By examining the changing political economy in China through detailed studies of the peasantry, workers, middle classes, and the dominant class, this volume reveals the Communist Party of China's (CCP's) impact on social change in China between 1978 and 2021. This book explores in depth the CCP's programme of reform and openness that had a dramatic impact on China's socio-economic trajectory following the death of Mao Zedong and the end of the Cultural Revolution. It also goes on to chart the acceptance of Market Socialism, highlighting the resulting emergence of a larger middle class, while also appreciating the profound consequences this created for workers and peasants. Additionally, this volume examines the development of the dominant class which remains a defining feature of China's political economy and the Party-state. Providing an in-depth analysis of class as understood by the CCP in conjunction with sociological interpretations of socio-economic and socio-political change, this study will be of interest to students and scholars of Chinese Politics, Chinese History, Asian Politics, and Asian studies.

By examining the changing political economy in China through detailed studies of the peasantry, workers, middle classes, and the dominant class, this volume reveals the Communist Party of China's (CCP's) impact on social change in China between 1978 and 2021. This book explores in depth the CCP's programme of reform and openness that had a dramatic impact on China's socio-economic trajectory following the death of Mao Zedong and the end of the Cultural Revolution. It also goes on to chart the acceptance of Market Socialism, highlighting the resulting emergence of a larger middle class, while also appreciating the profound consequences this created for workers and peasants. Additionally, this volume examines the development of the dominant class which remains a defining feature of China's political economy and the Party-state. Providing an in-depth analysis of class as understood by the CCP in conjunction with sociological interpretations of socio-economic and socio-political change, this study will be of interest to students and scholars of Chinese Politics, Chinese History, Asian Politics, and Asian studies.

This sequel to Randall Collins' world-influential micro-sociology of violence introduces the question of time-dynamics: what determines how long conflict lasts and how much damage it does. Inequality and hostility are not enough to explain when and where violence breaks out. Time-dynamics are the time-bubbles when people are most nationalistic; the hours after a protest starts when violence is most likely to happen. Ranging from the three months of nationalism and hysteria after 9/11 to the assault on the Capitol in 2021, Randall Collins shows what makes some protests more violent than others and why some revolutions are swift and non-violent tipping-points while others devolve into lengthy civil wars. Winning or losing are emotional processes, continuing in the era of computerized war, while high-tech spawns terrorist tactics of hiding in the civilian population and using cheap features of the Internet as substitutes for military organization. Nevertheless, Explosive Conflict offers some optimistic discoveries on clues to mass rampages and heading off police atrocities, with practical lessons from time-dynamics of violence.

Over the past decade, effective prevention and treatment policies have resulted in global health organizations claiming that the end of the HIV/AIDS crisis is near and that HIV/AIDS is now a chronic but manageable disease. These proclamations have been accompanied by stagnant or decreasing public interest in and financial support for people living with HIV and the organizations that support them, minimizing significant global disparities in the management and control of the HIV pandemic. The contributors to this edited collection explore how diverse communities of people living with HIV (PLHIV) navigate physical, social, political, and economic challenges during these so-called "post-crisis" times.

In the wake of an unparalleled housing crisis at the end of the Second World War, Glasgow Corporation rehoused the tens of thousands of private tenants who were living in overcrowded and unsanitary conditions in unimproved Victorian slums. Adopting the designs, the materials and the technologies of modernity they built into the sky, developing high-rise estates on vacant sites within the city and on its periphery. This book uniquely focuses on the people's experience of this modern approach to housing, drawing on oral histories and archival materials to reflect on the long-term narrative and significance of high-rise homes in the cityscape. It positions them as places of identity formation, intimacy and well-being. With discussions on interior design and consumption, gender roles, children, the elderly, privacy, isolation, social networks and nuisance, Glasgow examines the connections between architectural design, planning decisions and housing experience to offer some timely and prescient observations on the success and failure of this very modern housing solution at a moment when high flats are simultaneously denigrated in the social housing sector while being built afresh in the private sector. Glasgow is aimed at an academic readership, including postgraduate students, scholars and researchers. It will be of interest to social, cultural and urban historians particularly interested in the United Kingdom.

This first volume of The Class Structure of Capitalist Societies offers a bold and wide-ranging assessment of the shape and effects of class systems across a diverse range of capitalist nations. Plumbing a trove of data and deploying cutting-edge techniques, it carefully maps the distribution of the key sources of power and documents the major convergences and divergences between market societies old and new. Establishing that the multidimensional vision of class proposed decades ago by Pierre Bourdieu appears to hold good throughout Europe, parts of the wider Western world and Eastern Asia, the book goes on to examine a number of significant themes: the relationship between class and occupation; the intersection of class with gender, religion, geography and age; the correspondences between social position and political attitudes; self-positioning in the class structure; and the extent of belief in meritocracy. For all the striking cross-national commonalities, however, the book unearths consistent variations seemingly linked to distinct politico-economic regimes. This title will appeal to scholars and advanced undergraduate and postgraduate students interested in sociology, politics and demography, and is essential reading for all those interested in social class across the globe. Chapter 3 of this book is available for free in PDF format as Open Access from the individual product page at www.routledge.com. It has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license

Using a gender-sensitive political economy approach, this book analyzes the emergence of new migration patterns between Central Mexico and the East Coast of the United States in the last decades of the twentieth century, and return migration during and after the global economic crisis of 2007. Based on ethnographic research carried out over a decade, details of the lives of women and men from two rural communities reveal how neoliberal economic restructuring led to the deterioration of livelihoods starting in the 1980s. Similar restructuring processes in the United States opened up opportunities for Mexican workers to labor in US industries that relied heavily on undocumented workers to sustain their profits and grow. When the Great Recession hit, in the context of increasingly restrictive immigration policies, some immigrants were more likely to return to Mexico than others. This longitudinal study demonstrates how the interconnections among class and gender are key to understanding who stayed and who returned to Mexico during and after the global economic crisis. Through these case studies, the authors comment more widely on how neoliberalism has affected the livelihoods and aspirations of the working classes. This book will be of key interest to scholars, students and practitioners in migration studies, gender studies/politics, and more broadly to international relations, anthropology, development studies, and human geography.

This book addresses what is perhaps the most salient issue in American politics today: the decline of the middle class. It is this single issue that drove the outlier presidential candidates Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump to national prominence, and undergirded the electoral victory of Donald Trump. While there are other longer studies exploring in detail the structural forces, most prominently the loss of manufacturing in the US, that have caused the contraction of the middle class, none offer in shorter form practical policy solutions directly geared towards practitioners in government and the private sector. This work focuses specifically on combining both an academic analysis of the subject combined with detailed policy recommendations. These recommendations are designed to be implemented; they take into account the latest set of real world political variables such as actual current legislative and institutional agendas currently in play on the federal and local levels.

Originally published in England in 1959, this book evolves a new theory of conflict in industrial society. By way of illustrating and testing this theory, the book provides detailed analyses of various social phenomena. The author carries out a full critique of Marx in the light of history and modern sociology and discusses the theories of class-conflict of James Burnham, Fritz Croner and Karl Renner.

Originally published in 1968, these ten essays by one of Europe's leading sociological theorists deal with important issues on the borderline between sociology and social philosophy and demonstrate the author's deep insight into history and political analysis. The author maintains that the structures of power in which the political process takes place not only originate change and give it direction, but also produce the fertile conflicts that give expression to the fundamental uncertainty of human existence. Through an examination of various concepts inherent in this dynamic process - power, resistance, conflict, change, freedom, uncertainty - a coherent theory of society emerges.

First published in English as part of the Essays in the Theory of Society, this volume reissues the stand-alone Homo Sociologicus for which the author wrote a new introduction when it was originally published in 1973. The controversial book deals with the history, significance and limits of the category of social role and discusses the dilemma posed by homo sociologicus. The author shows that for society and sociology, socialization invariably means depersonalization, the yielding up of man's absolute individuality and liberty to the constraint and generality of social roles. This volume includes the essay, Sociology and Human Nature, written as a postscript to Homo Sociologicus.

Originally published in 1975, Ralf Dahrendorf's Reith Lectures were an important contribution to public debate, exploring as they do the theme of the new liberty and being concerned to refashion liberalism to cope with the problems and tension of contemporary societies. The analysis covers endemic economic problems, such as growth, inflation and development, the complex nature of organizations, and the problems of political representation.

Marx expected the working class to create 'a movement of immense majority, in the interests of immense majority'. However, there is not and never has been such a movement. At least a part of the reason is that the traditional Marxist picture of a two-class polarisation bears little resemblance to the diverse and complex society of today's Western world. In this book, Michal Polak attempts to move beyond the austerity of the two-class model to come closer to the empirical realities. In the process, the author re-examines the very foundations of the Marxist theory, demonstrating how an important critique of the theory can in fact be fruitfully interpreted as a generalisation of it. While remaining true to the Marxian spirit, he comes up with original and innovative extensions of the traditional concepts, which finally allow for the explanation of the diverse class map of the advance capitalist societies.

--Uses a fascism frame to explain new forms of fascism today and why solutions need be bold enough to meet these new challenges. --Explains how Trump tapped reactionary tendencies embedded in the nation's founding and frontier history which rose to the fore dues to the crisis of social cohesion and bourgeois democracy imposed by late 20th and 21st century capitalism. --Traces the mainstream intellectual's remarkable and stubborn denial of the fascist nature of the Trump presidency.

--Uses a fascism frame to explain new forms of fascism today and why solutions need be bold enough to meet these new challenges. --Explains how Trump tapped reactionary tendencies embedded in the nation's founding and frontier history which rose to the fore dues to the crisis of social cohesion and bourgeois democracy imposed by late 20th and 21st century capitalism. --Traces the mainstream intellectual's remarkable and stubborn denial of the fascist nature of the Trump presidency.

Social Movements and Global Social Change teaches students not only about how social change occurs but also how social movements can contribute to this change. The book links two concepts in sociology that are often related in real life, but that can seem disconnected in traditional approaches to teaching these courses. The book examines different types of social movements, including those often ignored in social change textbooks, such as riots, migration, and disorganized protest. It also looks at citizens' rights and inequality in connection to social movements and change. The book features global perspectives and examples throughout.

The transition to twenty-first century post-industrial capitalism from the 'welfare' industrial capitalism of the twentieth century, has affected the ways in which class is lived in terms of relational inequality and the factors that structure identity. Class After Industry takes a complex realist approach to the dynamics of individual lives, places, the social structure and analyses their significance in terms of class. A wide range of quantitative and qualitative studies are drawn on to explore how 'life after industry' shapes class, and the consequent potential for social change. The book will be of interest across the social sciences and beyond, to those concerned with how class forms might translate into political action.

This volume challenges the concept of the 'new African middle class' with new theoretical and empirical insights into the changing lives in Sub-Saharan Africa. Diverse middle classes are on the rise, but models of class based on experiences from other regions of the world cannot be easily transferred to the African continent. Empirical contributions, drawn from a diverse range of contexts, address both African histories of class formation and the political roles of the continent's middle classes, and also examine the important interdependencies that cut across inter-generational, urban-rural and class divides. This thought-provoking book argues emphatically for a revision of common notions of the 'middle class', and for the inclusion of insights 'from the South' into the global debate on class. Middle Classes in Africa will be of interest to students and scholars across a range of disciplines, as well as NGOs and policy makers with an interest in African societies.

Drawing on the concept of the somatic self, Castro-Vazquez explores how Japanese men think about, express and interpret their experiences concerning bodyweight control. Based on an extensive ethnographic investigation, this book offers a compelling analysis of male obesity and overweight in Japan from a symbolic interactionism perspective to delve into structure, meaning, practice and subjectivity underpinning the experiences of a group of middle-aged, Japanese men grappling with body weight control. Castro-Vazquez frames obesity and overweight within historical and current global and sociological debates that help to highlight the significance of the Japanese case. By drawing on evidence from different locations and contexts, he sustains a comparative perspective to extend and deepen the analysis. A valuable resource for scholars both of contemporary masculinity and of medical sociology, especially those with a particular interest in Japan.

The Working Class and Twenty-First-Century British Fiction looks at how the twenty-first-century British novel has explored contemporary working-class life. Studying the works of David Peace, Gordon Burn, Anthony Cartwright, Ross Raisin, Jenni Fagan, and Sunjeev Sahota, the book shows how they have mapped the shift from deindustrialisation through to stigmatization of individuals and communities who have experienced profound levels of destabilization and unemployment. O'Brien argues that these novels offer ways of understanding fundamental aspects of contemporary capitalism for the working class in modern Britain, including, class struggle, inequality, trauma, social abjection, racism, and stigmatization, exclusively looking at British working-class literature of the twenty-first century.

Individuals are equipped with a wide range of knowledge that enhances their employability, health, family life, and social engagement. On this basis, providing equality for all has been set to be achieved as one of the United Nations sustainable development priorities. However, the international understandings are not only of what equality and inclusivity entail but also the social vision to achieve social justice. Best practices provide a meaningful cross-national discussion with respect to the following topics: power relations within research, social inequalities in society, science research for social justice, the redefinition of the notion of social justice, education for social justice, spatial justice, the research of gender and marginalized groups, the re-conceptualization of the epistemological foundation of research, hegemonic discourses on research, science technology for social justice and welfare, as well as culture and social justice. This edited book aims to provide a new perspective for other benefits of research because generally, the research carried out only aims to answer scientific problems and often override aspects of humanities. In response to these concerns, the book attempts to re-map the main objectives of the research. The authors in this book offer new perspectives, especially in formulating the purposes of the studies they will perform. Therefore, this book presents a unique review of research with a variety of approaches that are coherent with the state of society in the world, followed by eleven scopes of various cases from a variety of perspectives that highlight theoretical and methodological questions about research and social justice. This book presents outstanding applications through multiple types of approaches that are relevant to the current context of world community issues. The articles in this book will be of interest to undergraduate and graduate students, as well as researchers who are interested in the social field, especially research for social justice.

Combines discussion of a theoretical model with essays about social class and classism experience, offering a unique approach that helps students learn theory and apply it to different contexts. Accompanied by an Instructors' Guide which offers more in-depth exploration and commentary, as well as discussion questions, writing prompts, and activity suggestions, making this the ideal resource for lecturers teaching courses on social class. Addresses the gap in psychological literature in terms of considering social class in relation to psychology and shows how the SCWM-R model can be applied to real life scenarios.

Combines discussion of a theoretical model with essays about social class and classism experience, offering a unique approach that helps students learn theory and apply it to different contexts. Accompanied by an Instructors' Guide which offers more in-depth exploration and commentary, as well as discussion questions, writing prompts, and activity suggestions, making this the ideal resource for lecturers teaching courses on social class. Addresses the gap in psychological literature in terms of considering social class in relation to psychology and shows how the SCWM-R model can be applied to real life scenarios.

J. W. von Archenholtz's England is a political and sociological description of Great Britain during the second half of the 18th century. Based primarily on Archenholtz's firsthand observations from 1769 to 1779, England looks with precision and anecdotal detail at the behavior of Britons of all ranks. Never without an attitude, Archenholtz conveys a wide range of topics from debates in the House of Commons to the garb of serving women. Whether describing the newly formed militia or the shenanigans of James Graham and his "celestial bed," he provides a focused, point-driven account that will inform history enthusiasts.

Middle class executives are the people who've done everything right - gotten college degrees, developed marketable skills and build up impressive resumes - yet they have become repeatedly vulnerable to financial disaster. In Bait and Switch, Ehrenreich enters a shadowy world of Internet job searches, lonely networking events and costly career-coaching sessions, a world in which 'professional' mentors and trainers offer pop-psychology and self-help mantras to desperate would-be employees. Poignant and blackly funny, Bait and Switch delivers a stark warning about the future that faces corporate employees everywhere and calls for collective action to guard against it.