A Social Theory of the Nation-State

The Political Forms of Modernity Beyond Methodological Nationalism
1. Auflage 2007
ISBN: 978-0-415-39914-2
Verlag: Taylor & Francis Ltd

Buch, Englisch, 206 Seiten, Format (B × H): 156 mm x 234 mm, Gewicht: 431 g

Reihe: Critical Realism: Interventions Routledge Critical Realism

A Social Theory of the Nation-State: the political forms of modernity beyond methodological nationalism, construes a novel and original social theory of the nation-state. It rejects nationalistic ways of thinking that take the nation-state for granted as much as globalist orthodoxy that speaks of its current and definitive decline.

Its main aim is therefore to provide a renovated account of the nation-state’s historical development and recent global challenges via an analysis of the writings of key social theorists. This reconstruction of the history of the nation-state into three periods:

- classical (K. Marx, M. Weber, E. Durkheim)

- modernist (T. Parsons, R. Aron, R. Bendix, B. Moore)

- contemporary (M. Mann, E. Hobsbawm, U. Beck, M. Castells, N. Luhmann, J. Habermas)

For each phase, it introduces social theory’s key views about the nation-state, its past, present and future. In so doing this book rejects methodological nationalism, the claim that the nation-state is the necessary representation of the modern society, because it misrepresents the nation-state’s own problematic trajectory in modernity. And methodological nationalism is also rejected because it is unable to capture the richness of social theory’s intellectual canon. Instead, via a strong conception of society and a subtler notion of the nation-state, A Social Theory of the Nation-State tries to account for the ‘opacity of the nation-state in modernity’.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Chernilo, Daniel

Fachgebiete

• Sozialwissenschaften Soziologie | Soziale Arbeit Soziologie Allgemein Gesellschaftstheorie
• Sozialwissenschaften Politikwissenschaft Politische Systeme Staats- und Regierungsformen, Staatslehre

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Introduction Part 1: Understanding the Nation-State 1. The Critique of Methodological Nationalism: A Debate in Two Waves 2. A Claim to Universalism: Breaking the Equation between the Nation-State and Society Apart Part 2: Classical Social Theory 3. Karl Marx (1818-1883): The Rise of Capitalism and the Historical Elusiveness of the Nation-State 4. Max Weber (1864-1920): Politics and the Sociological Equivocations of the Nation-State 5. Emile Durkheim (1857-1917): Moral Universalism and the Normative Ambiguity of the Nation-State Part 3: Modernist Social Theory 6. Talcott Parsons (1902-1979): The Totalitarian Threat to the Nation-State 7. Raymond Aron (1905-1983), Barrington Moore (1913-2005) and Reinhardt Bendix (1916-1991): Industrialism and the Historicity of the Nation-State Part 4: Contemporary Social Theory 8. Michael Mann (1942- present) and Eric Hobsbawm (1919- present): Classes, Nations and Different Conceptions of the Nation-State 9. Manuel Castells (1942- present) and Globalization Theorists: The 'Definitive' Decline of the Nation-State 10. Niklas Luhmann (1927-1998) and Jurgen Habermas (1929- present): World Society, Cosmopolitanism and the Nation-state. Closing Remarks

Über Autor(innen)

Daniel Chernilo is an Associate Professor of Sociology at the University Alberto Hurtado in Chile and a Fellow of the Centre for Social Theory at the University of Warwick in England.