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Afterword: Thinking futures European Journal of Social Theory (IF 1.766) Pub Date : 2024-03-13 Bryan S. Turner
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The tragedy of utopia in the age of the Anthropocene: Beyond dystopia, despair and catastrophic futures European Journal of Social Theory (IF 1.766) Pub Date : 2024-03-06 Mark Featherstone
My key objective in this article is to explore the history of the concept of utopia and its application in really existing social, political, economic and cultural forms. Starting with a consideration of what I call the economy of utopia, I theorise the desire for the ideal society in terms of a deeply human drive to seek to overcome vulnerability, limitation and finitude that is set upon failure and
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Schumacher in the age of generative AI: Towards a new critique of technology European Journal of Social Theory (IF 1.766) Pub Date : 2024-03-01 David M. Berry, James Stockman
This article sets out to bring E. F. Schumacher’s social theory of technology into dialogue with recent advances in the field of generative artificial intelligence (AI). By generative AI, we are here referring to a new constellation of machine learning technologies that aim to simulate and, subsequently, automate human creativity, with a particular focus on OpenAI’s GPT-3 family (ChatGPT and DALL-E)
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Contemporary visions of the next apocalypse: Climate change and artificial intelligence European Journal of Social Theory (IF 1.766) Pub Date : 2024-03-01 Aldo Mascareño
The ancient Greco-Roman and Judeo-Christian traditions are the main sources of the eschatological compositions of the apocalypse. Through the combination of various symbolic elements and a prefigured narrative, apocalyptic visions offer a script that can be applied in diverse historical situations to deal with the uncertainty of the present, to justify political action and to allocate resources. In
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Climate change, critical theory and economic democracy: ‘Small is Beautiful’ and the challenge to growth European Journal of Social Theory (IF 1.766) Pub Date : 2024-02-22 Robin Jervis
This article brings ‘Small is Beautiful’ into dialogue with Frankfurt School critical theory to explore reshaping capitalism considering the climate crisis. Nature’s subjugation to capitalist instrumental reason is discussed in terms of Schumacher’s arguments. The article contends that market-based emission reduction schemes privatise Earth’s life-sustaining capacity and underscores how current lifestyles
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History, sociology and the study of empires: Reflections of a historical sociologist European Journal of Social Theory (IF 1.766) Pub Date : 2024-02-16 Krishan Kumar
Despite the urging of classical sociologists such as Emile Durkheim and Max Weber, history and sociology have largely followed different professional and institutional tracks. The result has been detrimental to both disciplines. The loss is especially apparent in the study of empires. Historians have made great contributions to the study of individual empires but have been reluctant to theorize and
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Activated. Towards a sociology of reaction European Journal of Social Theory (IF 1.766) Pub Date : 2024-02-15 Andrea Mubi Brighenti, Lorenzo Sabetta
The reactive character of social relations, though empirically pervasive, is analytically neglected. Yet, reaction seems a surprisingly useful category to make sense of the extensive environmental links of behaviour/action lying at the very junction of social phenomenology (the here-and-now) and social ecology (the elsewhere-at-other-times). To advance a deeper theorization of this category, we start
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Between responsibility and escape: The future as an object of knowledge in the humanities and social sciences European Journal of Social Theory (IF 1.766) Pub Date : 2024-02-13 Jenny Andersson
The future has been a central object of inquiry in the twentieth-century social theory. In this essay, a first generation of intellectual concern with the future is represented in the post-war turn towards a hermeneutics of time and reflections on modernity in the writings of conceptual historian Reinhart Koselleck and philosopher Paul Ricoeur. In their writings, the future was both essential reflection
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Alter-neoliberal analysis: Abduction, critique, radical imagination European Journal of Social Theory (IF 1.766) Pub Date : 2024-02-13 Dimitris Soudias
Radical critique and praxis today face an unprecedented challenge because neoliberal rationalities partly succeeded in encroaching upon emancipatory ambitions. On the one hand, as critical sociology informs us, this is because many of the utilitarian tenets of neoliberal rationalities have become naturalized in everyday conduct. On the other hand, as pragmatic sociology shows, because neoliberalism
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Experimentation and the future(s) of political hope European Journal of Social Theory (IF 1.766) Pub Date : 2024-02-06 Loren Goldman
Against pessimistic trends in social and political theory, this article argues for the indispensability of hope in conceptualizing the future. Such hope, however, does not need to be beholden to a unitary vision of the future, as with traditional metaphysical or Enlightenment notions of progress, but should instead accommodate a multiplicity of possible better worlds. Pluralizing the future links it
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Towards a sociology of the future: An exploration in cognitive social theory European Journal of Social Theory (IF 1.766) Pub Date : 2024-02-02 Piet Strydom
The aim of this article is a sociology of the future. Since the standard sociological practice of extrapolating from everyday semantics of the future and the time-consciousness of modernity is inadequate, an integrated cognitive sociological perspective allied to critical theory is introduced. It makes visible an essential dimension of social life that is either largely taken for granted, misunderstood
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Technocratic myopia: On the pitfalls of depoliticising the future European Journal of Social Theory (IF 1.766) Pub Date : 2024-01-31 Jonathan White
That democratic authorities are systematically focused on short-term considerations is a charge often made. This ‘democratic myopia’ thesis typically becomes the basis for advocating the empowerment of technocratic institutions, for example in economic policy. Much less examined is what one may call the technocratic myopia thesis – the possibility that technocratic institutions have their own distinctive
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Can we use the open future? Preparedness and innovation in times of self-generated uncertainty European Journal of Social Theory (IF 1.766) Pub Date : 2024-01-19 Elena Esposito
Is the future simply open or can it be made more or less open? The awareness of the uncontrollable impact of present action on the future has recently raised a debate about the risks of innovation and rational planning. Relying on Luhmann’s concept of defuturization, the article confronts the two approaches of future-making and preparedness and proposes to combine them with reference to the management
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Tempering the not-yet: Towards a social theory for the Anthropocene European Journal of Social Theory (IF 1.766) Pub Date : 2024-01-03 Barbara Adam
The social sciences have established a plethora of ways to approach the future. Sidestepping any direct engagement with the not-yet has emerged as the dominant way to deal with its assumed non-factual nature. Social theory has laid the foundations for this bracketing with the three overarching key foci on function, meaning and structure. This article considers some of the consequences of treating the
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Putin’s Russia: A commentary on Professor Kögler’s perspective European Journal of Social Theory (IF 1.766) Pub Date : 2023-05-12 Bryan Stanley Turner
This commentary raises three issues. Kögler fails to cover the complexity of Dugin’s philosophy, including his eschatological ideas. Secondly, in any discussion of Putin’s politics, we need to incl...
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The moral fog of war and historical sociology European Journal of Social Theory (IF 1.766) Pub Date : 2023-05-11 Siniša Malešević
Hans-Herbert Kögler offers an insightful analysis and a potent moral call to support the defence of Ukraine. This is a sensible moral position that I also share. However, I question Kögler’s approa...
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Introduction to the special issue on the Russo-Ukrainian War: A new European war? Considerations on the Russo-Ukrainian War European Journal of Social Theory (IF 1.766) Pub Date : 2023-05-08 Gerard Delanty
The Russo-Ukrainian War marks a significant moment in the post-1945 history of Europe when a new European war has begun that will shape relations with Russia for a long time to come. This war is no...
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Thinking of war, facing the catastrophe: The Russian-Ukrainian War European Journal of Social Theory (IF 1.766) Pub Date : 2023-05-07 Maxim Khomyakov
The essay seeks to complement Hans-Herbert Kögler’s article on the moral case for supporting Ukraine in its current defence against aggression from Putin’s Russia. To do so it tries to offer a more...
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On the moral significance of military operations: A response to Hans-Herbert Kögler European Journal of Social Theory (IF 1.766) Pub Date : 2023-05-04 Anthony King
Against pacifist calls for peace at any price in Ukraine, Hans-Herbert Kögler argues that the west has a moral obligation to support Ukraine in its war against Russia. Kögler’s argument is well-mad...
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Commentary on Kögler: Analysing the Ukraine war through a ‘new wars’ perspective European Journal of Social Theory (IF 1.766) Pub Date : 2023-04-27 Mary Kaldor
This essay provides supplementary evidence for Kögler’s thesis. It argues that Putin will have ‘won’ if he succeeds in reducing Ukrainian society to a chaotic, fragmented, violent, long-term social...
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Nazism, nationalism and the war in Ukraine: A reply to Kögler European Journal of Social Theory (IF 1.766) Pub Date : 2023-04-11 Ivor Chipkin
This article considers what the figure of the Nazi means today, especially in the context of the war in Ukraine. Like Hans-Herbert Kögler, the article considers Nazism as a Russian political discou...
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Mind the gap(s): Moral philosophy, international law and interpretative historical sociology European Journal of Social Theory (IF 1.766) Pub Date : 2023-04-11 Peter Wagner
Given the diversity of opinions about whether, how, and towards which end Western societies should defend Ukraine against the ongoing Russian aggression, it would be desirable to spell out clear mo...
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In search of the common good: The postliberal project Left and Right European Journal of Social Theory (IF 1.766) Pub Date : 2023-04-10 Stefan Borg
This article contributes to an understanding of the backlash against liberalism by reconstructing the emergence and development of an increasingly influential strand of Anglo-American thought that ...
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Displacement, women intellectuals and entangled knowledge in the making of global modernity European Journal of Social Theory (IF 1.766) Pub Date : 2023-04-05 Aurea Mota
This article offers a perspective on how the proposed conceptualisation of the idea of displacement can be used to analyse processes of knowledge formation and transformation brought about by the m...
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Adorno and Habermas: Two varieties of post-metaphysical thinking European Journal of Social Theory (IF 1.766) Pub Date : 2023-03-29 Stefan Müller-Doohm
This essay asks how much of Adorno is present in Habermas’s theory of communicative reason and how far Adorno anticipated Habermas in his linguistic-philosophical reflections. Despite all their dif...
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Democracy or dictatorship? The moral call to defend Ukraine European Journal of Social Theory (IF 1.766) Pub Date : 2023-03-27 Hans-Herbert Kögler
This essay is a reflection on the Ukraine war grounded in moral motives to empathetically support an attacked victim (whether at the individual or national level). It entails a critique of the mora...
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Polanyi’s discovery of society and the digital phase of the industrial revolution European Journal of Social Theory (IF 1.766) Pub Date : 2023-03-02 Dean Curran
Polanyi’s (1957 [1944]) The Great Transformation stands as a towering analysis of the industrial revolution and a powerful social warning against social and natural damage driven by the pursuit of ...
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Thinking beyond the ecological present: Critical theory on the self-problematization of society and its transformation European Journal of Social Theory (IF 1.766) Pub Date : 2023-02-21 Tracey Skillington
This article assesses the contribution of a long tradition of critical inquiry to understanding how ‘felt contact’ with the world, in this instance a heating planet and its detrimental impacts, pro...
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Introduction to special issue: The critical theory of society European Journal of Social Theory (IF 1.766) Pub Date : 2023-02-15 Patrick Omahony
The state of theorizing bearing on an explicit, contemporary, critical theory of society is first of all outlined. While contemporary conditions of scholarship are not promising in this respect, th...
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Synthesis, dynamis, praxis: Critical theory’s ongoing struggle with the concept of society European Journal of Social Theory (IF 1.766) Pub Date : 2022-12-21 Hartmut Rosa, Peter Schulz
From its beginning, critical theory aimed at the exploration of the laws governing social life as a formational totality and of the forces shaping and driving its historical evolution. Hence, the r...
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The triple problem displacement: Climate change and the politics of the Great Acceleration European Journal of Social Theory (IF 1.766) Pub Date : 2022-11-14 Peter Wagner
Climate change is one of the greatest challenges that human societies have ever faced. After a late start, it is by now rather intensely debated and analysed also in the social sciences and humanit...
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On the relationships between critical theory and secularisation: The challenges of democratic fallibility and planetary survival European Journal of Social Theory (IF 1.766) Pub Date : 2022-11-10 Daniel Chernilo
dtenThis article looks at the contribution of secularisation debates to a critical theory of society. As the relations between the ‘religious’ and ‘secular’ aspects of modern life grow more vexing,...
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The critical theory of society: From its Young-Hegelian core to its key concept of possibility European Journal of Social Theory (IF 1.766) Pub Date : 2022-10-20 Piet Strydom
Responding to a call for systematic contributions on the theory of society, the principle aim of this article is to recover and reconstruct the Young-Hegelian core of critical theory’s theory of th...
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Social critique and transformation: Revising Habermas’s colonisation thesis European Journal of Social Theory (IF 1.766) Pub Date : 2022-10-18 Regina Kreide
What is critical theory – and what is it not? This essay attempts a new answer to this old question and examines which normative convictions immanent to social reality can be used to describe, anal...
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Interactive universalism, the concrete other and discourse ethics: A sociological dialogue with Seyla Benhabib’s theories of morality European Journal of Social Theory (IF 1.766) Pub Date : 2022-10-06 Owen Abbott
Noting that Benhabib’s ethical theory has seldom been engaged with by sociologists of morality, this article introduces and interrogates Benhabib’s ethical theory from a sociological perspective. I...
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Goodbye Foucault’s ‘missing human agent’? Self-formation, capability and the dispositifs European Journal of Social Theory (IF 1.766) Pub Date : 2022-09-14 Kaspar Villadsen
A steady stream of commentary criticizes Foucault’s ‘agentless position’ for its inability to observe, much less theorize, the ways in which human actors manoeuvre, negotiate, transform or resist t...
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Critical theory, Peirce and the theory of society European Journal of Social Theory (IF 1.766) Pub Date : 2022-09-14 Patrick O’Mahony
The second-generation critical theory of Apel and Habermas was substantially built on the semiotic pragmatism of Charles Peirce. Along with critical theory generally, this variation requires a theo...
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Pandora’s box: The two sides of the public sphere European Journal of Social Theory (IF 1.766) Pub Date : 2022-08-21 Klaus Eder
The public sphere is the site where the collective will of the people is formed. The thesis is that to the extent that the people are constructed as entities that pre-exist their collective will, t...
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A sociology of regret European Journal of Social Theory (IF 1.766) Pub Date : 2022-08-21 Mikhail Sokolov
This article aims to present regret, an emotion to which sociologists so far have paid little attention, as having great sociological significance. First, it reviews recent research in social psych...
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Lessons from Castoriadis: Downsizing critical theory and defusing the concept of society European Journal of Social Theory (IF 1.766) Pub Date : 2022-08-12 Johann P. Arnason
This article discusses successive positions of the Frankfurt School, contrasts them to the unfolding ideas of Castoriadis and argues for a critical theory centred on a concept of autonomy, but awar...
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Politicization after the ‘end of nature’: The prospect of ecomodernism European Journal of Social Theory (IF 1.766) Pub Date : 2022-06-01 Kristin Hällmark
A growing body of literature has argued that environmental discourses in general, and climate change in particular, have a tendency to become depoliticized. In this article, I discuss how the mecha...
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Castells versus Bell: A comparison of two grand theorists of the information age European Journal of Social Theory (IF 1.766) Pub Date : 2022-05-30 Alistair S. Duff
Daniel Bell (1919–2011) and Manuel Castells (1942–) are the grand theorists of the information age. The article provides a detailed, up-to-date, comparative analysis of their writings. It begins wi...
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Why (not) suicide: Habitus in hysteresis and the space of possibles European Journal of Social Theory (IF 1.766) Pub Date : 2022-05-25 Sigita Doblytė
Sociological theory on the phenomenon of suicide continues to rely heavily upon the Durkheimian perspective. While such accounts are valuable additions to the field, engagement with alternative theoretical traditions may likewise be stimulating and provide distinct concepts to delve into the issue. This article contributes to expanding sociological understanding of suicide by drawing upon Pierre Bourdieu’s
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Wolfgang Streeck on consumption, depoliticisation and neoliberal capitalism European Journal of Social Theory (IF 1.766) Pub Date : 2022-05-09 Samuel Sadian
Tucked into Wolfgang Streeck’s influential crisis theory of contemporary capitalism are various attempts at causally linking processes of neoliberalisation to generalised depoliticisation, while depoliticisation is in its turn attributed to the emergence of a diffuse ‘consumerist’ ethos in the 1970s. Streeck argues that rising consumerism led to a generalised demotic embrace of marketised forms of
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Is populism a social pathology? The myth of immediacy and its effects European Journal of Social Theory (IF 1.766) Pub Date : 2022-04-26 Justo Serrano Zamora
This article argues that populism, both in its left-wing and right-wing versions, is a social pathology in the sense contemporary critical theorists give to it. As such, it suffers from a disconnect between first order political practices and the reflexive grasp of the meaning of those practices. This disconnect is due to populists’ ideal of freedom, which they understand as authentic self-expression
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Methodological reflections on Foucauldian analyses: Adopting the pointers of curiosity, nominalism, conceptual grounding and exemplarity European Journal of Social Theory (IF 1.766) Pub Date : 2022-03-24 Magnus Paulsen Hansen, Peter Triantafillou
This article seeks to provide a set of pointers for methodological reflections on Foucauldian-inspired analyses of the exercise of power. Michel Foucault deliberately eschewed methodological schemata, which may be why so little has been written on the methodological implications of his analyses. While this article shares the premise that we should refrain from a standardized methodology, it argues
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Book review: The Imposter as Social Theory: Thinking with Gatecrashers, Cheats and Charlatans European Journal of Social Theory (IF 1.766) Pub Date : 2022-03-10 Susie Scott
This is an unusual and interesting book, which explores a timely and relevant topic. It brings together a broad range of papers by scholars from different disciplinary backgrounds, each of whom is concerned with some aspect of identity deception. The editors define the imposter as ‘a person who pretends to be someone else in order to deceive others’ (p. 3) and suggest that this represents an archetypal
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Book review: In AI We Trust: Power, Illusion and Control of Predictive Algorithms European Journal of Social Theory (IF 1.766) Pub Date : 2022-02-03 Sonja Avlijas
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Book review: Freedom, Justice, and Decolonization European Journal of Social Theory (IF 1.766) Pub Date : 2022-01-07 Andrés Saenz De Sicilia
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Fear of a Black planet: Climate apocalypse, Anthropocene futures and Black social thought European Journal of Social Theory (IF 1.766) Pub Date : 2021-12-27 Joe P. L. Davidson, Filipe Carreira da Silva
In recent years, images of climate catastrophe have become commonplace. However, Black visions of the confluence of the Anthropocene and the apocalypse have been largely ignored. As we argue in this article, Black social thought offers crucial resources for drawing out the implicit exclusions of dominant representations of climate breakdown and developing an alternative account of the planet’s future
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Another unfinished project of modernity from a Latin American perspective European Journal of Social Theory (IF 1.766) Pub Date : 2021-12-05 Oliver Kozlarek
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The separation between ethics and politics: Max Weber on ancient Judaism and modernity European Journal of Social Theory (IF 1.766) Pub Date : 2021-11-17 Eyal Chowers
For Max Weber, modernity is characterized by a tragic conflict among value spheres, each claiming to possess the ‘true meaning’ of human life. In particular, Weber argues that while the political sphere is dominated by the unifying, exclusionary, power-driven, and war-prone nation state, the ethical sphere is characterized by the universalization of individually based, deontological norms. For Weber
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Machine learning and social theory: Collective machine behaviour in algorithmic trading European Journal of Social Theory (IF 1.766) Pub Date : 2021-11-01 Christian Borch
This article examines what the rise in machine learning (ML) systems might mean for social theory. Focusing on financial markets, in which algorithmic securities trading founded on ML-based decision-making is gaining traction, I discuss the extent to which established sociological notions remain relevant or demand a reconsideration when applied to an ML context. I argue that ML systems have some capacity
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Human self-selection as a mechanism of human societal evolution: A critique of the cultural selection argument European Journal of Social Theory (IF 1.766) Pub Date : 2021-10-03 Shanyang Zhao
Natural selection is the main mechanism that drives the evolution of species, including human societies. Under natural selection, human species responds through genetic and cultural adaptations to internal and external selection pressures for survival and reproductive success. However, this theory is ineffective in explaining human societal evolution in the Holocene and a cultural selection argument
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Emancipatory politics at its limits? An introduction European Journal of Social Theory (IF 1.766) Pub Date : 2021-09-29 Ingolfur Blühdorn, Felix Butzlaff, Margaret Haderer
Emancipatory politics and the very idea of emancipation have come under pressure. Feminist and post-colonial critiques, the appropriation of emancipatory ideals by right-wing populists and the crises triggered by the transgression of planetary boundaries all expose emancipatory paradoxes and raise questions about the further suitability of emancipation as a regulative ideal guiding any socio-ecological
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Book Review: Around the Day in Eighty Worlds: Politics of the Pluriverse European Journal of Social Theory (IF 1.766) Pub Date : 2021-09-23 David McKeown
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Claiming solidarity: A multilevel discursive reconstruction of solidarity European Journal of Social Theory (IF 1.766) Pub Date : 2021-09-20 Marianne Kneuer, Michael Corsten, Hannes Schammann, Patrick Kahle, Stefan Wallaschek, Franziska Ziegler
Solidarity is one of the central concepts in social theory and has gained much attention due to the multiple challenges that the EU has been facing the last decade and due to the most recent COVID-19 pandemic. Although the debate on the nature and conditions of solidarity has been revitalized, there remains a large variety in how to conceptualize solidarity. In contrast to other approaches, we do not
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Book review: Durkheim and After: The Durkheimian Tradition, 1893–2020 European Journal of Social Theory (IF 1.766) Pub Date : 2021-09-20 Christopher Thorpe
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Habermas, democracy and the public sphere: Theory and practice European Journal of Social Theory (IF 1.766) Pub Date : 2021-08-20 Gabriele De Angelis
A fil rouge goes through Habermas’s decade long research. It is the idea that Reason and rationality permeate human societies and may lead human action towards emancipation, if aptly elaborated through the filter of theoretical reflection. Theory must pick up on this rational core and turn the intrinsic rational potential inherent to modern societies into a self-consciously pursued ‘project of enlightenment’
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Book review: Populism in the Civil Sphere European Journal of Social Theory (IF 1.766) Pub Date : 2021-08-09 David Inglis