Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

Globalisation

How do you define globalisation?

Globalisation is the intensification of world-wide social relationships which link distant localities in such a way that local happenings are shaped by distant events and, in turn, distant events are shaped by local happenings. It is a process which has led to the reduction of geographical, spatial, and temporal factors as constraints to the development of society. It has resulted in an increased perception of the world as a whole, and a readjustment of societal thought and action away from national, and towards international and global spheres.

What is the cause of globalisation and how is the trend sustained?

Globalisation can be considered as the consequence of modernity. The growth and advance of information and communication technologies is a central driver for globalisation: these allow information to flow much more freely and rapidly, and a truly global perspective can emerge at a rapid rate.

What areas of our lives does it affect and what are its implications for how we live?

Globalisation has economic, political, and cultural aspects. The modern state is not purely defined by its economic base but by the fact that it is a nation-state. The role of the nation-state, its political position, and its evolution are all questioned by globalisation. The realignment of thinking and the transnational relationships globalisation creates, affects the way nation-states interact with each other, altering the dynamics of identity, international relations, and world affairs.

The global society is cosmopolitan, but its development is emerging from a mixture of economic, technological and cultural imperatives. Institutions, such as the nation, family, work, tradition, nature, appear as before, but although the outer shell remains, inside all is different and they have become 'shell institutions'. We need to reconstruct the institutions we have, or create new ones, in ways appropriate for the global age.

Modernity

What is modernity, what caused it, and how has it developed?

Modernity refers to the modes of social life or organisation which emerged in Western Europe from about the seventeenth century and which subsequently developed a world wide influence. The central drivers of modernity were the forces of Western Europe’s industrial and political revolutions.

Modernity destroys tradition. Collaboration between modernity and tradition was crucial in the earlier phases of modern social development, but this phase was ended by the emergence of reflexive modernisation or high modernity. The reflexivity of modern life consists of the fact that social practices are constantly examined and reformed in the light of incoming information about those very practices, thus altering their character.

You make little mention of the post-modern - why?

We have not moved beyond modernity but are living precisely through a phase of its radicalisation. The term post-modernism is best kept for reference to styles or movements within literature, painting, the plastic arts, and architecture. It concerns aspects of aesthetic reflection upon the nature of modernity and how the modernist outlook in these areas has been displaced by other and so later – post-modernist – perspectives.

Reflexivity and reflexive modernisation

What is meant by 'reflexivity' and 'reflexive modernisation' and how do they operate?

Reflexive modernisation implies coming to terms with the limits and contradictions of the modern order. The existing social order or structure becomes the object of its own forces. The concept of reflexive modernisation does not simply imply reflection, but a self-confrontation created by the dynamics of modernisation. This reflexivity is created by the circumstances of modern society in which the constantly renewing flow of information constituting society simultaneously revises that society's modernity. This transition is the process of reflexive modernisation.

Reflexive monitoring of action, the process by which humanity keeps in touch with the grounds and reasons for its actions, as an integral element of doing it, is characteristic of human action. Tradition is a mode of integrating this reflexive monitoring of action and handling of time and space within the continuity of the past, present, and future of the community. In pre-modern societies reflexivity is largely limited to the reinterpretation and clarification of tradition. With modernity, reflexivity is introduced into the basis of system reproduction, such that thought and action are constantly refracted back on one another. Actions are legitimated not by their relation to tradition, but by their principled defence in the light of incoming knowledge. This changes the nature of the methods of validation and the source of authority, because this incoming knowledge has not been justified by tradition.

How do societal changes affect this process of knowledge creation?

This process is heightened with the emergence of the risk society and globalisation. The displacement of tradition and the influence of distant events on local affairs enhances reflexive modernisation because the unpredictable and unknown effects of the risk society cannot be reconciled to the institutionalised standards or interpreted by the expert systems of the existing society's modernity.

Risk Society

What is meant by the phrase 'risk society'?

Risk society is the term used to describe our modern society - where tradition has broken down, and scientific advances rather than nature, dominate our lives. The consequences of human actions on areas such as pollution, global warming, BSE, have introduced new sources of risk and uncertainty. These factors heighten the risk involved in making everyday decisions, and a central paradox to the risk society is that these risks are generated by the processes of modernisation trying to control them. In a risk society traditional certainties and securities can no longer be assumed. Increases in scientific knowledge lead to a more contingent society where the risks of anticipated events influence today's decisions.

There's always been risk - why is this new risk any different?

Risk can be divided into two types. External risk originates from events that happen frequently enough to be broadly predictable. It is something experienced as a cause derived from the fixities of tradition or nature – experienced in earlier times as bad harvests, floods or the plague. Manufactured risk is created by the very progression of human development, especially science and technology. It is an unknown quantity because there are no historical parameters against which to judge it, and it makes managing risk difficult. No-one can rely on answers from science because of the conflicting definitions of risk produced by the experts.

Sociology

What are the basic concepts of sociology and which thinkers does it stem from?

Sociology is the study of human social life, groups, and societies, giving special emphasis to modern industrialised systems. It is a discipline involving the ability to think imaginatively and one in which personal views of the world are set aside so we may look more carefully at the influences that shape our lives and those of others. Social structure is an important concept in sociology. The permanent construction and reconstruction of social life is based upon the meanings people attach to their actions. In sociological research it is important to distinguish between the intended and unintended results of human action. Sociology studies the resulting balance between social reproduction and social transformation. Social reproduction occurs because there is continuity in what people do. Social transformation – change – occurs because of intended action and unintended consequences.

Among the classical founders of sociology, four figures are particularly important: Auguste Comte (1798-1857), Émile Durkheim (1858-1917), Karl Marx (1818-83), and Max Weber (1864-1920). Comte and Marx established some of the basic issues of sociology, such as the nature of sociology and the impact of the development of modern societies on the social world, issues later elaborated on by Durkheim and Weber. Jürgen Habermas (b.1929) and Michel Foucault (1926-1984) are among the more important sociological thinkers of the present day. According to its founders, sociology is a science in the sense that it involves systematic methods of investigation and the evaluation of theories in the light of evidence and logical argument. But it cannot be modelled directly on the natural sciences, because studying human behaviour is in fundamental ways different from studying the world of nature.

Can we use sociology to help us make our daily decisions or is it only of theoretical interest?

Sociology is a subject with important practical implications for our lives. It can contribute to social criticism and practical social reform in several ways. First, the improved understanding of a given set of social circumstances often gives us all a better chance of controlling them and of understanding associated problems. Second, sociology provides the means of increasing our cultural sensitivities, allowing policies to be based on an awareness of divergent cultural values. Third, we can investigate the consequences (intended and unintended) of the adoption of particular policy programmes. Sociological research provides practical help in assessing the results of policy initiatives. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, sociology provides self-enlightenment and so increased self-understanding, offering groups and individuals an increased opportunity to alter the conditions of their own lives. The more we know about why we act as we do and the overall workings of society, the more likely we are to be able to influence our own futures.

Structuration theory

What is structuration theory?

The theory of structuration states that the basic domain of social science study is neither the experience of the individual, nor the existence of any form of societal totality, but social practices. Through social activities people reproduce the actions that make these practices possible.

What are the central concepts of structuration theory?

The core of structuration theory lies in the concepts of structure, system, and duality of structure. Structuration refers to the conditions governing the continuity or transmutation of structures, and therefore the reproduction of social systems. Structure refers to the rules and resources, or sets of transformation relations, organised as properties of social systems – the structuring properties allowing the binding of time and space in social systems. System refers to the reproduced relations between people organised as regular social practices. Structuring properties makes it possible for discernibly similar social practices to exist across varying spans of time and space. Analysing the structuration of social systems means studying the modes in which such systems are produced and reproduced in interaction. The constitution of agents and structures are not two independently given sets of phenomena, a dualism, but represent a duality. According to the notion of duality of structure, the structural properties of social systems are both medium and outcome.

For structuration theory, the moment of the production of action is also that of its reproduction. Structure is not external to the individual but rather almost internal, as memory traces. Structure has no existence independent of the knowledge agents have about what they do in their day-to-day activity, and the duality of structure is always the main grounding of continuities in social reproduction across time and space.

Third way politics

What distinguishes the third way from other political paths?

Third way politics looks for a new relationship between the individual and the community, and a redefinition of rights and obligations. It has a core concern for social justice, and promotes social inclusion and the fostering of an active civil society where community and state act in partnership. It seeks to revive civic culture, and looks for a synergy between public and private sectors, utilising the dynamism of markets but with the public interest in mind. Third way politics represents the renewal of social democracy.

Why is a third way necessary and isn't it just another name for left of centre politics?

Third way politics recognises that the range of questions which escape the old left/right divide in politics is greater than ever before. It operates in a world where the views of the old left have become obsolete, and those of the new right are inadequate and contradictory. It also stems from a radicalisation of the political centre. If left and right are considered less encompassing than they once were, the centre ground is no longer one of compromise between them, but the space for a new political force – what has been labelled the active middle, the radical centre. This implies that moderate left and centre left cannot be considered the same. A renewed social democracy must be left of centre, because emancipatory politics and social justice remain at its core, but the origins of this left are new.

Not to be confused with other, earlier uses of the term 'third way', third way politics refers to a framework of thinking and policy-making that seeks to adapt social democracy to a world which has changed fundamentally over the past two or three decades. It is a third way in the sense that it is an attempt to transcend both old-style social democracy and neo-liberalism.

The third way is not a compromise, or a new label on an old idea. It is a new and pragmatic response to the political issues facing society today. Third way politics is simply modernised social democracy – sustaining socialist values and applying them to a globalised world.

What are the third way's aims and fundamental principles?

The aim of third way politics is to help people negotiate the revolutions of our time – globalisation, transformations in personal life and institutions, and our relationship to nature. A fundamental feature of the new social contract pioneered in third way politics is 'no rights without responsibilities'.

A third way perspective:

1. Takes a positive attitude towards globalisation, although not an uncritical one. Globalisation is not the prime source of new inequalities.
2. Concerns itself both with equality and pluralism, placing an emphasis on a dynamic model of egalitarianism.
3. Tries to respond to changing patterns of inequality. The poor today are not the same as the poor of the past: they include proportionately more children and single parents, for example, and proportionately fewer older people. Likewise, the rich are not the same as they used to be.
4. Accepts that existing welfare systems, and the broader structure of the state, are the source of problems, not only the means of resolving them.
5. Emphasises that social and economic policy are intrinsically connected. Social spending has to be assessed in terms of its consequences for the economy as a whole.
6. Places a stress upon active welfare, coupled with labour market reform.
7. Concerns itself with mechanisms of exclusion at the bottom and the top. Redefining inequality in relation to exclusion at both levels is consistent with a dynamic conception of inequality.

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