Author: Alexander Wendt
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107268435
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 264
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Book Description
Drawing upon philosophy and social theory, Social Theory of International Politics develops a theory of the international system as a social construction. Alexander Wendt clarifies the central claims of the constructivist approach, presenting a structural and idealist worldview which contrasts with the individualism and materialism which underpins much mainstream international relations theory. He builds a cultural theory of international politics, which takes whether states view each other as enemies, rivals or friends as a fundamental determinant. Wendt characterises these roles as 'cultures of anarchy', described as Hobbesian, Lockean and Kantian respectively. These cultures are shared ideas which help shape state interests and capabilities, and generate tendencies in the international system. The book describes four factors which can drive structural change from one culture to another - interdependence, common fate, homogenization, and self-restraint - and examines the effects of capitalism and democracy in the emergence of a Kantian culture in the West.
Author: Brian Fay
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317652282
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 107
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Book Description
This book examines the question of how our knowledge of social life affects, and ought to affect, our way of living it. In so doing, it critically discusses two epistemological models of social science – the positivist and the interpretive – from the viewpoint of the political theories which, it is argued, are implicit in these models; moreover, it proposes a third model – the critical – which is organised around an explicit account of the relation between social theory and practical life. The book has the special merit of being a good overview of the principal current ideas about the relation between social theory and political practice, as well as an attempt at providing a new and more satisfactory account of this relationship. To accomplish this task, it synthesises work from the analytic philosophy of social science with that of the neo-Marxism of the Frankfurt school.
Author: Anthony Giddens
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 0745666566
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 381
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Book Description
Built upon a series of critical encounters with major figures in classical and present-day social and political thought, this volume offers not only a challenging critique of major traditions of social and political analysis, but unique insights into the ideas which Giddens has developed over the past two decades.
Author: Diane E. Davis
Publisher: Emerald Group Publishing
ISBN: 1849506671
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 340
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Book Description
It is time to consider changes in the field of comparative-historical sociology, as the discipline seeks to accommodate old and new trends as well as the transforming spatial scales in which political power and social theory are increasingly embedded. This title showcases articles that pursue similar themes.
Author: Aeron Davis
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1136940286
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 215
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Book Description
Suitable for students and scholars of political communication and mass media in democracies, this book challenges the traditional scholarship on various issues such as: comparative political and media systems; theories of democracy, representation and the public sphere; and, political party communication, marketing and elections.
Author: Ralph Schroeder
Publisher: UCL Press
ISBN: 1787351246
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 210
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Book Description
The internet has fundamentally transformed society in the past 25 years, yet existing theories of mass or interpersonal communication do not work well in understanding a digital world. Nor has this understanding been helped by disciplinary specialization and a continual focus on the latest innovations. Ralph Schroeder takes a longer-term view, synthesizing perspectives and findings from various social science disciplines in four countries: the United States, Sweden, India and China. His comparison highlights, among other observations, that smartphones are in many respects more important than PC-based internet uses. Social Theory after the Internet focuses on everyday uses and effects of the internet, including information seeking and big data, and explains how the internet has gone beyond traditional media in, for example, enabling Donald Trump and Narendra Modi to come to power. Schroeder puts forward a sophisticated theory of the role of the internet, and how both technological and social forces shape its significance. He provides a sweeping and penetrating study, theoretically ambitious and at the same time always empirically grounded.The book will be of great interest to students and scholars of digital media and society, the internet and politics, and the social implications of big data.
Author: Juan Francisco Salazar
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1350109584
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 256
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Book Description
This book presents a novel and systematic social theory of soil, and is representative of the rising interest in 'the material' in social sciences. Bringing together new modes of 'critical description' with speculative practices and methods of inquiry, it contributes to the exploration of current transformations in socioecologies, as well as in political and artistic practices, in order to address global ecological change. The chapters in this edited volume challenge scholars to attend more carefully to the ways in which they think about soil, both materially and theoretically. Contributors address a range of topics, including new ways of thinking about the politics of caring for soils; the ecological and symbiotic relations between soils; how the productive capacities and contested governance of soils are deployed as matters of political concern; and indigenous ways of knowing and being with soil.
Author: Craig Calhoun
Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell
ISBN: 9781557864734
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 364
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Book Description
New social movements of the post-war era have brought to prominence the idea that identity can be a crucial focus for political struggle. Linked to an increasing recognition that social theory itself must put the politics of identity on center stage, this volume impels social theorists not only to make sense of the "world out there", but also to make sense of differences within the discourse of theory.
Author: Anthony Giddens
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317650646
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 419
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Book Description
The studies which comprise this book are essentially organized around a critical encounter with European social theory in its 'classical period' – i.e. from the middle years of the nineteenth century until the First World War – and have the aim of working out some of the implications of that encounter for the position and prospects of the social sciences today. The issues involved relate to the following series of problems: method and epistemology; social development and transformation; the origins of 'sociology' in nineteenth-century social theory; and the status of social science as critique. In each of these areas, Giddens develops views that challenge existing orthodoxies, and connects these ideas to a reconstruction of social theory in the contemporary era.
Author: Wolfgang J. Mommsen
Publisher: Polity
ISBN: 9780745611327
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 250
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Book Description
Wolfgang J. Mommsen is one of the foremost Weberian scholars writing today. In this volume, a sequel to his monumental study Max Weber and German Politics , he provides succinct and incisive statements on current developments in the analysis of Weber's work. The book concentrates upon Weber's engagement with political issues and their influence over his more theoretical concepts. Mommsen offers a critical analysis of Weber's notion of democracy and provides a thorough assessment of Weber's views of socialism against the backcloth of German Social Democracy.
