Neoliberalism has been one of the most hotly contested themes in academic and political debate over the last 30 years. Given the global and persistent influence of neoliberal ideas on contemporary styles of governance, social-service provision, and public policy, this intensive interest is understandable. At the same time, the use of the term has become loose, vague, and over-extended, particularly in the extensive critical literature. Rather than engage in further critique, or in the reconstruction of the history of neoliberalism, this volume seeks to bring analytical clarity to the ongoing debate. Drawing inspiration from the work of the Hungarian economic historian, Karl Polanyi, Remaking Market Society combines critique, original formulations, and case studies to form an analytical framework that identifies the key instruments of neoliberal governance. These include privatization, marketization, and liberalization. The case studies examine the development of neoliberal instruments (reform of the British civil service); their refinement (reform of higher education in England and Wales); and their dissemination across national borders (EU integration policies). Rather than look back nostalgically on the post-war welfare-state settlement, in the final chapter the authors ask why the coalitions that supported that settlement broke down in the face of the neoliberal reform movement. This highly original work offers a distinctive transdisciplinary approach to political economy, and therefore is an important read for students and academics who are interested in political economy as well as social theory and political philosophy.

This book is a groundbreaking attempt to rethink the landscapes of the social world and historical practice by theorising 'social haunting': the ways in which the social forms, figures, phantasms and ghosts of the past become present to us time and time again. Examining the relationship between historical practices such as archaeology and archival work in order to think about how the social landscape is reinvented with reference to the ghosts of the past, the author explores the literary and historical status and accounts of the ghost, not for what they might tell us about these figures, but for their significance for our, constantly re-invented, re-vivified, re-ghosted social world. With chapters on haunted houses and castles, slave ghosts, the haunting airs of music, the prehistoric origin of spirits, Marxist spectres, Freudian revenants, and the ghosts in the machine, Ghosts, Landscapes and Social Memory adopts multi-disciplinary methods for understanding the past, the dead and social ghosts and the landscapes they appear in. A sociology of haunting that illustrates how social landscapes have their genesis and perpetuation in haunting and the past, this volume will appeal to sociologists and social theorists with interests in memory, haunting and culture.

The essays in this Festschrift are celebrations of the human mind in its manifold expressions - philosophical, scientific, historical, aesthetic, political - and in its various modes - analytical, systematic, critical, imaginative, constructive. They are offered to Robert S. Cohen on the occasion of his 70th birthday, in acknowledgment of his own extra ordinary participation in the life of the mind, and of his unfailing encouragement and facilitation of the participation of others. It is fitting that these volumes should appear in the Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science, the series which he co-founded so many years ago, and of which he has been the principal editor for more than three decades. (These are perhaps the only volumes of that series which he has not edited or co-edited ) The three volumes that constitute this Festschrift cover the range of Cohen's interests as a philosopher/scientistlhumanist, as they also represent the spectrum of his professional and personal friendships. (Regretfully, the editors could not include contributions from more of them here. ) The first volume centers around the philosophy and history of the natural sciences and mathematics; Volume Two collects essays related to Marxism and science, philosophy of culture and the social sciences; and the third volume focuses on science and the humanistic understanding in art, epistemology, religion and ethics."

Understanding Max Weber's contribution to social theory is vital for students and scholars of social science. This insightful text offers critical discussion of Weber's ideas, focusing on their uses - how they have been appropriated and applied to contemporary events. Written by one of the world's leading Weber scholars, this is an essential read.

Contemporary political and public discourse has come alive with the issues and conflicts surrounding questions of national identity. Despite the widespread sociological attention it has drawn as a result, most studies of national identity have been conducted at considerable analytical distance from the lived reality of national identity talk. This collection brings together the work of contemporary researchers, situating the talk and interaction in which national identities are actually expressed and used. The book presents detailed investigations of how persons actually use national identity in their talk, the interactional uses to which such expressions are put, and the interactional consequences of such identity talk. The studies are based on transcribed tape recordings of naturally occurring talk across a variety of different countries and settings, illuminating not only situated national identity talk as a phenomenon in its own right, but also providing empirically grounded research for traditional sociological theorising about issues of integration, devolution and exclusion.

Realism in Action is a selection of essays written by leading representatives in the fields of action theory and philosophy of mind, philosophy of the social sciences and especially the nature of social action, and of epistemology and philosophy of science. Practical reason, reasons and causes in action theory, intending and trying, and folk-psychological explanation are some of the topics discussed by these leading participants. A particular emphasis is laid on trust, commitments and social institutions, on the possibility of grounding social notions in individual social attitudes, on the nature of social groups, institutions and collective intentionality, and on common belief and common knowledge. Applications to the social sciences include, e.g., a look at the Erklaren-Verstehen controversy in economics, and at constructivist and realist views on archeological reconstructions of the past."

The field of programme evaluation is shaped by an ever-increasing range of approaches each of which, to varying degrees, reflects evaluation's dual role as a theoretical endeavour and a form of socio-political inquiry. There is an array of approaches, each emphasizing different purposes and endorsing different methodologies to guide practice. Yet, no matter which goals are pursued and which methods are employed, all evaluation involves an effort to conceptualize, comprehend, and convey the quality of the programme. This volume brings together the work of certain evaluators to explore the evaluation of programme quality. Through conceptual descriptions and applied examples they discuss the theoretical concerns and practical issues that give rise to their particular conceptions of quality, the methodologies they employ to pursue an understanding of these conceptions, and the representational forms they employ to convey their understanding to stakeholders.

"The Aesthetics of Free Speech: Rethinking the Public Sphere" is one of the first books to theoretically explore the relationship between free speech and the public sphere. By drawing upon Marxist theory the author, John Michael Roberts, demonstrates how liberal theorists frequently construct an abstract aesthetic of "rational," "cultivated" and "competent" discussion which then serves as a norm through which certain utterances can be humiliated and excluded from participating fully within the public sphere. However, the author also shows how excluded utterances develop their own aesthetic of free speech and how this aesthetic then comes back to haunt the bourgeois public sphere.

Since the early 1990s, evolutionary psychology has produced widely popular visions of modern men and women as driven by their prehistoric genes. In Gender, Sexuality and Reproduction in Evolutionary Narratives, Venla Oikkonen explores the rhetorical appeal of evolutionary psychology by viewing it as part of the Darwinian narrative tradition. Refusing to start from the position of dismissing evolutionary psychology as reactionary or scientifically invalid, the book examines evolutionary psychologists' investments in such contested concepts as teleology and variation. The book traces the emergence of evolutionary psychological narratives of gender, sexuality and reproduction, encompassing: Charles Darwin's understanding of transformation and sexual difference Edward O. Wilson's evolutionary mythology and the evolution-creationism controversy Richard Dawkins' molecular agency and new imaging technologies the connections between adultery, infertility and homosexuality in adaptationist thought. Through popular, literary and scientific texts, the book identifies both the imaginative potential and the structural weaknesses in evolutionary narratives, opening them up for feminist and queer revision. This book will be of interest to students and scholars of the humanities and social sciences, particularly in gender studies, cultural studies, literature, sexualities, and science and technology studies.

Late modern wars are legitimized through invocations of humanity; variously the rescue and protection of populations, the re-shaping of entire societies, and the re-constitution of the sphere of the international into a pacified cosmopolitan arena. Drawing on critical social and political thought, the book explores the implications, arguing that these same wars, often referred to as 'liberal', may be interpreted as perpetuating forms of exclusion and domination that render war a tool of control now articulated in global terms.

Culture now has a prominent place on the urban policy and re-profiling agendas of cities around the world. City-based cultural planning emphasising creativity in all its guises has emerged as a significant local policy initiative, while the notion of the 'creative city' has become an urban imaging cliche. The proliferation of local blueprints for cultural planning/creative cities has been remarkable, while supra-state bodies such as the European Union and UNESCO are also fostering the use of culture in strategies to revive cities and urban economies and to brand places as 'different'. Cities of Culture highlights significant trends in cultural planning since its inception, revealing and analysing key discourses and influential (globally-circulating) manifestos and processes, as well as their interpretation and implementation in specific places. With reference to examples drawn from Europe, Australia, Asia and North America, Cities of Culture provides insights into the application of urban cultural strategies in different local, national and international contexts, highlighting regularities, tensions and intersections as well as core underpinning assumptions. This book explores the now-pervasive expectation that cultural planning is capable of achieving a wide range of social, economic, urban and creative outcomes. It will be of interest for students and scholars of urban sociology, urban studies, cultural policy studies and human geography.

Presents cutting edge theory about the consequences of social movements and protest while asking what kind of trade-offs protest movements face in trying to change the world around them. Many scholars have tried to figure out why some social movements have an impact and others do not. By looking inside movements at their component parts and recurrent strategic interactions, the authors of Gains and Losses show that movements usually produce a variety of effects, including recurring packages of gains and losses. They ask what kinds of trade-offs and dilemmas these packages reflect by looking at six empirical cases from around the world: Seattle's conflict over the $15 an hour minimum wage; the establishment of participatory budgeting in New York City; a democratic insurgency inside New York City's Transport Workers' Union; a communist party's struggle to gain votes and also protect citizen housing in Graz, Austria; the internal movement tensions that led to Hong Kong's umbrella occupation; and Russia's electoral reform movement embodied in Alexei Navalny. They not only examine the diverse players in these cases involved in politics and protest, but also the many strategic arenas in which they maneuver. While each of these movements made some remarkable gains, this book shows how many also suffered losses, especially in the longer run.

This book draws upon data collected over an 18 year period with over 1000 boys and young men across Northern Ireland. Providing critical reflections on violence, masculinity and education, it uses the voices and experiences of young men to inform and influence research, practice and policy.

"Evolutionary Approaches in the Behavioral Sciences" examines perhaps the single most important post-World War II development in the Behavioral Sciences - the emergence of a group of practitioners who advocate 'a more biologically oriented' approach to their discipline's subject matter. This contention directly challenges the basic tenets underlying the long-dominant standard social science model. Advocates of this model believe that human behavior is not meaningfully influenced by our evolutionary background, but is instead learned. Consequently, the possibility that our behavior is genetically influenced is often ignored.The advocates of a 'more biologically oriented' approach are attempting, in effect, an intellectual revolution. Part I of this ground breaking volume examines, discipline by discipline, the history of the evolutionary thrust, leading figures and key literature, the degree of acceptance (or rejection) within each discipline, and the likely future prospects. Part II discusses the biobehavioral approach on a geographic basis, with experts assessing the status of evolutionary behavioral science across a number of countries and regions. The contributing authors are social scientists who have personally played an important role in the developments that they discuss.

Karl Marx, Emile Durkheim, and Max Weber are indispensable for understanding the sociological enterprise. They are among the chief founders of the discipline and among the foremost theorists of modernity, and their work can stimulate readers to reflect on their own identities and worldviews. Classical Social Theory and Modern Society introduces students to these three thinkers and shows their continued relevance today. The first chapter sets the stage by situating the work of Marx, Durkheim, and Weber in the context of three modernizing revolutions: the Enlightenment, the French Revolution of 1789, and the Industrial Revolution. Three overview chapters follow that summarize the key ideas of each thinker, focusing on their contributions to the development of sociology and their conceptions of modern society. The last portion of the book explores the thinking of Marx, Durkheim, and Weber on four themes-the pathologies of modern society, the predicament of the modern individual, the state and democracy, and socialism versus capitalism. These thematic chapters place Marx, Durkheim, and Weber in dialogue with one another, offering students the opportunity to wrestle with conflicting ideas on issues that are still significant today. Classical sociology is essential to the teaching of sociology and also an invaluable tool in the education of citizens.

Micro social theory covers a rich tradition in sociological thinking and research that focuses on the self and social interaction. It includes the work of the Chicago School, Mead, Garfinkel and Goffman amongst others. This book traces the development of the tradition and assesses its contemporary importance. Throughout, the emphasis is on making theory intelligible to an undergraduate audience and demonstrating how it can shed light on substantive issues and contexts.

What's wrong with the world today and how might it become better (or worse)? These are the questions pursued in this book, which explores the hopes and fears, dreams and nightmares of the 21st century. Through architecture, fiction, theory, film and experiments with everyday life, Sargisson explores contemporary hopes and fears about the future.

This volume addresses issues of precariousness in a broad, interdisciplinary perspective, looking at socio-economic transformations as well as the identity formation and political organizing of precarious people. The collection bridges empirical research with social theory to problematize and analyse the precariat.

Memory, Trauma and World Politics focuses on the effect that the memory of traumatic episodes (especially war and genocide) has on shaping contemporary political identities. Theoretically sophisticated and empirically rich, this book is an incisive treatment of the ways in which the study of social memory can inform global politics analysis.

Among the concepts used to assess the sustainability of fiscal policy in a changing demographic environment, generational accounting has become the most prominent. This book gives a complete and up-to-date introduction to the theory and practice of the method. It reveals deficiencies of the original residual concept and discusses various measures of intergenerational redistribution based on the recent sustainability approach to generational accounting. An application using data on German public finances serves to provide an in-depth explanation and practical illustration of the technique. The study develops new procedures to evaluate the fiscal externalities of migration and the redistribution of net wealth among living generations resulting from Social Security reform. The book is an indispensable source of reference for analysts employing generational accounting and for those wishing to study intertemporal redistribution through fiscal policy.

Queer criminological work is at the forefront of critical academic criminology, responding to the exclusion of queer communities from criminology, and the injustices that they experience through the criminal justice system. This volume draws together both theoretical and empirical contributions that develop the growing scholarship being produced at the intersection of 'queer' and 'criminology'. Reflecting the diversity of research that is undertaken at this intersection, the contributions to this volume offer a deeper theoretical and conceptual development of this field alongside empirical research that illustrates the continued relevance and urgency of such scholarship. The contributions consider what it means to be queering criminology in the current political, social, and criminological climate, and chart directions along which this field might develop in order to ensure that greater social and criminal justice for LGBTIQ communities is achieved.

Previous assessments of Williams have usually focused on his place within literary and/or cultural studies. In contrast, this study provides the first detailed exegesis of his sociology of culture. This neglected dimension of Williams's work emerges as an alternative to both cultural studies and orthodox sociologies of culture and the media. Surprisingly, Williams's alternative has much affinity with the work of the Frankfurt School. This book provides a foundation for the development and application of this critical sociology of culture.

Welfare State, Universalism and Diversity is a thought-provoking book dealing with key ideas, values and principles of social policies and asking what exactly is meant by universal benefits and policies? Is the time of post-war universalism over? Are universalism and diversity contradictory policy and theory framings? Well-known scholars from different countries and fields of expertise provide a historically informative and comprehensive view on the making of universal social policies. Universalism is defined and implemented differently in the British and Scandinavian social policies. Service universalism is different from universalism in pensions. The book underlines the multiple and transformative nature of universalism and the challenge of diversity. There certainly is need for a greater diversity in meeting citizen s needs. Yet, universalism remains a principle essential for planning and implementing sustainable and legitimate policies in times characterized by complex interdependences and contradictory political aims. This impressive book is an attempt to untangle the multiple meanings of universalism and clarify the concept's relevance to contemporary policy debates. It will prove invaluable for students, researchers and practitioners in social policy, public policy, social administration, social welfare, social history, social work, sociology and political sciences. Policy makers and administrators involved with social and public policies, social services, social welfare, and social work will also find this book groundbreaking. Contributors: A. Anttonen, A. Borchorst, J. Clarke, J. Goul Andersen, L. Haikio, B. Hvinden, M. Kautto, J. Newman, J. Sipila, K. Stefansson, M. Szebehely, M. Vabo

Transformative learning is a process in which we question all the assumptions about the world and ourselves that make up our worldview, visualize alternative assumptions, and then test them in practice. The author describes the process, offering a critique of contemporary assumptions, and suggests alternatives to illustrate the process. The primary focus of the book is on transformative learning in mainstream global culture, but the special problems and opportunities for people of post-colonial societies are also dealt with. Practical suggestions for conducting transformative learning exercises are given.