Please help us test our new pre-print finding feature by giving the pre-print link a rating. A 5 star rating indicates the linked pre-print has the exact same content as the published article.
Authors:Nick J. Fox Abstract: European Journal of Social Theory, Ahead of Print. This article considers how the relational, post-anthropocentric and monist ontology of the new materialisms can inform a theory of the contemporary capitalist state, and how this perspective offers a distinctive resolution of some of the negative consequences of a capitalist mode of production. It summarises Deleuze and Guattari’s analysis of capitalism as an international/ecumenical social formation, founded upon a ‘capitalist axiomatic’: namely, the free flows of capital and labour required for the everyday workings of the capitalist market. The state is a material realisation of this capitalist axiomatic. The article then undertakes a more-than-human analysis of capitalist production and markets, supply and demand, in terms of affects and assemblages. The article invokes the metaphor of a ‘black hole’ to suggest that capitalism is not merely exploitative of workers, but a formation from which neither worker nor entrepreneur can escape once a participant. Furthermore, it is these more-than-human affects that produce undesirable consequences including uncertainty, waste and social inequalities. This second analysis further refines a monist understanding of the capitalist state and suggests immediate measures to counter the unintended consequences of a market economy. Citation: European Journal of Social Theory PubDate: 2023-11-03T07:22:05Z DOI: 10.1177/13684310231204540
Please help us test our new pre-print finding feature by giving the pre-print link a rating. A 5 star rating indicates the linked pre-print has the exact same content as the published article.
Authors:Noel Castree Abstract: European Journal of Social Theory, Ahead of Print. Etienne Benson’s book Surroundings (2020) details the emergence and history of the now ubiquitous signifier ‘the environment’. Today, the environment performs all manner of work cognitively and normatively, as Benson shows. His book ends with a plea that diversity be fostered in the immediate environments people inhabit. However, this unremarkable aspiration is foiled by two absences in his otherwise fine book. One is a proper treatment of social power and how, discursively and materially, powerful people and organisations routinely diminish existing environmental variety. The other is the ‘gigantism’ associated with twenty-first century capitalism and technoscience. Benson’s analysis, in the end, misses key drivers affecting the content and affects of the environment as a signifier. Citation: European Journal of Social Theory PubDate: 2023-10-27T07:46:24Z DOI: 10.1177/13684310231206677
Please help us test our new pre-print finding feature by giving the pre-print link a rating. A 5 star rating indicates the linked pre-print has the exact same content as the published article.
Authors:Leonidas Tsilipakos Abstract: European Journal of Social Theory, Ahead of Print. This article demonstrates the underappreciated import and potential of Peter Winch’s The Idea of a Social Science and its Relation to Philosophy, a classic work published 65 years ago. Its aim is not simply to correct misunderstandings of Winch but to rehabilitate the text as indispensable for understanding past and present woes and cementing the future of sociological endeavour. I reconstruct and defend the claims put forth by Winch and then explicitly draw out their implications, which demonstrate the incoherence of the predominant disciplinary self-image that sees sociology as having a method and/or critical thinking prerogative. This problematic self-conception is jeopardizing the coherence and wider relevance of sociology and is responsible for its perennial difficulties in articulating a mode of discourse that can be seen as cogent by the public. A defensible alternative sees sociology as a second-order study of practices that is premised on a conceptually accurate relation to those practices and on answerability to the criteria and abilities of understanding, description, explanation and criticism they afford. This conception can support the reconfiguration of existing forms of sociological inquiry as well as the development of new ones. Citation: European Journal of Social Theory PubDate: 2023-10-27T07:45:15Z DOI: 10.1177/13684310231206327
Please help us test our new pre-print finding feature by giving the pre-print link a rating. A 5 star rating indicates the linked pre-print has the exact same content as the published article.
Authors:Christopher Thorpe Abstract: European Journal of Social Theory, Ahead of Print.
Citation: European Journal of Social Theory PubDate: 2023-10-03T07:01:28Z DOI: 10.1177/13684310231199709
Please help us test our new pre-print finding feature by giving the pre-print link a rating. A 5 star rating indicates the linked pre-print has the exact same content as the published article.
Authors:Felix Kämper Abstract: European Journal of Social Theory, Ahead of Print. In this article, I apply the colonization thesis from Jürgen Habermas’s Theory of Communicative Action to capitalist societies’ relationships with their natural environment. Resolving the fixation of his critique of capitalism on the so-called lifeworld (Lebenswelt) to include questions of the environment (Umwelt) opens up new vistas in the ongoing ecological reorientation of Critical Theory. If we think about the exploitation of the natural environment in Habermasian terms, the paradoxical irrationality of the expansion of instrumental rationality from the market mechanism becomes evident, providing us with normative leverage against the systemic devastation of external nature. The conversed colonization thesis calls for promoting the ecological preconditions for self-determined societal development through the collective containment of capitalist dynamics: since it undermines the enabling capacities of the ecosystems based on which the ‘project of modernity’ thrives, economic instrumentalization of nature can no longer proliferate. Citation: European Journal of Social Theory PubDate: 2023-08-29T06:15:32Z DOI: 10.1177/13684310231188888
Please help us test our new pre-print finding feature by giving the pre-print link a rating. A 5 star rating indicates the linked pre-print has the exact same content as the published article.
Authors:Frédéric Vandenberghe Abstract: European Journal of Social Theory, Ahead of Print.
Citation: European Journal of Social Theory PubDate: 2023-08-11T07:08:37Z DOI: 10.1177/13684310231193263
Please help us test our new pre-print finding feature by giving the pre-print link a rating. A 5 star rating indicates the linked pre-print has the exact same content as the published article.
Authors:William Outhwaite Abstract: European Journal of Social Theory, Ahead of Print.
Citation: European Journal of Social Theory PubDate: 2023-08-08T07:37:32Z DOI: 10.1177/13684310231192038
Please help us test our new pre-print finding feature by giving the pre-print link a rating. A 5 star rating indicates the linked pre-print has the exact same content as the published article.
Authors:Frederic Vandenberghe Abstract: European Journal of Social Theory, Ahead of Print.
Citation: European Journal of Social Theory PubDate: 2023-07-17T05:49:45Z DOI: 10.1177/13684310231186254
Please help us test our new pre-print finding feature by giving the pre-print link a rating. A 5 star rating indicates the linked pre-print has the exact same content as the published article.
Authors:Paddy Dolan, Stephen Vertigans, John Connolly Abstract: European Journal of Social Theory, Ahead of Print. Legitimacy remains a key concept in political sociology, and perhaps even more so in lay understandings of political processes and structures, as evidenced by conflict over territories and regimes around the world. However, the concept suffers from a rather static representation, and even when addressed in processual form, in terms of specific moments in the process, such as conditions favouring legitimacy or its effects. Building from an Eliasian perspective, we argue for a more processual concept of legitimisation to encompass the dynamic social networks (figurations) that constitute the more unintentional context for deliberate legitimation claims. As networks expand and intensify, processes of legitimisation incorporate changing and more diverse bases for legitimacy claims, as well as a greater variety of such claims and counterclaims. As the power relations between contending groups change, legitimation practices become part of the integrating functions of the state, shaping figurations and the social habitus. Citation: European Journal of Social Theory PubDate: 2023-07-12T06:29:10Z DOI: 10.1177/13684310231184600
Please help us test our new pre-print finding feature by giving the pre-print link a rating. A 5 star rating indicates the linked pre-print has the exact same content as the published article.
Authors:Jack Barbalet Abstract: European Journal of Social Theory, Ahead of Print. Recent examination of Adam Smith’s mention of trust and his understanding of the role of trust in interpersonal relations add to his standing as a theorist of modernity. Smith’s development of the notion of trust is confined to an account of trustworthiness, which is consistent with his theory of moral agency based on the principle of the impartial spectator. In addition, it is demonstrated that the predominance of trustworthiness in Smith’s understanding relates to the significant presence of cottage industry in a globalised commercial economy, through which reliance on others is foregrounded. At the same time Smith was unable to grasp the disposition and agency of a trustor, a person giving trust, and their confidence in choosing to balance the risk of depending on strangers with the advantage such dependence might provide. In this way both Smith’s understanding of trust and the nature of trust itself are explicated. Citation: European Journal of Social Theory PubDate: 2023-07-12T06:26:54Z DOI: 10.1177/13684310231185901
Please help us test our new pre-print finding feature by giving the pre-print link a rating. A 5 star rating indicates the linked pre-print has the exact same content as the published article.
Authors:Hans-Herbert Kögler Abstract: European Journal of Social Theory, Ahead of Print. This Postscript is a summative reply to the many rich and engaging contributions which support, complement, strengthen, advance, further develop and refine, but also critique and question, and at rare times misread, simplify and distort, central tenets of my lead article in this special issue. To best address the most important themes, I briefly rehearse the aim and relevance of the moral argument, show how it normatively guides political support for Ukraine and address the relation between morality and law. I will then turn to the two normative visions at stake in this war, to assess the analysis and status of Dugin’s Eurasian ideology, to finally take up the claim for principle-based negotiations to achieve a state of ceasefire and, eventually, lasting peace. Citation: European Journal of Social Theory PubDate: 2023-07-10T05:21:33Z DOI: 10.1177/13684310231179893
Please help us test our new pre-print finding feature by giving the pre-print link a rating. A 5 star rating indicates the linked pre-print has the exact same content as the published article.
Authors:Hauke Brunkhorst Abstract: European Journal of Social Theory, Ahead of Print. Since we live in one single world society the national state is the wrong reference for solving problems of war and peace. Social integration beyond global Institutionalization and Symbolization increasingly becomes illusionary. A good indicator is the fact that national democracy could be implemented with full participatory inclusion in ever more countries only through the rise of autonomous world law, defining citizenship and democrartic legitimation in last resort. Until 1945, democracy failed nearly everywhere because of nationalism, militarism, imperialism, especially after the first wave of reluctant global democratization after 1918. However, the system of world law was fataly demolished by eight massive violations of the prohibition of war through four of the five permanent members of the Security Council. The threat of 1918 is back and growing the longer the war in Ukraine lasts: destruction of democracy through nationalism, militarism, imperialism. Citation: European Journal of Social Theory PubDate: 2023-06-14T05:15:33Z DOI: 10.1177/13684310231173670
Please help us test our new pre-print finding feature by giving the pre-print link a rating. A 5 star rating indicates the linked pre-print has the exact same content as the published article.
Authors:Tom Boland, Jody Moore-Ponce Abstract: European Journal of Social Theory, Ahead of Print. Confessional critiques proliferate in contemporary culture, remodelling critical politics as self-purification. Within Foucault’s work, critique is associated with resistance to power and subjectification, whereas confession appears a technique of disciplinary and pastoral power. However, genealogy creates hybrids, and herein we observe how critique and confession are entangled in contemporary social justice discourses, focusing empirically on contemporary anti-racist texts. These critique their imagined readers and society more generally, demanding confessions, castigating denials and exhorting interminable purificatory self-work. This analysis draws from Foucault’s genealogies of parrhesia and avowal, through his latter works on the problem of ‘truth-telling’ and how it forms subjects, even by critique. Recognising this historical hybridisation of critique and confession within discourses such as anti-racism may help to clarify the political stakes of critique. Citation: European Journal of Social Theory PubDate: 2023-06-09T05:22:40Z DOI: 10.1177/13684310231179150
Please help us test our new pre-print finding feature by giving the pre-print link a rating. A 5 star rating indicates the linked pre-print has the exact same content as the published article.
Abstract: European Journal of Social Theory, Ahead of Print.
Citation: European Journal of Social Theory PubDate: 2023-05-19T04:48:26Z DOI: 10.1177/13684310231172824
Please help us test our new pre-print finding feature by giving the pre-print link a rating. A 5 star rating indicates the linked pre-print has the exact same content as the published article.
Authors:Yuliya Yurchenko Abstract: European Journal of Social Theory, Ahead of Print.
Citation: European Journal of Social Theory PubDate: 2023-05-18T04:42:14Z DOI: 10.1177/13684310231172721
Please help us test our new pre-print finding feature by giving the pre-print link a rating. A 5 star rating indicates the linked pre-print has the exact same content as the published article.
Authors:Bryan Stanley Turner Abstract: European Journal of Social Theory, Ahead of Print. This commentary raises three issues. Kögler fails to cover the complexity of Dugin’s philosophy, including his eschatological ideas. Secondly, in any discussion of Putin’s politics, we need to include the religious dimension. Finally, while Kögler debates the idea of bio-politics, we need to include Russia’s demographic crisis. Citation: European Journal of Social Theory PubDate: 2023-05-12T09:28:29Z DOI: 10.1177/13684310231164001
Please help us test our new pre-print finding feature by giving the pre-print link a rating. A 5 star rating indicates the linked pre-print has the exact same content as the published article.
Authors:Siniša Malešević Abstract: European Journal of Social Theory, Ahead of Print. Hans-Herbert Kögler offers an insightful analysis and a potent moral call to support the defence of Ukraine. This is a sensible moral position that I also share. However, I question Kögler’s approach which overemphasises the ethical arguments alone. I argue that wars do not allow for moral absolutism of any kind and that the best one can do in the conditions of warfare is to endorse a version of contextual morality. Furthermore, I make a case for using the accumulated knowledge of historical sociology to understand the dynamics of war in Ukraine. Building on this knowledge one can advance a multipart argument that favours the continuous support for the defence of Ukraine. Citation: European Journal of Social Theory PubDate: 2023-05-12T05:40:30Z DOI: 10.1177/13684310231165218
Please help us test our new pre-print finding feature by giving the pre-print link a rating. A 5 star rating indicates the linked pre-print has the exact same content as the published article.
Authors:Michael Mann Abstract: European Journal of Social Theory, Ahead of Print.
Citation: European Journal of Social Theory PubDate: 2023-05-11T10:35:44Z DOI: 10.1177/13684310231163443
Please help us test our new pre-print finding feature by giving the pre-print link a rating. A 5 star rating indicates the linked pre-print has the exact same content as the published article.
Authors:Gerard Delanty Abstract: European Journal of Social Theory, Ahead of Print. The Russo-Ukrainian War marks a significant moment in the post-1945 history of Europe when a new European war has begun that will shape relations with Russia for a long time to come. This war is not a regional war but is a product of the divergent and seemingly irreconcilable paths of the Russian Federation and Ukraine that go back to the collapse of the USSR while the critical juncture was the Iraq war, which set the terms for the current collapse in normative internationalism. The question of military support – its extent and duration – for Ukraine has major implications for the future of Europe. The moral and political challenges for Europe should not be confused with the interests of US foreign policy, which is using Ukraine for purposes that have little to do with what Europe should be concerned with, namely justice and peace. Citation: European Journal of Social Theory PubDate: 2023-05-09T05:35:53Z DOI: 10.1177/13684310231174098
Please help us test our new pre-print finding feature by giving the pre-print link a rating. A 5 star rating indicates the linked pre-print has the exact same content as the published article.
Authors:Maxim Khomyakov Abstract: European Journal of Social Theory, Ahead of Print. The essay seeks to complement Hans-Herbert Kögler’s article on the moral case for supporting Ukraine in its current defence against aggression from Putin’s Russia. To do so it tries to offer a more adequate account of what Kögler calls the politico-national and symbolic-ideological standing of Russia in this conflict. On the political side, the article points out the neoliberal, securitized and, in the final analysis, criminal character of Putin’s regime. Analysing the national aspect, it pictures Russian society as a morally corrupt, atomized and depoliticized one, which, at the same time, is a hostage of the terrorist regime. Finally, on the ideological aspect, it calls in question Kögler’s claim about the importance of Dugin’s Eurasian ideology, arguing for the impossibility to promote any essentialist ideology in the extremely atomized contemporary Russian society. The moral case for supporting Ukraine consists in defending Ukraine, Russia and, in final analysis, humanity from the morally corrupting and physically destroying influence of Putin’s terrorist regime. Citation: European Journal of Social Theory PubDate: 2023-05-08T05:20:41Z DOI: 10.1177/13684310231172599
Please help us test our new pre-print finding feature by giving the pre-print link a rating. A 5 star rating indicates the linked pre-print has the exact same content as the published article.
Authors:Anthony King Abstract: European Journal of Social Theory, Ahead of Print. Against pacifist calls for peace at any price in Ukraine, Hans-Herbert Kögler argues that the west has a moral obligation to support Ukraine in its war against Russia. Kögler’s argument is well-made. However, he does not mention the war at all. This may be an oversight because while moral principles may be universal, in practice, the context defines how morals are applied. Drawing on Clausewitz’s concept of the Trinity, this response seeks to develop Kögler’s moral argument by examining the practical, military implications of the war. It argues that because the war is heavily urbanised, the west’s moral commitment is likely to be very deep and long. Citation: European Journal of Social Theory PubDate: 2023-05-05T05:13:25Z DOI: 10.1177/13684310231170774
Please help us test our new pre-print finding feature by giving the pre-print link a rating. A 5 star rating indicates the linked pre-print has the exact same content as the published article.
Authors:Jan Nederveen Pieterse Abstract: European Journal of Social Theory, Ahead of Print.
Citation: European Journal of Social Theory PubDate: 2023-05-05T05:11:43Z DOI: 10.1177/13684310231170345
Please help us test our new pre-print finding feature by giving the pre-print link a rating. A 5 star rating indicates the linked pre-print has the exact same content as the published article.
Authors:Ronald Grigor Suny Abstract: European Journal of Social Theory, Ahead of Print.
Citation: European Journal of Social Theory PubDate: 2023-05-05T05:10:15Z DOI: 10.1177/13684310231168585
Please help us test our new pre-print finding feature by giving the pre-print link a rating. A 5 star rating indicates the linked pre-print has the exact same content as the published article.
Authors:Pavlo Smytsnyuk Abstract: European Journal of Social Theory, Ahead of Print.
Citation: European Journal of Social Theory PubDate: 2023-05-03T05:47:37Z DOI: 10.1177/13684310231170363
Please help us test our new pre-print finding feature by giving the pre-print link a rating. A 5 star rating indicates the linked pre-print has the exact same content as the published article.
Authors:Jan Zielonka Abstract: European Journal of Social Theory, Ahead of Print.
Citation: European Journal of Social Theory PubDate: 2023-05-03T05:45:43Z DOI: 10.1177/13684310231170127
Please help us test our new pre-print finding feature by giving the pre-print link a rating. A 5 star rating indicates the linked pre-print has the exact same content as the published article.
Authors:Matt Dawson Abstract: European Journal of Social Theory, Ahead of Print.
Citation: European Journal of Social Theory PubDate: 2023-05-02T05:49:14Z DOI: 10.1177/13684310231168551
Please help us test our new pre-print finding feature by giving the pre-print link a rating. A 5 star rating indicates the linked pre-print has the exact same content as the published article.
Authors:Mary Kaldor Abstract: European Journal of Social Theory, Ahead of Print. This essay provides supplementary evidence for Kögler’s thesis. It argues that Putin will have ‘won’ if he succeeds in reducing Ukrainian society to a chaotic, fragmented, violent, long-term social condition that can be characterised as a ‘new war’. The essay describes the combination of the ‘political marketplace’ and exclusivist identity politics typical of new wars and how they apply to Putin’s Russia. It concludes with a proposal for negotiations based on principles, especially justice, instead of or as well as borders. Citation: European Journal of Social Theory PubDate: 2023-04-28T05:28:19Z DOI: 10.1177/13684310231168807
Please help us test our new pre-print finding feature by giving the pre-print link a rating. A 5 star rating indicates the linked pre-print has the exact same content as the published article.
Authors:Orysya Bila Abstract: European Journal of Social Theory, Ahead of Print.
Citation: European Journal of Social Theory PubDate: 2023-04-27T05:08:56Z DOI: 10.1177/13684310231170344
Please help us test our new pre-print finding feature by giving the pre-print link a rating. A 5 star rating indicates the linked pre-print has the exact same content as the published article.
Authors:Ivor Chipkin Abstract: European Journal of Social Theory, Ahead of Print. This article considers what the figure of the Nazi means today, especially in the context of the war in Ukraine. Like Hans-Herbert Kögler, the article considers Nazism as a Russian political discourse, which has to be understood on its own terms. In this regard, the article proposes that for Putin it is unlikely that the Holocaust is Nazism’s main point of reference, but rather the murder and slavery of millions of Slavs and Russians is. In this regard, talk of Nazism is a way of recalling the existential threat that Russians experienced as Slavs. Citation: European Journal of Social Theory PubDate: 2023-04-12T05:24:17Z DOI: 10.1177/13684310231165215
Please help us test our new pre-print finding feature by giving the pre-print link a rating. A 5 star rating indicates the linked pre-print has the exact same content as the published article.
Authors:Peter Wagner Abstract: European Journal of Social Theory, Ahead of Print. Given the diversity of opinions about whether, how, and towards which end Western societies should defend Ukraine against the ongoing Russian aggression, it would be desirable to spell out clear moral principles and apply them in a contextually adequate way to the situation. This is what Hans-Herbert Kögler tries to do in his contribution to this issue. However, his reasoning remains unclear about the relation between moral philosophy and empirical and historical knowledge about the context of moral action. Furthermore, while he proposes critical-hermeneutic reconstruction as a means to understand the participants in the conflicts, he applies this approach in an asymmetric and insufficiently nuanced way. His view of the conflict as a struggle between democracy and dictatorship about a future world-order is too dichotomic and ignores the history of international law as a practical moral philosophy dealing with situations for which there are no unambiguous principles that could guide action. Citation: European Journal of Social Theory PubDate: 2023-04-12T05:22:58Z DOI: 10.1177/13684310231164258
Please help us test our new pre-print finding feature by giving the pre-print link a rating. A 5 star rating indicates the linked pre-print has the exact same content as the published article.
Authors:Stefan Borg Abstract: European Journal of Social Theory, Ahead of Print. This article contributes to an understanding of the backlash against liberalism by reconstructing the emergence and development of an increasingly influential strand of Anglo-American thought that challenges liberalism, known as postliberalism. The central diagnostic claim of postliberalism is that the two dominant forms of post-WW2 liberalism, market liberalism and social liberalism, instead of being somehow opposed, have coalesced around an all-encompassing sociopolitical project that above all else seeks to maximize individual autonomy. As a result, postliberals hold, the liberal order has become increasingly unable to cultivate the communal resources on which human sociability depends and erodes the values liberalism purportedly defends. The article argues that a central, albeit not necessarily insurmountable, challenge for postliberalism lies in moving from a critique of liberalism to proposed remedies for its perceived deficiencies, without slipping into a political project with clear illiberal rather than merely non-liberal implications. Citation: European Journal of Social Theory PubDate: 2023-04-10T10:43:22Z DOI: 10.1177/13684310231163126
Please help us test our new pre-print finding feature by giving the pre-print link a rating. A 5 star rating indicates the linked pre-print has the exact same content as the published article.
Authors:Hans-Herbert Kögler Abstract: European Journal of Social Theory, Ahead of Print. This essay is a reflection on the Ukraine war grounded in moral motives to empathetically support an attacked victim (whether at the individual or national level). It entails a critique of the moral abstraction of the geopolitical perspective and an analysis of Putin’s imperial Eurasian ideology, including Dugin’s cultural essentialism and the biopolitical strategies of its implementation. Current calls for peace, ceasefire or diplomacy appear problematic in this light. The need to articulate normative principles orienting negotiations with morally acceptable results becomes apparent, as they both justify the use of effective military means of empathetic solidarity and limit the dangers of an unchecked militarization and bellicose attitudes in this conflict. Citation: European Journal of Social Theory PubDate: 2023-03-28T06:01:25Z DOI: 10.1177/13684310231158727
Please help us test our new pre-print finding feature by giving the pre-print link a rating. A 5 star rating indicates the linked pre-print has the exact same content as the published article.
Authors:Dean Curran Abstract: European Journal of Social Theory, Ahead of Print. Polanyi’s (1957 [1944]) The Great Transformation stands as a towering analysis of the industrial revolution and a powerful social warning against social and natural damage driven by the pursuit of maximal economic value. Polanyi envisioned that the ‘discovery of society’, due to its radical neglect during the industrial revolution, led to this new social knowledge resulting in the end of laissez-faire and the self-regulating market. Yet, the most recent phase of the industrial revolution, the digital phase, suggests that many of the same failures to manage industrial revolutions are occurring again. In particular, looking at the emerging digital economy through the prism of Polanyi’s social theory, this article argues that the changes driven by the digital economy, specifically in terms of the reshaping of attention and sociality and the increasing potential for ‘normal catastrophes’, suggests that Polanyi’s lesson of the destructive power of the self-regulating market is again being neglected. Citation: European Journal of Social Theory PubDate: 2023-03-03T07:16:37Z DOI: 10.1177/13684310231158726