from the enlightenment to the 21st century

Inequality emerged as a social concern during the Enlightenment and was seen as violating the norm of human equality. Three main development narratives were generated following this concern: one of long-term equalization (de Tocqueville), one of polarization (Marx), and one of modern rising inequality followed by equalization (Kuznets). Although each of these narratives was able to score some points, none of them fully captured the actual trajectory of the inequality curve which is currently bending upwards towards more inequality. 21st century inequality studies are taking off in new directions, multiscalar, multi-dimensionally rooted in recent moral philosophy, and more focused on causal mechanisms and forces. Since early modernity a centre of economic inequality in the world, Latin America has a special relevance to inequality studies. Nevertheless, it is currently the only world region with a predominant tendency of equalization

Larsson/Magdalenić: Sociology in Sweden

Book review of: Larsson, Anna, and Sanja Magdalenić (2015) Sociology in Sweden: A History, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. 105 pp. ISBN: 978-1-137-48229-7. Price: $ 67,50 (Hardcover

Sociologiens første århundrede - og det næste

The First Century of Sociology - and the Next Sociology got many of its first institutions just one century ago - important and still existing journals and departments of sociology were founded in the last de¬cade of the 19th Century. Sociology of the early 20th Century - the period after the classics - was occupied by the origins and rise of capitalism and its evolution and progress. It is important to notice, that all three fundamental conceptions of classical sociology could be, and were, by the classical protagonists themselves, given different meanings and expressed with different accents. The social world was, above all, a world in evolution, a world historically evolved. In this per¬spective, the origins of things socially had an absolutely central place of inte¬rest. The conditions for social relations and how to create and maintain social solidarity were crucial issues among the first generations of sociologists. It was the dynamic of the modernisation pro¬cesses which concerned sociology while its focus was primarily around the soci¬al space of nation-states - its institutions as well as its theoretical approaches were tuned by nationality and were state-bounded. This contrasts strongly with today´s sociology which is globally focusing on variability and communication. By the end of the present century strategy and contingency have replaced evolution and progress as the dominant concepts of sociology. Undestanding and discour¬se seem to be the predominant models of cognition in contemporary sociology. It is in this perspective that social labelling, as a way of grasping and conveying the sense of contemporary world, becomes so central to sociologists of prime-time aspirations. Are we living in post-mo¬dernity, or in reflexive modernity, or perhaps in a second modernity. The repertoire of possible sense-making labels is an indefinite quantity. In this context we would need a critical sociology of bad sociology, and of other bad academic out¬puts, analyzing sloppiness and shallow¬ness as institutional effects, rather than as individual deficiences. Spatially, the practice of sociology has a three-dimensional location - the in¬stitutional space, the stage of performan¬ce and its space of imagination and inve¬stigation. Sociology of this century has been national and European in its approach to the social and society. A global sociology has to turn away from its euro¬centric past and present and to focus mo¬re on global issues such as information technology, capital and social move¬ments analysed in cross-continental perspectives. The paper concludes in a rather optimistic mood emphasizing the huge accummulation of sociological knowledge which has taken place du¬ring its first century. Here can be mentio¬ned recent work on identities - it may be ethnic, sexual or national - studies of in¬stitutionalisation in making political sy¬stems, and new knowledge concerning the dynamics of collective actions and the gendering of social systems as im¬portant achievements which were large¬ly unstated a century ago

The working class and the welfare state : a historical-analytical overview and a little Swedish monograph

Aineisto on Opiskelijakirjaston digitoimaa ja Opiskelijakirjasto vastaa aineiston käyttöluvist

Auf der Suche nach dem Handeln: Geschichte und Verteidigung der Klassenanalyse

Die Wende des Jahres 1968: Von sozialer Stratifikation zu politischer Macht und gesellschaftlichen Klassen. Nur schwerlich können Paradigmenwechsel der Ereignisgeschichte zugeordnet werden. Ihre Ursachen und Auswirkungen lassen sich jedoch durchaus im Lichte symbolischer Ereignisse darstellen. Was die Theorie, die Analyse und das Verständnis von Klassen in entwickelten kapitalistischen Gesellschaften anbelangt, war das Jahr1968 von entscheidender Bedeutung. Außerhalb von Studierstuben und Hörsälen verbanden sich drei Ereignisse zum Grunderlebnis einer ganzen Generation, die Wende im Vietnamkrieg,die Studentenbewegung und die Mai-Ereignisse in Frankreich. In der ruhigeren Welt des gedruckten Wortes war 1968 das Erscheinungsjahr zweier außerordentlich bedeutsamer Werke zum Thema der Klassen. Das eine geprägt vom Prunk eines zu Ende gehenden Zeitalters, das andere getragen von der egozentrischen Selbstgewißheit einer heraufziehenden neuen Ära

States, Nations, and Civilizations

Funder: University of CambridgeAbstractNation-states are inherently part of cultural formations, sustaining, legitimating, and inspiring them. The nations sustaining contemporary states are very different, and major routes of historical nation-state formation can be distinguished, which means that global discussions of nation-states cannot be confined to such states “in a European sense” only. Civilization(s) is a concept with different meanings in singular and in plural, belonging to different semantic fields, at least in European languages. As a singular concept it arose in mid-eighteenth century, distinguishing a high degree of social and cultural development from “barbarism” and “savagery”. It spread rapidly across European languages in the nineteenth century with European world supremacy and evolutionism, as a European self-designation. Civilizations in plural first appeared on a large intellectual scale after World War I, the horrendous slaughters of which shattered the Western ideas of continuous evolution and progress, and of the West as the unique pinnacle of human development. In the plural, civilizations have been used in philosophies of comparative history and evolution, but it may also be used as a tool of cultural analysis. In this sense, civilizations refer to large, ancient enduring cultural configurations, to the deepest layer of contemporary cultural geology. In terms of current demographic size five major such civilizations can be identified. They impinge upon the political culture of states, upon the visions and the language of the state rulers. They do not clash, and they do not determine state behaviour. Nations and civilizations are compared as cultural entities or referents, with a view to laying a basis for analytical comparisons of nation states and civilization-states, in particular their implications of agency, time and history, including their different historical contexts of emergence. The nation and civilization designations of states also related to a wider range of contemporary state categorizations. Contemporary politics and political theorizing of civilizations are looked at in brief empirical overviews of the impact of civilizations upon international relations in the wake of Samuel Huntington’s thesis of “clashes of civilizations”, and of the promise of civilization states as a political project, and as an illuminating tool of cognition.</jats:p