Contemporary articles citing Giddens A (1990) Consequences Moderni

globalization, global, order, cultural, logic, forms, state, approach, making, concept

Depelteau, Francois. 2008. "Relational Thinking: a Critique of Co-deterministic Theories of Structure and Agency." Sociological Theory. 26:1 51-73. Link
This article presents a relational criticism of the ``morphogenetic theory'' of M. Archer. This theory is founded and representative of the most influential mode of perception of the social universe of the last few decades: co-determinism (structure <-> agency). Co-determinism's influence can be explained by its integration of modern general presuppositions like freedom, individualism, and the quest for a new social order. By identifying five basic principles of relational sociology, we see that Archer's co-deterministic theory offers a complicated solution to avoid voluntarism and co-determinism, limits the potential of sociological imagination, cannot adequately see the fluidity of social processes, produces a certain reification of social structures and agency, and is based on an inconsistent use of egocentric and relational perspectives. These problems can be avoided if we use a relational approach (actor <-> actor double right arrow structures) based on the study of complex and empirical trans-actions.

Connell, Raewyn. 2007. "The Northern Theory of Globalization." Sociological Theory. 25:4 368-385. Link
Recent sociological theories of globalization represent a second encounter between sociology and global issues. Their underlying concept of ``global society'' was constructed from an idea of abstract linkage, given content by existing theories about metropolitan society emphasizing modernity, postmodernity, or system dynamics. Antinomies within the globalization theory, such as the global/local opposition and chaotic argument about power, arise from the metropole-centered logic itself, not from conflicts of evidence. The rhetoric and performativity of globalization theory construct a relation with metropolitan audiences, and sociological theories constitute themselves in multiple ways as Northern theory. If we want a genuinely global analysis of globalization we must reconstruct sociological theory as a markedly more inclusive dialogue.

Gross, N. 2005. "The Detraditionalization of Intimacy Reconsidered." Sociological Theory. 23:3 286-311. Link
This essay challenges those strains of cot? temporary social theory that regard romantic/sexual intimacy as a premier site of detraditionalization in the late modern era. Striking changes have occurred in intimacy and family life over the last half-century, but the notion of detraditionalization as currently formulated does not capture them very well. With the goal of achieving a more refined understanding, the article proposes a distinction between ``regulative'' and ``ineaning-constitutive'' traditions. The former involve threats of exclusion from various moral communities; the latter involve linguistic and cultural frameworks within which sense is made of the world. Focusing on the U.S. case and marshaling various kinds of empirical evidence, the article argues that while the regulative tradition of what it terms lifelong, internally stratified marriage has declined in strength in recent years, the image of the form of couplehood inscribed in this regulative tradition continues to function as a hegemonic ideal in many American intimate relationships. Intimacy in the United States also remains beholden to the tradition of romantic love. That these meaning-constitutive traditions continue to play a central role in structuring contemporary intimacy suggests that detraditionalization involves the relative decline only of certain regulative traditions, a point that calls into question some of the normative assessments that often accompany the detraditionalization thesis.

Shamir, R. 2005. "Without Borders? Notes on Globalization as a Mobility Regime." Sociological Theory. 23:2 197-217. Link
While globalization is largely theorized in terms of trans-border flows, this article suggests an exploratory sociological framework for analyzing globalization as consisting of systemic processes of closure and containment. The suggested framework points at the emergence of a global mobility regime that actively seeks to contain social movement both within and across borders. The mobility regime is theorized as premised upon a pervasive ``paradigm of suspicion'' that conflates the perceived threats of crime, immigration, and terrorism, thus constituting a conceptual blueprint for the organization of global risk-management strategies. The article draws on multiple examples, singling out some elementary forms of the mobility regime, emphasizing the sociological affinity between guarded borders on the one hand and gated communities on the other. In particular, the article aims at theorizing the translation of the paradigm of suspicion into actual technologies of social screening designed to police the mobility of those social elements that are deemed to belong to suspect social categories. Specifically, the article points at biosocial profiling as an increasingly dominant technology of intervention. Biosocial profiling, in turn, is theorized in juxtaposition to other modalities of power, namely, legal and disciplinary measures.

Beland, D. 2005. "Insecurity, Citizenship, and Globalization: the Multiple Faces of State Protection." Sociological Theory. 23:1 25-41. Link
Adopting a long-term historical perspective, this article examines the growing complexity and the internal tensions of state protection in Western Europe and North America. Beginning with Charles Tilly's theory about state building and organized crime, the discussion follows with a critical analysis of T. H. Marshall's article on citizenship. Arguing that state protection has become far more multifaceted than what Marshall's triadic model suggests, the article shows how this protection frequently transcends the logic of individual rights while increasing the reliance of citizens on the modern state. The last section formulates a critique of the idea formulated by theorists like Manuel Castells that globalization favors a rapid decline of state power. Yet, state protection may not necessarily grow indefinitely, and tax cuts, for example, the ones recently enacted in the United States, could seriously jeopardize a state's capacity to raise revenues and effectively fight older and newer forms of insecurity.

Mirchandani, R. 2005. "Postmodernism and Sociology: From the Epistemological to the Empirical." Sociological Theory. 23:1 86-115. Link
This article investigates the place of postmodernism in sociology today by making a distinction between its epistemological and empirical forms. During the 1980s and early 1990s, sociologists exposited, appropriated, and normalized an epistemological postmodernism that thematizes the tentative, reflective, and possibly shifting nature of knowledge. More recently, however, sociologists have recognized the potential of a postmodern theory that turns its attention to empirical concerns. Empirical postmodernists challenge classical modern concepts to develop research programs based on new concepts like time-space reorganization, risk society, consumer capitalism, and postmodern ethics. But they do so with an appreciation for the uncertainty of the social world, ourselves, our concepts, and our commitment to our concepts that results from the encounter with postmodern epistemology. Ultimately, this article suggests that understanding postmodernism as a combination of these two moments can lead to a sociology whose epistemological modesty and empirical sensitivity encourage a deeper and broader approach to the contemporary social world.

Kellner, D. 2002. "Theorizing Globalization." Sociological Theory. 20:3 285-305. Link
I sketch aspects of a critical theory of globalization that-will discuss the fundamental transformations in the world economy, politics, and culture in a dialectical framework that distinguishes between progressive and emancipatory features and oppressilie and negative attributes. This requires articulations of the contradictions and ambiguities of globalization and the ways that globalization both is imposed from above and yet can be, contested and reconfigured from below. I argue that the key to understanding globalization is theorizing it as at once a product of technological revolution and the global restructuring of capitalism in which economic, technological, political, and cultural features are intertwined. From this perspective, one should avoid both technological and economic determinism and all one-sided optics of globalization in favor of a view that theorizes globalization as a highly complex, contradictory, and thus ambiguous set of institutions and social relations, as well as one involving flows of goods, services, ideas, technologies, cultural forms, and people.

Goldberg, CA. 2001. "Welfare Recipients or Workers? Contesting the Workfare State in New York City." Sociological Theory. 19:2 187-218. Link
This paper addresses how New York City's workfare program has structural opportunities for collective action by welfare recipients. As workfare blurs the distinction between wage workers and welfare recipients, it calls into question accepted understandings of the rights and obligations of welfare recipients and fosters new claims on the state. The concept of ``cultural opportunity structures'' can help to explain the political mobilization of workfare participants if it is linked to a Durkheimian tradition of cultural analysis attentive to symbolic classification. The dramaturgic approach to culture exemplified in the work of Erving Goffman can usefully complement this structural approach if a narrow focus on frames and framing process is broadened to include interaction rituals and ceremonial profanation.

Vandenberghe, F. 1999. "``the Real Is Relational'': an Epistemological Analysis of Pierre Bourdieu's Generative Structuralism." Sociological Theory. 17:1 32-67. Link
An internal reconstruction and an immanent critique of Bourdieu's generative structuralism is presented. Rather than starting with the concept of ``habitus,'' as is usually done, the article tries to systematically reconstruct Bourdieu's theory by an analysis of the relational logic that permeates his whole work. Tracing the debt Bourdieu's approach owes to Bachelard's rationalism and Cassirer's relationalism, the article examines Bourdieu's epistemological writings of the 1960s and 70s. It tries to make the case that Bourdieu's sociological metascience represents a rationalist version of Bhaskar's critical realism, and enjoins Bourdieu to give heed to the realist turn in the philosophy of the natural and the social sciences. The article shows how Bourdieu's epistemological assumptions are reflected in his primary theoretical constructs of ``habitus `` and ``field.'' To concretize their discussion, it analyzes Bourdieu's reinterpretation of Weber in his theory of the field of religion and of the young Mannheim in his theory of the scientific field.

Delanty, G. 1997. "Habermas and Occidental Rationalism: the Politics of Identity, Social Learning, and the Cultural Limits of Moral Universalism." Sociological Theory. 15:1 30-59. Link
While Habermas's theory of communicative action is deeply critical of all kinds of ethnocentrism, proposing a discursive concept of universal morality which transcends culture, a residual Eurocentrism still pervades it. habermas's theory rests on a notion of modernity which is tied to Occidental rationalism, and when viewed in the global context or in the context of deeply divided societies it is problematic. The theory fails to grasp that universal morality can be articulated in more than one cultural form and in more than one logic of development. However, his theory can be defended against its Eurocentric bias if it shifts its emphasis from a de-contexualized and transcendental critique of communication rooted in Occidental rationalism to a cosmopolitan model of contemporary cultural transformation. Crucial to that task is a weaker notion of rationality which recognizes that the problem of universality is also a cognitive cultural problem and not just a normative one. Bringing culture and identity to the foreground will involve making room for a level of discourse focused less on consensual agreement than on cultural understanding.

Jacobs, RN & P Smith. 1997. "Romance, Irony, and Solidarity." Sociological Theory. 15:1 60-80. Link
Contemporary social theory has turned increasingly to concepts such as civil society, community, and the public sphere in order to theorize about the construction of vital, democratic, and solidaristic political cultures. The dominant prescriptions for attaining this end invoke the need for institutional and procedural reform, but overlook the autonomous role of culture in shaping and defining the forms of social solidarity. This article proposes a model of solidarity based on the two genres of Romance and Irony, and argues that these narrative forms offer useful vocabularies for organizing public discourse within and between civil society and its constituent communities. Whilst unable to sustain fully-inclusive and solidaristic political cultures on their own, in combination the genres of Romance and Irony allow for solidaristic forms built around tolerance, reflexivity, and intersubjectivity.

GREGG, B. 1994. "Possibility of Social Critique in an Indeterminate World." Theory and Society. 23:3 327-366. Link

Brenner, N. 1999. "Beyond State-centrism? Space, Territoriality, and Geographical Scale in Globalization Studies." Theory and Society. 28:1 39-78. Link

Robinson, WI. 2001. "Social Theory and Globalization: the Rise of a Transnational State." Theory and Society. 30:2 157-200. Link

Chabot, S & JW Duyvendak. 2002. "Globalization and Transnational Diffusion Between Social Movements: Reconceptualizing the Dissemination of the Gandhian Repertoire and the ``coming Out'' Routine." Theory and Society. 31:6 697-740. Link

Widick, R. 2003. "Flesh and the Free Market: (on Taking Bourdieu to the Options Exchange)." Theory and Society. 32:5-6 679-723. Link
On the options trading floor at the Pacific Exchange in San Francisco, traders spend their days ``making markets'' in option contracts, a mentally and bodily intense practice that requires the acquisition of a series of embodied knowledges specific to the occupation. In this article, I report on field research conducted at the exchange, during which I explored the cultural turn of practice theory to the body. Taking direction from Pierre Bourdieu's changing descriptions of habitus, field, and practical action, I argue that the logic of trading does proceed to some extent beneath the level of reflexive application of the rules of the game; but my encounter with traders' talk, their cultural production, and their gendered performance led my interpretation of this unconscious dimension beyond the limits of cognitivist metaphors for knowledgeable bodies toward an identificatory logic of practice. Whereas Bourdieu stopped short of taking practice theory all the way in to psychoanalysis, I found the imaginary order it brings into the picture decisive in shaping the experience of trading.

Connell, Raewyn. 2006. "Northern Theory: the Political Geography of General Social Theory." Theory and Society. 35:2 237-264. Link

Wang, Junmin. 2009. "Global-market Building as State Building: China's Entry Into the Wto and Market Reforms of China's Tobacco Industry." Theory and Society. 38:2 165-194. Link
This article analyzes how China's increasing engagement in the global market induced significant institution-building in China's tobacco industry and enabled a power shift from the local authorities to the central authority in controlling this market. During this process of ``getting onto the international track,'' the central government reorganized the industrial tobacco systemand broke up the ``monopolies'' set up by local governments in order to enhance the competitive capacities of China's tobacco industry in the global market. Given such a concrete institutional change in China's tobacco industry, I propose the theory of `` global-market building as state building'' to explain the interactions among the global market, the nation-states, and the domestic market-building projects. I suggest that nation-states strategically seek to engage themselves in the global market and that, under certain circumstances by taking advantage of their global market engagement, the nation-states can enhance their abilities to govern the domestic market.

Bandelj, Nina. 2009. "Emotions in Economic Action and Interaction." Theory and Society. 38:4 347-366. Link
How do emotions influence economic action? Current literature recognizes the importance of emotions for economy because they either help individuals perform economic roles through emotion management or enhancement of emotional intelligence, or because they aid rationality through their influence on preference formation. All these strands of research investigate the link between emotions and economy from an atomistic/individualistic perspective. I argue for a different approach, one that adopts a relational perspective, focuses on emotional embeddedness and examines how emotions matter in economic interactions. Emotional embeddedness research starts with a premise that emotions result from and are influenced by interactions between economic actors during the economic process where emotional currents and their visceral and physical manifestations come to the fore. This increases the uncertainty in economic transactions and complicates the given means-ends logic of rational economic decision making, yielding economic action principles different from utility maximization. I propose two types of such creative economic action in this paper: improvisation and situational adaptation. Improvisation characterizes situations where ends (goals) and means are unclear at the beginning of a transaction process and get articulated as a consequence of emotional embeddedness experienced during a process. Situational adaptation characterizes situations in which means or ends of action change because of interaction-induced emotions that prompt actors to choose new means/ends. The article concludes with a call for empirical research that explicates further the influence of emotions not merely for rational economic action but also creative economic interactions.

Barbalet, Jack. 2009. "A Characterization of Trust, and Its Consequences." Theory and Society. 38:4 367-382. Link
Trust is understood in terms of a) acceptance of dependency in b) the absence of information about the other's reliability in order to c) create an outcome otherwise unavailable. The first of these is the cost of trust; the second, the situation of uncertainty it faces and may overcome; the third, its purchase. This account permits: distinction between trust and similar relations with which it is frequently confused; discovery of the basis of trust in the emotional apprehension of confidence; and demonstration of the relationship between trust and both social capital and rationality, with counter-intuitive results.

Lakoff, Andrew & Eric Klinenberg. 2010. "Of Risk and Pork: Urban Security and the Politics of Objectivity." Theory and Society. 39:5 503-525. Link
This article focuses on the Urban Area Security Initiative (UASI) controversy as a case study in the politics of risk assessment. It examines struggles among diverse actors-think tank experts, journalists, politicians, and government officials-engaged in the contentious process of establishing a legitimate definition of risk. In the field of homeland security, the means of conducting rational risk assessment have not yet been settled, and entrepreneurial officials from urban and regional governments use different techniques to identify local risks and vulnerabilities. In this contentious process, federal bureaucrats are responsible for determining how to allocate resources fairly and rationally to different cities and metropolitan regions, given that local officials have clear incentives to request funds and little cause to refrain. Although ``rationality'' is supposed to replace ``politics'' in making bureaucratic decisions over the allocation of resources, what we find instead is a political struggle over how to define, measure, and manage risk. For political actors, victory in debates over urban security comes from codifying one's interests within the technical practice of risk assessment.

Guzik, Keith. 2013. "Security a La Mexicana: on the Particularities of Security Governance in M,xico's War on Crime." Theory and Society. 42:2 161-187. Link
Social scientists from different fields have identified security as a future-oriented mode of governance designed to preserve the social order from diverse types of global risk through international cooperation, militarization and privatization of the state security apparatus, surveillance technologies, community policing, and stigmatization of identities and behaviors deemed dangerous. This literature has largely been limited to English-speaking countries in the Global North, however, that are relatively ``secure.''. To understand how security operates in a different context, this article focuses on the current War on Crime in M,xico using newspaper and magazine articles, government documents, and extant academic research. In M,xico, it is argued, the basic elements of security governance (international cooperation, militarized police, surveillance technologies, law, etc.) are present, but in modified form. Rather than focusing on external risks that could develop into future threats, security in M,xico is turned inward against traditional forms of national economic, political, and cultural life thought to produce harm in the present. This, in turn, underscores security's unique purpose in the country, which is not to preserve the prevailing social order, but to transform an emergent social order that through globalization has come to threaten the state's legitimacy. These observations suggest an international divide in the operation of security that leaves those most vulnerable in the Global South to bear the greatest costs.