Politics, Social Theory, Utopia and the World-System PDF Download

Author: C. el-Ojeili
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 0230367216
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 244

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Book Description
It is common to hear that we live in unique, turbulent and crisis-ridden times and this turbulence, transformation and crisis are said to be deeply significant - perhaps threatening - for the human sciences. Responding to such claims, this book provides an accessible engagement with pressing contemporary topics, such as violence, social movements, equality, identity and democracy. Foregrounding the imagination of possibilities (utopia), the mapping of the present (theory), and the transformation of the world-system (historical and global questions), the book surveys central issues and paradigms in contemproary political sociology, urging a recommitment to certain concepts and traditions for guidance in thinking and acting in the world.

Author: Lyman Tower Sargent
Publisher: OUP Oxford
ISBN: 0191614424
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 160

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Book Description
There are many debates about utopia - What constitutes a utopia? Are utopias benign or dangerous? Is the idea of utopianism essential to Christianity or heretical? What is the relationship between utopia and ideology? This Very Short Introduction explores these issues and examines utopianism and its history. Lyman Sargent discusses the role of utopianism in literature, and in the development of colonies and in immigration. The idea of utopia has become commonplace in social and political thought, both negatively and positively. Some thinkers see a trajectory from utopia to totalitarianism with violence an inevitable part of the mix. Others see utopia directly connected to freedom and as a necessary element in the fight against totalitarianism. In Christianity utopia is labelled as both heretical and as a fundamental part of Christian belief, and such debates are also central to such fields as architecture, town and city planning, and sociology among many others Sargent introduces and summarizes the debates over the utopia in literature, communal studies, social and political theory, and theology. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.

Author: Hans A. Baer
Publisher: Berghahn Books
ISBN: 1785336967
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 314

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Book Description
As global economic and population growth continues to skyrocket, increasingly strained resources have made one thing clear: the desperate need for an alternative to capitalism. In Democratic Eco-Socialism as a Real Utopia, Hans Baer outlines the urgent need to reevaluate historical definitions of socialism, commit to social equality and justice, and prioritize environmental sustainability. Democatic eco-socialism, as he terms it, is a system capable of mobilizing people around the world, albeit in different ways, to prevent on-going human socio-economic and environmental degradation, and anthropogenic climate change.

Author: Patrick Hayden
Publisher: Anthem Press
ISBN: 1839984740
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 152

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Book Description
Immanuel Wallerstein, one of the most influential yet controversial sociologists of the past half-century, is a touchstone in innumerable debates about globalization and the power of capitalism, the nature of development in the modern era, and how to come to grips with widespread inequalities while recovering the potential for social change. The Anthem Companion to Immanuel Wallerstein offers a compelling guide to his writings and ideas, his influences and reception, and the reasons for his enduring significance, with 10 original interpretive essays written by a distinguished group of international scholars. Importantly, the contributors also advance Wallerstein’s work into neglected areas such as climate change, global pandemics, racism, and gender and demonstrate his importance, not just to debates in his intellectual context, but to those of our times as well. This companion provides a multifaceted tool for thinking with Wallerstein, while showing where those engaging with Wallerstein’s thought can take his work in the contemporary world.

Author: Barbara Goodwin
Publisher: Peter Lang
ISBN: 9783039110803
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 348

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Book Description
This book provides both an introduction to utopianism and a general perspective on radical political thought. Vigorously disputing the widespread conviction that utopianism is a fantasy with no relevance to modern political life and thought, the authors argue that it is a concept whose special virtue lies in its capacity to transcend the limitations of present circumstances, to inspire alternative thinking and to open up new directions for political action. This book develops an approach which relates social causes to political theory and practice. The first part discusses utopianism as a form of political theory with unique characteristics and the ability to transcend the present. The second part considers utopianism as an expression of fundamental social impulses and as an ingredient of modern political movements. The third part offers a defence of utopianism as both theory and practice, and argues for its use to counteract the pragmatism and narrow empiricism which often passes for political «realism» in modern societies. This reissue of a popular and well-received landmark text contains a new preface.

Author: S. D. Chrostowska
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231544316
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 403

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Book Description
Utopia has long been banished from political theory, framed as an impossible—and possibly dangerous—political ideal, a flawed social blueprint, or a thought experiment without any practical import. Even the "realistic utopias" of liberal theory strike many as wishful thinking. Can politics think utopia otherwise? Can utopian thinking contribute to the renewal of politics? In Political Uses of Utopia, an international cast of leading and emerging theorists agree that the uses of utopia for politics are multiple and nuanced and lie somewhere between—or, better yet, beyond—the mainstream caution against it and the conviction that another, better world ought to be possible. Representing a range of perspectives on the grand tradition of Western utopianism, which extends back half a millennium and perhaps as far as Plato, these essays are united in their interest in the relevance of utopianism to specific historical and contemporary political contexts. Featuring contributions from Miguel Abensour, Étienne Balibar, Raymond Geuss, and Jacques Rancière, among others, Political Uses of Utopia reopens the question of whether and how utopianism can inform political thinking and action today.

Author: Andrew Simon Gilbert
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 3030110605
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 252

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Book Description
This book examines how 20th century theorists have used a discourse of “crisis” to frame their conceptualizations of modernity. Through an investigation of four key thinkers (Georg Lukács, Hannah Arendt, Reinhart Koselleck and Jürgen Habermas), Gilbert argues that scholars in the social sciences and humanities should be cautious of treating crises as explananda for research. Instead, the book calls for sociological analysis of the role of “crisis” within social scientific discourse, and examines how “crisis” has been used as a conceptual frame for legitimating theoretical agendas. Gilbert’s “sociology of concepts” approach presents crisis as a paradigm of modern thought, and, more generally, reflects on how concepts can become the carriers of diverse intellectual traditions and debates. The Crisis Paradigm will be of interest to students and scholars of social and critical theory, politics, sociology and history, as well as those working in the fields of media studies, communication and discourse analysis.

Author: Erik Olin Wright
Publisher: Verso Books
ISBN: 1789601452
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 536

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Book Description
Rising inequality of income and power, along with recent convulsions in the finance sector, have made the search for alternatives to unbridled capitalism more urgent than ever. Yet few are attempting this task-most analysts argue that any attempt to rethink our social and economic relations is utopian. Erik Olin Wright's major new work is a comprehensive assault on the quietism of contemporary social theory. A systematic reconstruction of the core values and feasible goals for Left theorists and political actors, Envisioning Real Utopias lays the foundations for a set of concrete, emancipatory alternatives to the capitalist system. Characteristically rigorous and engaging, this will become a landmark of social thought for the twenty-first century.

Author: Gerald Gaus
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691183422
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 314

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Book Description
In his provocative new book, The Tyranny of the Ideal, Gerald Gaus lays out a vision for how we should theorize about justice in a diverse society. Gaus shows how free and equal people, faced with intractable struggles and irreconcilable conflicts, might share a common moral life shaped by a just framework. He argues that if we are to take diversity seriously and if moral inquiry is sincere about shaping the world, then the pursuit of idealized and perfect theories of justice—essentially, the entire production of theories of justice that has dominated political philosophy for the past forty years—needs to change. Drawing on recent work in social science and philosophy, Gaus points to an important paradox: only those in a heterogeneous society—with its various religious, moral, and political perspectives—have a reasonable hope of understanding what an ideally just society would be like. However, due to its very nature, this world could never be collectively devoted to any single ideal. Gaus defends the moral constitution of this pluralistic, open society, where the very clash and disagreement of ideals spurs all to better understand what their personal ideals of justice happen to be. Presenting an original framework for how we should think about morality, The Tyranny of the Ideal rigorously analyzes a theory of ideal justice more suitable for contemporary times.

Author: C. el-Ojeili
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 0230367216
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 207

View

Book Description
It is common to hear that we live in unique, turbulent and crisis-ridden times and this turbulence, transformation and crisis are said to be deeply significant - perhaps threatening - for the human sciences. Responding to such claims, this book provides an accessible engagement with pressing contemporary topics, such as violence, social movements, equality, identity and democracy. Foregrounding the imagination of possibilities (utopia), the mapping of the present (theory), and the transformation of the world-system (historical and global questions), the book surveys central issues and paradigms in contemproary political sociology, urging a recommitment to certain concepts and traditions for guidance in thinking and acting in the world.