupation with structure has begun to give way to more process-oriented research orientations. In part, this renewed interest in dynamics rather than statics is reflective of the growing influence of Continental European traditions, especially in Germany and France. In this follow-up volume to "Theorizing the Dynamics of Social Processes (vol. 27)", the emphasis is placed on recent trends in Continental European social theory, and on the importance of political analyses to theorizing modern societies.

Since the linguistic turn in Frankfurt School critical theory during the 1970s, philosophical concerns have become increasingly important to its overall agenda, at the expense of concrete social-scientific inquiries. At the same time, each of the individual social sciences especially economics and psychology, but also political science and sociology have been moving further and further away from the challenge key representatives of the so-called first generation of Frankfurt School critical theorists (Adorno, Horkheimer, and Marcuse) identified as central to the promise and responsibility of social science: to illuminate those dimensions of modern societies that prevent the reconciliation of facts and norms. As professional disciplines, each individual social science, and even philosophy, is prone to ignoring both the actuality and the relevance for research of alienation and reification as the mediating processes that constitute the reference frames for critical theory. Consequently, mainstream social-scientific research tends to progress in the hypothetical: we study the social world as if alienation, reification, and more recent incarnations of those mediating processes had lost their shaping forcewhile, in the context of globalization, their manifestations are ever more apparent, and tangible. The chapters included in this volume of "Current Perspectives in Social Theory" highlight the problematic nature of mainstream perspectives, and the growing need to reaffirm how the specific kind of critique the early Frankfurt School theorists advocated is not less, but far more important today. Contributions examine the links between political geographies and globalization; Marxism and public sociology; anti-Semitic workers and Jewish stereotypes; governmental rationality and state power; restricted eros and contemporary politics; Marcuse and the psycho-politics of transformation; contemporary theory and consumer society; and the theory of C. Wright Mills. This book includes nine chapters from some of the most respected personalities in the field and a broad and diverse look at social science and critical theory.

In different ways, social theory and social history represent discourses that implicitly or explicitly highlight the need to apply perspectives on modern social realities that are conducive to discerning and scrutinizing the centrality of large-scale processes that have been influencing and shaping the relationships between individuals, social groups and forms of organization, and society as a whole. Social theories with history stress form at the expense of substance (and social, political or cultural relevance); histories without social theory tend to amount to little more than the enumeration of isolated facts, at the expense of cohesive narratives that may be socially compelling and meaningful. Representing a range of approaches and emphases, the chapters in this volume address and illustrate linkages between social theory and history; social theory and historical analysis as mutually supportive frames of analysis, and affinities between the history of social thought and the history of modern societies. Both classical and more recent theorists feature prominently, especially Durkheim and Weber, but also such central figures in the field as Bourdieu and Luhmann.

Since the beginning of the modern age, studies of ongoing transformations of social life, human sociality, and social relations and institutions have been at the forefront of social theory, alongside changes in politics, culture, and economy - and links between all of the above. In the twenty-first century, the speed at which these transformations have been occurring has accelerated precipitously, and it is impossible to predict what human civilization will look and exist like in a few decades. The essays included in this volume illuminate mediations of the individual-society relationship from a variety of angles, both explicitly and implicitly. They highlight the need to consider the consequences of choices made by collective decision-makers, politicians and leaders of organizations; as well as from processes that sustain the functioning and stability of individual nation-states and global society, for better or worse, and to varying degrees. They represent diverse traditions of social theorizing, including sociological and critical theory, analytically as well as normatively oriented theory, and examine the impact of transformations on several dimensions of societal life today

Globalization has been subjected to a variety of analyses over the past thirty years, ranging from examinations of homogenizing cultural trends to the pressures of economic austerity and trade relations to the declining influence of states. This volume examines how states and citizens have been able to address globalization in different ways across the Global North and South. Authors examine the state as it forms policies in agro-production, contends with critical constituencies, and rebuilds capacity to act in the popular interest after forty years of neoliberal assault. Other contributors discuss citizen choices in the face of global markets as divergent as food, tourism, and pharmaceuticals, and examine the global reach of human rights efforts. This volume pushes forward theoretical understandings of how concrete institutions express agency even in the face of what seems like monolithic and inevitable structures of globalization. The actions taken by states and citizens further inform us about how globalization can be further shaped in the pursuit of social justice.

In recent years, under the impression and the burden of globalization and neoliberalism, debates about the relationship between the theory and practice of progress - including the theory and practice of social critique - have gone through an unexpected and momentous revival, renewal and rejuvenation. This is due in large part to the proliferation of manifest crises in the early years of the twenty-first century. The terrorist attacks in September of 2001, the financial crisis of 2008 that spawned the Great Recession, the Euro crisis that began in fall 2010 - these events provided glimpses of the existing system of political economy, and opportunities to begin to grasp and reveal the ongoing reconstruction of business-labor-government relations in the early 21st century. Yet, in a variety of ways, the notions that theories and practices of rigorous social critique in and of modern societies could become outdated, or that they were based on a categorical misunderstanding of the nature of social, economic, political and cultural life in the modern world, were symptomatic of an ongoing reconfiguration of the system of political economy itself.

With regard to developments in social theory, the past 30 years can be characterized as an Age of Deconstruction. Inspired by post-structuralism, postmodernism, critical theory, and science studies, as well as combinations of related approaches, theorists have endeavored to shatter historical meta-narratives and struggled to include previously excluded standpoints in social thought. This important trend has informed our understanding of the role of discourse, difference and expertise in determining relations of power and inequality. This volume focusses on “Reconstruction”, dedicated to taking account of and interrogating the possibility of picking up the pieces. The papers were presented at the 2015 International Social Theory Consortium (ISTC). It considers questions such as, are there limits to the deconstruction project, and have these limits been reached? What are the possibilities for the reconstruction of narratives of long-term historical change? Is it possible to include and integrate the insights and contribution of various critiques of knowledge, while at the same time developing new forms of knowledge?

Globalization has accelerated the process of social, political, cultural, and especially economic transformations since the 1990s. In recent decades, this has cast doubt over the validity and reliability of many working assumptions about the nature and logic of progress in modern societies, at all levels of social structure and complexity.In The Challenge of Progress, editor Harry F. Dahms and a series of contributors explore how this doubt has been magnified, looking at how the institutions and constellations between business, labor and government have begun to weaken. The essays included in this volume examine the foundations, nature and contradictions of progress in the modern era. Anchored by - but not exclusively focused on - a debate of Amy Allen's recent book, The End of Progress: Decolonizing the Normative Foundations of Critical Theory (2016), the eleven essays identify, analyse and confront the challenges of progress, looking across social class, philosophy, history and culture in their analyses.For researchers and students across social theory, this is an unmissable volume confronting the present and future of our societies. Examining the choices of modern society, Dahms and contributors ask: what are the social costs of "progress"?

In Planetary Sociology: Beyond the Entanglement of Identity and Social Structure, Harry F. Dahms gathers a team of interdisciplinary junior social scientists who examine their individual identity as being shaped by specific social contexts such as nationality, class, and race, to scrutinize how their interests as social scientists are responses to such contexts and culturally specific circumstances (Part II). Acknowledging the limits of economic, organizational, and technological modernization at the national level, planetary sociology delineates the type of critical social, political, cultural, and environmental reflexivity required for "progress," "health," and "development" to be meaningful categories.Including contributions from senior scholars in the field who do not rely on the paradigm of planetary Sociology (Part III), this volume of Current Perspectives in Social Theory illustrates the importance of scrutinizing links between individual identity and social structure, without employing the paradigm of planetary sociology. Taken together, the chapters in this volume are essential reading for both undergraduate and graduate students eager to understand a rigorous social-research mindset, along with professionalization, methodology, and theoretical orientation, and related applications. Presenting an opportunity for social theorists and social scientists to learn about the challenges faced by younger sociologists, the examples of "applied theory" included here emphasize the importance of critical self-reflexivity in and for the 21st century, and the challenges it represents to social scientists, theorists, researchers, and teachers.

The defining feature of modern society is change - it never rests or provides its members or researchers the comfort and certainty of having attained an adequate understanding of its operations, how it functions, or where it is. Society in Flux: Two Centuries of Social Theory traces how tensions between order, process, structure and agency, and modes of analyzing them have evolved over the last two centuries.Understanding that modern society is perpetually in flux, albeit not across the board, but in different regards at different times, and in different locations or regions, this volume delves into three modes of theorizing: critical theory, classical theory, and systems theory - each representing a different level of reflexivity and a particular way of approaching modern societies. The authors discuss globally known theorists such as August Comte, Herbert Spencer, Karl Marx, Emil Lederer, Max Horkheimer, Theodor W. Adorno, and Niklas Luhmann to present perspectives, analyses, and insights that refer to and are relevant in the social world today.

What do we mean by the word “social?” In The Centrality of Sociality, scholars respond to themes of The Concept of the Social in Uniting the Social Sciences and Humanities in dialogue with Michael E. Brown.The Centrality of Sociality provides analyses of important distinctions between individual and society, agency-dependent and agency-independent objectivity, subject and object, theory and theorizing, and action and “course of activity.” Apart from its theoretical interest, the book raises questions about the compelling idea that “the individual is the ultimate referent of moral discourse,” formulating the question “what is human about human affairs” in such a way that the difficulties involved in defining the word individual appear to place in jeopardy the idea of the individual. The chapters analyze themes such as the conceptualization of the social vis-a-vis the individual, theories of action, and notions of subject-object relations.A thought-provoking collection of research, this edited volume is key reading for scholars and researchers in sociology.

Mad Hazard is a memoir of the career and life of Stephen Turner, chronicling a life in social theory. Showcasing how Turner’s later work on expertise, tacit knowledge, cognitive science, leadership, and liberal democracy developed out of his early interests, this volume describes the institutional and personal constraints and pressures, as well as the personal relationships, that facilitated and shaped an academic career.From Turner’s childhood in the racially violent South Side of Chicago, the development of his interests in social theory, through to his education in the shadow of the war in Vietnam and a period of social and personal turmoil, this biographical work shows us not only the development of academic thinking, but the evolution of an academic career. The rebellion within sociology against the hegemonic Merton-Parsons conception of sociology and the methodological orthodoxies of the time leads through to a discussion of the philosophy of science and social science, and from there to a reassessment of the inherited view of the classics, to science studies, and to political and international relations theory – the comprehensive nature of Mad Hazard means the reader can truly understand how Turner’s academic journey evolved.Revealing an academic career not dependent on prestige and academic power, but also not untouched by hierarchy and academic politics, Mad Hazard is appealing for readers interested in the field of social theory, and beyond that, those interested in the evolution of intellectual life in the present university.

Looking back upon the first quarter of the twenty-first century, two themes have risen to the top of the social theory agenda and are likely to continue to become more pronounced: the proliferating sense and reality of insecurity, and the accelerating eclipse of enlightenment.Thus far, this century has been characterized by changes in the structure and functioning of global capitalism, which has transmuted from neoliberalism into varieties of neoauthoritarianism. This new and exciting volume of Current Perspectives in Social Theory explores whether these shifts represent fundamental and transformational changes or merely adaptive, superficial ones—particularly in relation to social structure and social processes. Insecurity and the Eclipse of Enlightenment considers how these developments are likely to point toward profoundly different and increasingly disorienting futures, while also revealing the persistent, contradictory principles that have been shaping modern societies for at least two centuries.

In this thought-provoking volume, leading scholars address the multifaceted concept of agency, dissecting its significance, applications, and challenges across various domains, and situate agency in changing socio-historical contexts in which individuals as members of larger groups try to reconcile guiding norms and values with the material conditions of their lives.From sociological analyses to political explorations, the chapters traverse a rich landscape of ideas. The volume’s centerpiece (Part I) are two essays by lead authors Axel van den Berg, a prominent Canadian social theorist at McGill University in Montreal, and Emre Amasyalı, a sociologist at Institut Barcelona d'Estudis Internacionals (IBEI), along with responses by other prominent social theorists provide reactions to and assessments of the two pieces, with a reply to critics by the authors. The second and third parts do not address the concept of agency explicitly, but they do provide treatments of the larger context in which the phenomenon is situated. Part Two includes an analysis of the relevance of the category of social class via Erik Olin Wright’s reception of Max Weber and a reconstruction of how the idea of a guaranteed minimum (or basic) income can be traced alongside the history of social theory, beginning with Hegel. Part Three reflect on political transformations that have manifested in the United States in recent years, which are having a bearing on the reality of agency, and on opportunities to create documentaries in order to relay social-theoretical ideas and concepts to larger audiences.The Future of Agency ignites intellectual curiosity, challenges assumptions, and redefines our understanding of human agency and its ever-evolving role in our complex world.