Democracy in the twenty-first century faces a number of major challenges, populism, neoliberalism and globalisation being three of the most prominent. This book examines such challenges by investigating how the conditions of democratic statehood have been altered at several key historical intervals since 1945. It demonstrates that the formal mechanisms of democratic statehood, such as elections, have always been complemented by civic, cultural, educational, socio-economic and constitutional institutions that mediate between citizens and state authority. Rearticulating critical theory with a contemporary focus, the book shows why a sociological approach is urgently needed to address conceptual deficits and explain how the formal mechanisms of democratic statehood need to be complemented and updated in new ways today. -- .

From the dissident movements in Eastern Europe to the Zapatista revolution in Mexico to the revival of Naples and other European cities, it has been argued that civil society will be the key site of political struggle and political change in the twenty-first century. Drawing on the writings of thinkers ranging from Kant, Hegel, Feuerbach and Marx to Weber, Schmitt, Benjamin, Adorno and Arendt, Sovereign states or political communities? explores the ideas, meaning and history of civil society and its relationship with the state and the economy. A philosophical approach is used to shed new light on existing interpretations of the 1989 revolutions in the East and the new social movements in the West. The book shows that there are universal forms of politics in contemporary civil societies which elude the politics of interest and identity. Sovereign states or political communities? also explains why these forms of politics are largely obscured by existing institutions such as the market and state, and suggests how they might furnish the bases of a distinctly political form of knowledge rooted in praxis and experience instead of power and contract.

Since the Enlightenment, liberal democrat governments in Europe and North America have been compelled to secure the legitimacy of their authority by constructing rational states whose rationality is based on modern forms of law. The first serious challenge to liberal democratic practices of legal legitimacy comes in Marx's early writings on Rousseau and Hegel. Marx discovers the limits of formal legal equality that does not address substantive relations of inequality in the workplace and in many other spheres of social life. Beyond Hegemony investigates the authoritarianism and breakdown of those state socialist governments in Russia and elsewhere which claim to put Marx's ideas on democracy and equality into practice. The book explains that although many aspects of Marx's critique are still valid today, his ideas need to be supplemented by the contributions to social theory made by Nietzsche, Foucault, the critical theory of the Frankfurt School as well as the libertarian socialism of G.D.H. Cole. What emerges is a new theory of political legitimacy which indicates how it is possible to move beyond liberal democracy whilst avoiding the authoritarian turn of state socialism. Schecter points out the weaknesses of the many extra-legal accounts of non-formal legitimacy now on offer, such as those based on friendship and identity. He then argues that the first step beyond hegemony depends on the discovery of forms of legitimate legality and demonstrates why the conditions of legitimate law can be identified. -- .

There are many ways of presenting the history of the left. In this concise and cogent survey, Darrow Schecter avoids trivializing struggles of the last 150 years, focusing on Marx's theories and the diverse struggles for human emancipation that have characterized European and world history since the French Revolution.

Each chapter in the book builds on the previous one, analysing the emergence and development of a specifically left wing understanding of the relation between knowledge, left politics, and emancipation. Schecter explores the crucial question of how to institutionalize the relation between humanity and nature in a free society of fully humanized individuals. Including discussions of Marxism, the Frankfurt School, Critical Theory, Anarchism, Surrealism, and Global Anti-Capitalism, The History of the Left from Marx to the Present is a valuable tool for understanding the theories that have helped shape our present-day political world.

There are many ways of presenting the history of the left. In this concise and cogent survey, Darrow Schecter avoids trivializing struggles of the last 150 years, focusing on Marx's theories and the diverse struggles for human emancipation that have characterized European and world history since the French Revolution. Each chapter in the book builds on the previous one, analysing the emergence and development of a specifically left wing understanding of the relation between knowledge, left politics, and emancipation. Schecter explores the crucial question of how to institutionalize the relation between humanity and nature in a free society of fully humanized individuals. Including discussions of Marxism, the Frankfurt School, Critical Theory, Anarchism, Surrealism, and Global Anti-Capitalism, "The History of the Left from Marx to the Present" is a valuable tool for understanding the theories that have helped shape our present-day political world.

Critical Theory in the Twenty-First Century provides a thorough overview of critical theory, looking at its history and shortfalls. First, the book explains the developments from the Frankfurt School and from more recent schools of thought, including Derrida, Deleuze, deconstruction, and post-structuralism. Then it looks at how critical theory has not kept pace with the changes and conflicts brought on by the post-Cold War world and globalization and how its deficits can be addressed. For the author, more than ever critical theory needs to synthesize theoretical perspective and empirical research. It also needs to be reconfigured in the light of the demands of new social movements, post-colonialism, and globalization. This volume is part of Critical Theory and Contemporary Society, a series that uses critical theory to explore contemporary society as a complex phenomenon and includes works on democracy, social movements, and terrorism. A unique resource, Critical Theory in the Twenty First Century will interest anyone researching issues in political theory, international relations theory, social theory, and critical theory.

"Critical Theory in the Twenty-First Century" provides a thorough overview of critical theory, looking at its history and shortfalls.First, the book explains the developments from the Frankfurt School and from more recent schools of thought, including Derrida, Deleuze, deconstruction, and post-structuralism. Then it looks at how critical theory has not kept pace with the changes and conflicts brought on by the post-Cold War world and globalization and how its deficits can be addressed. For the author, more than ever critical theory needs to synthesize theoretical perspective and empirical research. It also needs to be reconfigured in the light of the demands of new social movements, post-colonialism, and globalization.This volume is part of Critical Theory and Contemporary Society, a series that uses critical theory to explore contemporary society as a complex phenomenon and includes works on democracy, social movements, and terrorism. A unique resource, "Critical Theory in the Twenty First Century" will interest anyone researching issues in political theory, international relations theory, social theory, and critical theory.

What different kinds of reason are possible, and which ones are the most appropriate for a legitimate, as opposed to a merely legitimated state?The book opens with an analysis of Weber as a figure who marks a key moment of sociological transition. Weber articulates a distinctly different view to Enlightenment thinkers who believe in the capacity of reason to improve society and emancipate humanity from ignorance and domination. Weber signals that the institutionalization of the instrumental reason particular to industrial society might actually be an effective tool in the struggle for social supremacy. He notes that in comparison with charismatic and traditional legitimation, modern forms of legal-rational legitimation are de-personalised, anonymously bureaucratic, and much more difficult to combat.The book then looks at various responses to Weber's diagnosis, from Lukcs and Benjamin to Horkheimer, Adorno, Heidegger, Arendt, Simmel, Foucault and Habermas. The study culminates with a sociological reading of critical theory that draws together Adorno's concept of non-identity with Habermas on communicative reason and Luhmann on social complexity and differentiation.

This book analyses the critique of instrumental reason from Weber through to the present day. Weber constitutes the starting point because he represents a key moment of theoretical and political transition. Whereas Enlightenment thinkers such as Kant, Rousseau and Hegel had a profound faith in the power of reason to improve society and mankind, Weber signals that far from being a universally positive and progressive force, the institutionalisation of reason might actually be a highly effective tool in the struggle for domination. Schecter charts how Weber's ideas took shape as a response to the works of Nietzsche and Georg Simmel, and how these ideas were taken up by the theorists of the Frankfurt School in their attempts to formulate a critical theory of society, firstly by Horkheimer and Adorno and then later by Habermas in his The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere. Schecter further explores how Habermas moves away from a Weberian-Marxist version of social theory towards a more optimistic approach based on a linguistic and systems'-theoretical approach in his Theory of Communicative Action. The book also discusses Heidegger's ontological response to the challenge posed by Weber as well as Walter Benjamin's examination of the contradictions inherent in the attempts to produce a just legal system in the absence of substantive rationality and justice.