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The Reinvention of Politics

Rethinking Modernity in the Global Social Order

Authors: Ulrich Beck Publisher: Wiley Publication date: 2018 Publication language: Angielski Number of pages: 214 Publication formats: EAN: 9780745692449 ISBN: 9780745692449 Category: Political science & theory Publisher's index: - Bibliographic note: -

Description

Those who advocate ideas about "postmodernity" and "post-industrialism" offer radical critiques of existing social and political institutions. But they provide very little in place of those institutions. It is all very well to criticize the limitations of social democracy, the welfare state, trade unionism, and social classes as agents of change, but once these have been thrown into crisis what other institutions do we have to depend on?


The Reinvention of Politics, suggests we should think again about forging a new model of politics for our times. An active, devolved civil society, Beck argues, can sustain the claim that modernity is inherently democratic. For many issues now - for example, those involving technology, environment protest, the family, or gender relations - belong to the domain of what the author calls "subpolitics".


The postmodern critique of modernity, in Beck's view, is based on mistaken generalizations about a transitional phase in the evolution of modern society. What is needed, he argues, is the reinvention of politics, corresponding to th new demands of a society which remains modern, but which has progressed beyond the earlier form of industrial society.


This book will be essential reading for second-year undergraduates and above in the fields of social and political theory, sociology and political science.

TOC

  • Cover 2
  • Title Page 6
  • Copyright 7
  • Contents 8
  • Introduction 10
  • 1: The Age of Side-effects: On the Politicization of Modernity 20
    • What does 'reflexive modernization' mean? 20
    • The sociology of simple and reflexive modernization – a comparison 29
      • The grand consensus on modernization 29
      • Fundamental assumptions of the sociology of simple modernization 32
      • Characteristics of simple and reflexive modernization theory 34
      • What are self-abolition and self-endangerment? 37
      • Industrial society as semi-modern society 41
      • First and second modernity: contrasting features 46
    • Reflexive democracy 49
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Author's affiliation

Ulrich Beck: Ludwig-Maximilian University in Munich