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Reinvention of Politics: Rethinking Modernity in the Global Social Order - Softcover

Beck, Ulrich

 
9780745617589: Reinvention of Politics: Rethinking Modernity in the Global Social Order
Softcover
ISBN 10: 0745617581 ISBN 13: 9780745617589
Publisher: Polity, 1996

Synopsis

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.

"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.

About the Author

Ulrich Beck is Professor of Sociology at the University of Munich.

From the Back Cover

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.

From the Inside Flap

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.

"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.

Publisher
Polity
Publication date
1996
Language
English
ISBN 10 
0745617581
ISBN 13 
9780745617589
Binding
Paperback
Edition number
1
Number of pages
212