While the critique of neoliberalism, as the form of contemporary capitalism, has been advanced from Marxian and Foucauldian perspectives, it has had limited attention from the perspective of Critical Theory. Largely unrecognized is the suitability of the theory of reification for this critique, specifically, Habermas’s version. This article reconsiders Habermas’s colonization thesis as the basis for a critical theory of neoliberalism, refining its theoretical framework to deepen its critical diagnosis. Against the dismissal of the system–lifeworld concept, a novel critique is (...) advanced to suggest its original elaboration fell confusedly between two versions of social systems theory. Drawing from late developments, the scheme is reinterpreted as distinguishing two forms of communication in capitalist society: delinguistified and linguistic. This opens the way to reframe and communicatively transform colonization as relinguistification; that is, the translation of monetary coding into ordinary language such that communicative action is distorted from within by reifying concepts. (shrink)

This article argues that understanding the dangers and risks of authoritarian populism in consolidated constitutional democracies requires analysis of the forms of pluralism and status anxieties that emerge in civil and economic society, in a context of profound political, socioeconomic, and cultural change. This paper has two basic theses. The first is that when societies become deeply divided, and segmental pluralism maps onto affective party political polarization, generalized social solidarity is imperiled, as is commitment to democratic norms, social justice, and (...) liberal democratic constitutionalism. The second, is that populist political entrepreneurs excel in fomenting social antagonisms by framing shifts in the forms of social pluralism in ways that foster deep political polarization, generalized distrust and a politics of resentment against “elites,” “the establishment,” “the oligarchy,” and “outsiders.” Why populist offers resonate requires a social theoretical analysis of status/solidarity and class issues and a direct response to them. I draw on Polanyi and Habermas to develop an explanatory approach to the current crisis and the populist responses it triggers. I navigate between two inadequate approaches: that of the Hofstadter consensus school which construes status concerns and populism as retrograde, anti-modern, paranoid and meriting no direct response; and that of the neo-Marxist tradition that acknowledges the mobilizing power of “cultural factors” and status anxieties but deems them to be epiphenomena of the deeper story of economic distributive injustice. I reject this assessment and seek to take up the status/solidarity issues in ways that take them seriously, challenge populist framing and provide alternative direct responses to them. I reject the narrative frames of left populists who foment polarization and I try to present an alternative narrative framing for a future democratic politics that draws on the best in politically liberal, constitutionalist, democratic, and socialist traditions. (shrink)

The main aim of this article is to offer a sociological concept of crisis that, defined as the expected yet non-lineal outcome of the internal dynamics of modern societies, builds on the synergies between critical theory and systems theory. It contends that, notwithstanding important differences, both traditions concur in addressing crises as a form of self-reproduction of social systems as much as a form of engagement with the complexities and effects of such processes of reproduction. In order to make our (...) comparison exhaustive, this article explores critical and systems theories’ notions of crisis at three levels: (1) their conceptual delimitation of crises; (2) their methodological proposals to empirically observe crises; and (3) their normative attempts to contribute to their resolution. As crises remain a distinctive structural feature of the social world and a rich source of knowledge about it, reflexivity must be seen as a crucial form of engagement with the negative expressions of social life itself. (shrink)

Although, as a result of the introduction of the Teaching Excellence Framework, the principle of teaching excellence is receiving renewed attention in English higher education, the idea has been left largely undefined. The cynic might argue, in agreement with Bill Readings, that this lack of a precise definition is deliberate, since teaching excellence is not designed to observe teaching but to permit an integrated system of accounting. This article, however, develops a different line of criticism. Following Readings’s characterization of “excellence” (...) as symptomatic of the “Americanization” of higher education, it traces the principle of teaching excellence in English educational discourse back to the influence of debates, led by Ernest Boyer in the US, concerning the teaching-research nexus. Contextualizing these debates in relation to ideas about the learning society influenced by theories of human capital and investment in national productivity, it takes issue with descriptions of recent policy that overemphasize the corporate structure of the university and its vision of the student as consumer at the expense of recognizing the continuation of the nation-state organization of the student as producer. Reconnecting this broader framework back to the teaching-research nexus, the article examines how this intersects with the dominant agenda of research-led teaching excellence, centred on the idea of the productivity of research, and outlines an alternative notion of teaching-led research, developed out of the work of Boyer and Walter Benjamin, within which teaching might continue, in spite of excellence. (shrink)

This article argues that there is a lack of theorizing about sexuality within social policy in what is referred to as the mainstream and more surprisingly within feminist social policy. This is particularly surprising given the presence of sexuality in recent as well as past social policies as well as in social theory. The purpose of this article is not merely to argue that a relationship between sexuality and social policy should be examined but rather to explore and outline the (...) specific nature of the relationship and its implications for both sexuality and the discipline of social policy. Specifically, how do prevalent sexuality discourses inform and constitute social policy and what are the social relations involved in this process? Correspondingly, what role does social policy play in constituting what we know to be the ‘truths’ of sexuality? What exclusions and inclusions result from these dominant social relations and discourses when ‘played’ through social policy? That sexuality has failed to be analytically incorporated within the discipline of social policy is addressed. First, reasons for the lack of theorizing are explored. Specifically, the historical development of the discipline and the formation of an implicit consensus about what constitute the real concerns of welfare. Second, there is an examination of the ways feminist social policy has or has not engaged with sexuality. The final section posits an emergent framework for integrating sexuality into social policy analyses and critiques. (shrink)

Why do so many people remain so passive in the face of today’s massive, looming economic, political, and ecological crises, such as climate change? Despite some notable rhetorical and regulatory examples, attempts to stem climate change have, as a rule, not come to frame the activities of most citizens. The inability to confront the imperative of social transformation today is a complex, manifold problem. At root, it has to do with fundamental systemic features of a global social system that we (...) all contribute to reproducing in our everyday lives. While these features do not preclude political engagement, innovation, and action, they do undermine the bases of movements towards truly systemic transformation. This article focuses on one such feature, reification, as a social-structural foundation of passivity that impedes the social innovations required to tackle the climate crisis. (shrink)

Abstract An analysis of welfare?state restructuring under conservative governments during the 1980s undermines the notion that the nation?state is being rendered obsolete by economic globalization. The nation?state is still the principal site of political conflict. Yet this conflict has to be analyzed in light of global economic and cultural pressures. Conservative attempts to restructure the welfare state were parallel events within a larger transition in the world economy, but they had decisively distinct national trajectories.

This study investigates the socio-historical relationships existing between the development of the agricultural structure and the process of technical development. Adopting a political economy posture, it is argued that the development of technical procedures in agriculture has been aimed historically at the maximization of production and productivity. This phenomenon has been generated by the social hegemony of groups interested in the enhancement of accumulation of capital and has been translated into an emphasis on large productive units, which discriminates against small (...) and medium farms. This pattern of development has been legitimized through a social consensus which involves an emphasis on small family producers. This contradiction is embodied in the generation of a dualistic agricultural structure characterized by the prosperity of large farms, the persistence of small farms and the crisis of medium farms and in patterns of overproduction and unavailability of food for the poor segments of society. (shrink)

It is customarily assumed that welfare-state thinking can only appear as a product of the sharpening conflict between revolutionary socialists and the defenders of the status quo; the case of Tom Paine proves otherwise. Although he defended private enterprise (to the exclusion of large landed property), he developed a forgotten early version of a comprehensive system of public welfare in the second part of his The Rights of Man and in his Agrarian Justice, where he argued that the new revolutionary (...) democratic government based on representation and universal suffrage has the duty and the means not only of relieving poverty but of preventing it by a system of universal allowances for marriage, childbirth, the raising of children, basic education, old age pensions and temporary housing and employment for the unemployed of the metropolis. This, he said, should be financed by a progressive inheritance tax levied especially on landed estates. (shrink)

Can critical research on religion offer both an ideology critique and a critical retrieval of religious import? This article suggests that it can, offering a programmatic sketch for a full-fledged critique of religion—a critique both aimed at religion and inspired by religion in a self-critical fashion. The sketch weds elements of a robustly normative critique of Western society with insights derived from the Frankfurt School. First the article maps three societal macrostructures that organize much of contemporary social life—civil society, proprietary (...) economy, and administrative state. Then it discusses solidarity, resourcefulness, and justice as societal principles that can sustain a critique of societal macrostructures. Next it identifies normative deficiencies within and between these macrostructures. On the basis of this architectonic critique, the article then provides an account of religion in its critical and utopian roles. It concludes by envisioning a normative and emancipatory transformation of society as a whole. (shrink)

The issue of care work has become a burning issue in western capitalist welfare states because of the greater proportion of women in the workforce and the growth of alternative forms of family arrangement outside of the traditional male breadwinner model. This article addresses equity and welfare states with respect to social entitlements around care. It asks how new theoretical concepts can be applied to understand welfare states and their evolving employment-related family policies, using Nancy Fraser's utopian universal caregiver approach (...) as a model for evaluation. It focuses on carers and evaluates how a modern citizen is expected to be financially self-sufficient and yet also perform care duties at home. The term 'carer-commodification' captures the extent to which the state expects carers to engage in the labour market and how non-carer earners are engaged in care duties. The term 'carer-stratification' incorporates the extent to which the state creates differences between carers. Policies from selective welfare states (Sweden, Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom and the United States) are evaluated speculatively with these tools, and how they fare with equitable social entitlements is illustrated. (shrink)

The critical theory of the Frankfurt School starts with an explanatory-diagnostic analysis of the social pathologies of the present followed by anticipatory-utopian reflection on possible treatments for these disorders. This approach draws extensively on parallels to medicine. I argue that the ideas of social pathology and crisis that pervade the methodological writings of the Frankfurt School help to explain critical theory’s contention that the object of critique identifies itself when social institutions cease to function smoothly. However, in reflecting on the (...) role that reason and self-awareness play in the second stage of social criticism, I contend that this model is actually better conceptualized through the lens of the psychoanalyst rather than the physician. Although the first generation’s explicit commitment to psychoanalysis has dissipated in recent critical theory, faith in a rationalized ‘talking cure’ leading to greater self-awareness of existing pathologies remains at the core of the Frankfurt School. (shrink)

The paper deals with the mutual interest of both economic and social theory in exploring a broader concept of the rational and in finding validity claims for rational discourse. Efficiency and effectiveness are discussed as possible validity criteria in evaluating norms in practical discussion. In addition to the problem of defining validity criteria for argumentation on norms and social choices, a major difficulty arises from the lack of a legitimate reflective centre in society which could integrate behaviour with norms and (...) metapreferences. As ways of motivating cooperative, collective action, both norm commitment and self‐interest should be appealed to. (shrink)

When Western Marxist sociologists, such as Jean Buadrillard, constructed their critical theory of consumer society, they took the consumer society as an objective fact and methodologically restricted themselves to the non-historical method of sociology, making them unable to grasp the correct meaning of Karl Marx's historical materialist methodology. Thus, they were unable to adequately critique and transcend consumer society. After spending the early 1850s building a theoretical foundation, Marx pointed out in 1857–1858 Economical Manuscript and 1861–1863 Economical Manuscript that the (...) governing model of capital was so complicated that it made consumption very important to the socio-economic form. Moreover, he explained the way of surpassing the conscious form of fetishism developed in consumer society from the perspective of the development of capitalist production. (shrink)

In this article I discuss how some women activists experience their citizenship locally and around the world through their work for the environment and resistance to systems which threaten world existence. By looking at the oikos-polis distinction in Aristotle as the genesis of environmental pathologies which give rise to newly complementary categories of citizenship and ecofeminism, I consider moral pluralism and agonistic liberalism as non-hierarchical theoretical frameworks for thinking about citizenship.

What is the distinctive trait of the Latin American pattern of modernization? In contrast to western societies, where the debate on modernization has been dominated by the Weberian thematic of bureaucratiz-ation, the most salient feature of the Latin American developmental path is the chronic frailty of legal-constitutional arrangements. In Latin America, the process of modernization and social differentiation has not been followed by the legal stabilization of social complexity but is characterized by a low degree of juridification and institutional precariousness. (...) Drawing on insights from both Luhmann's and Habermas' theories, the article provides a critical theoretical framework for the study of the peculiarities of the Latin American modernizing path. (shrink)

By introducing the theory of social co-governance into the field of e-commerce intellectual property protection, this paper builds an evolutionary game model among the government, e-commerce platforms, and rights holders, and studies the conditions under the stakeholders form a stable equilibrium state under different constraints. Combined with numerical simulation, the influence of individual factors and factor combinations on the system stability is analyzed. Results shows that: Strictly controlling the action costs and response costs of all parties can enhance their willingness (...) to actively deal with infringement issues; reasonable adjustment of the reward and punishment measures of government supervisory agencies can produce sufficient reverse shock and positive guidance to platform and operators; penalties should be imposed on government supervisory agencies that are not sufficiently supervised; strengthen the construction of the social environment for intellectual property protection, improve the social benefits of actively responding to infringement issues, and increase the sense of acquisition by the government, platforms and rights holders. And it provides certain positive references and suggestions for the government to formulate relevant policies. (shrink)

This article explores the implications of the Federal Reserve’s shift to transparency for recent debates about neoliberalism and neoliberal policymaking. I argue that the evolution of US monetary policy represents a specific instance of what I term the “neoliberal dilemma.” In the context of generally deteriorating economic conditions, policymakers are anxious to escape responsibility for economic outcomes, and yet markets require regulation to function in capitalist economies (Polanyi 2001). How policymakers negotiate these contradictory imperatives involves a continual process of institutional (...) innovation in which functions are transferred to markets, but under the close control of the state. Thus, under transparency, Federal Reserve officials discovered innovations in the policy process that enabled “markets to do the Fed’s work for it.” These innovations enlisted market mechanisms, but did not represent a retreat from the state’s active role in managing the economy. (shrink)

Assessments of health care needs are embedded in contracts for health services. Such contracts are the formal link between the identification of health care needs and the purchasing of services to satisfy those needs. They are a central part of the procedural relationship between the British health service (NHS) and the satisfaction of human needs. To evaluate contracts it is necessary to investigate this relationship. A number of headings under which it may be possible to begin to evaluate contracts are (...) described, and the potential of a ‘universalist’ approach to interrogate contract-based decision-making is briefly discussed. (shrink)

This contribution considers the potential of critical realism to illuminate the nature of crises, crisis management, and crisis lessons. After reviewing key aspects of critical realism in general, the analysis notes the challenge of developing critical realism in particular by identifying appropriate entry-points and standpoints for the analysis of specific explananda. It then provides a general critical realist account of the nature of crises in the social world and of learning in, about, and from crisis. A key concept here is (...) symptomatology — the exploration of the contingently necessary relation between actual symptoms and underlying causal mechanisms. This is related in turn to the crucial distinction between scientifically adequate explanations of crisis and conjuncturally ‘correct’ readings of the potential for transformative action in the face of crisis. This has important bearings on the emancipatory contribution of critical realism in the context of a continuing critique of ideology and domination. The article then provides particular critical realist accounts of the abstract possibility of crisis in the capitalist mode of production and its concrete actualization in the complex, overdetermined cases of the North Atlantic Financial Crisis and the Eurozone Crisis. It ends with some general remarks on the potential of crisis as an entry-point into the analysis of the contradictory nature of social structures. (shrink)

This article develops a theory about the narrative foundations of public policy. Politicians draw on specific types of narratives in order to connect the policies they are proposing, the needs of the public, and their own needs for legitimacy. In particular, politicians are drawn to policy narratives in which they themselves occupy the central and heroic character position, and where they are able to protect the scope of their jurisdictional authority. We demonstrate how this works through a historical analysis of (...) congressional debate about the nonprofit sector in the United States. Two competing narratives framed these debates : a selfless charity narrative, in which politicians try to empower heroic charity workers and philanthropists, and then stay out of the way; and a masquerade narrative, in which fake charities are taking advantage of the nonprofit tax exemption, in order to pursue a variety of noncivic and dangerous activities. Members of Congress quickly adopted the masquerade narrative as the dominant framework for discussing the nonprofit sector because it provided a more powerful and flexible rhetoric for reproducing their political legitimacy. By developing innovative elaborations of the masquerade narrative, while remaining faithful to its underlying narrative format, politicians were able to increase the persuasive impact of their legislative agendas. We argue that the narrative aspects of political debate are a central component of the policy-making process because they link cultural and political interests in a way that involves the mastery of cultural structure as well as the creativity of cultural performance. (shrink)

Over the recent decades, the concept of resilience has spread from environmental science to a number of disciplines dealing with crisis and disaster management. From psychology, public health, and human resource management to development and security studies, resilience is replacing an earlier focus on resistance and adaptability within these fields. There exist several studies dealing with resilience discourse as a key to a diagnostic of the present. While some hail resilience as a new register of ecological resistance for social movements, (...) other decries resilience as a discourse legitimating the neoliberal state’s abandonment of the poor to catastrophe. This article proposes a framework for reading together these highly diverging interpretations of resilience through a historicising of the concept of resilience, tracing its rise genealogically in relation to the concepts of resistance and adaptability. Through readings of authors such as Thomas Hobbes, Carl von Clausewitz, Herbert Spencer, and C.J. Holling, the article shows how these concepts were imported from scientific materialism into pragmatic and normative discourses of defence of life against shifting threats to individual and social life. The article shows how the shifting importance of the concepts of resistance, adaptability and resilience must be related to changing social-ecological problems and the forms of contestation and governance that respond to them. (shrink)

At the center of contemporary discourse on technology — or the digital discourse — is the assertion that network technology ushers in a new phase of capitalism which is more democratic, participatory, and de-alienating for individuals. Rather than viewing this discourse as a transparent description of the new realities of techno-capitalism and judging its claims as true (as the hegemonic view sees it) or false (a view expressed by few critical voices), this article offers a new framework which sees the (...) digital discourse as signaling a historical shift in the technological legitimation of capitalism, concurrent with the emergence of the post-Fordist phase of capitalism. Technology discourse legitimated the Fordist phase of capitalism by stressing the ability of technology and technique to mitigate exploitation. It hence legitimated the interventionist welfare state, the central planning in businesses and the economy, the hierarchized corporation, and the tenured worker. In contrast, contemporary technology discourse legitimates the post-Fordist phase of capitalism by stressing the ability of technology to mitigate alienation. It hence legitimates the withdrawal of the state from markets, the dehierarchization and decentralization of businesses, and the flexibilization of production and the labor process. (shrink)

In this work I analyze the theories of Carl Schmitt and Hans Kelsen of democracy in the light of the weberian topic of rationalization. My thesis is that this counterpoint does not escape the contemporary split that characterizes the nineteenth century modernity and continues in the twentieth century. At last, I’ll maintain that the political manifestation of this aporetical background –over which one must understand the challenge of democracy– is what Schmitt calls the total State.

Since the global financial meltdown in 2008, moralizing stereo- types of white working-class citizens have proliferated across the United States, the United Kingdom, Australasia, and Europe. Both conservatives and liberals use concepts such as the Appa- lachian hillbilly, the council estate-dwelling chav, and the outer- suburban bogan to allege white working-class citizens’ failure to adapt to the demands of the globalizing political economy. As recent commentators on the Appalachia “problem” note, such moralizing obscures more than it explains, and does so (...) in the service of economic privilege and political power. Comparative examination of the actors and actions behind the erosion of citizenship as a political category in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia helps to link contemporary moralizing about the white working class to reaction against the democratic excess that working-class movements directly and indirectly provoked in the mid-twentieth century. Today in Appalachia and beyond, conservative and liberal moralizing about the white working-class “problem” undermines democrats’ capacity to recognize and respond to these efforts to displace citizenship as a political category with the moral category of the individual. (shrink)

Esta es la versión escrita de una entrevista realizada a Eugenio Bulygin, profesor emérito de Filosofía del Derecho (UBA), con respecto a quien toda presentación podría resultar o bien imcompleta o bien superflua. -/- Nuestra intención al realizar esta entrevista fue indagar acerca de las respuestas que dieron a esos interrogantes las personas que, en ese momento, ocuparon posiciones de toma de decisión en la Facultad de Derecho de la UBA. La elección del entrevistado, Eugenio Bulygin, no podría haber sido (...) mejor. No solo por su lucidez y por haber ocupado un puesto de suma importancia en la transición democrática, el de Decano Normalizador, sino porque, además, ha estado siempre, antes y después de la transición, estrechamente vinculado a la Facultad, de modo que provee un testimonio invaluable de sus transformaciones a lo largo de la segunda mitad del S. XX. (shrink)

This book argues that the current renegotiation of the postwar social contract concerning the welfare state in Europe is being accompanied by the renegotiation of a smaller-scale modern social pact between the university and the nation-state. Current transformations to the state under the pressures of globalization will not leave the university unaffected, and consequently it is useful to discuss the university and its future in the context of the state. In the new global order, against the odds, universities are striving (...) to maintain their pivotal role in society. Their role as engines of economic growth and contributors to economic competitiveness between increasingly knowledge-driven economies is being widely acknowledged. But it is a radical reformulation of their traditional social roles. The main reasons for current transformations of the university include globalization pressures on nation-states and their public services, the end of the «Golden age» of the Keynesian welfare state, and the emergence of knowledge-based societies and knowledge-driven economies. Therefore the university can no longer be discussed solely in traditional, relatively self-contained disciplinary contexts. Here the university is seen from a variety of perspectives and through the lens of a wide range of disciplines. Contents Contents: The University in a Global Age - The University Between the State and the Market - The Idea of the University Revisited - The University and the Nation-State: the Impact of Global Pressures - The University and the Welfare State - Globalization, the Welfare State, and the Future of Democracy - The University and the New European Educational and Research Policies. (shrink)