"A new generation of truly global sociology, grappling with the contemporary world through the lenses of critique, contestation, and social movements. A significant contribution." - Göran Therborn, University of Cambridge "This is a truly global and politically challenging book, bringing together top level researchers and sharply tackling its themes. People from every corner of the planet and from all walks in the social sciences will surely profit from reading it." - Carolina Mera, University of Buenos Aires How can we link contemporary social processes – which have typically been theorized in terms of the concept of modernity – with contemporary social movements, conflicts, and mobilizations which aim at social change? This text: links the social theory of modernity to critical theory and to recent class and citizenship politics as well as to identity politics uses concrete social processes to illustrate theoretical discussion with relevant empirical studies and applies theoretical analysis to different interactions, tensions and possibilities to provide an integrated understanding of global modernity and social contestation includes contributions from distinguished international scholars working in sociological theory and modernity, as well as social movement studies and political contestation, with a strong emphasis on global issues This is a key resource for research in both social theory and the sociology of modernity, as well as social movements and social contestation, and readers interested in globalization and global studies.

"A new generation of truly global sociology, grappling with the contemporary world through the lenses of critique, contestation, and social movements. A significant contribution." - Göran Therborn, University of Cambridge "This is a truly global and politically challenging book, bringing together top level researchers and sharply tackling its themes. People from every corner of the planet and from all walks in the social sciences will surely profit from reading it." - Carolina Mera, University of Buenos Aires How can we link contemporary social processes – which have typically been theorized in terms of the concept of modernity – with contemporary social movements, conflicts, and mobilizations which aim at social change? This text: links the social theory of modernity to critical theory and to recent class and citizenship politics as well as to identity politics uses concrete social processes to illustrate theoretical discussion with relevant empirical studies and applies theoretical analysis to different interactions, tensions and possibilities to provide an integrated understanding of global modernity and social contestation includes contributions from distinguished international scholars working in sociological theory and modernity, as well as social movement studies and political contestation, with a strong emphasis on global issues This is a key resource for research in both social theory and the sociology of modernity, as well as social movements and social contestation, and readers interested in globalization and global studies.

This text provides a new approach to examining questions of modernization and modernity. It overhauls existing theories and concepts and applies them to the new social and economic conditions that define our age.

This authoritative book brings together the sociologies of globalization and the environment in one volume. Steven Yearley argues that environmental issues have received scant attention in the general debate on globalization even though environmentalists have been very successful in capturing the language and imagery of the globe.

Written with the clarity and insight that readers have come to expect of Mike Featherstone Undoing Culture is a notable contribution to our understanding of modernism and postmodernism. It explores the formation and deformation of the cultural sphere and the effects on culture of globalization. Against many orthodox postmodernist accounts,the author argues that it is wrong to regard our present state of fragmentation and dislocation as an epochal break. Existing interdependencies and power balances are not so easily broken down. Nonetheless some important cultural changes have occurred since World War II. In particular, the book examines some of the processes which have uncoupled culture from the social; the erosion of the ideal of the heroic life in the face of the onslaught from consumerism and the deformation of culture; and the rise of new forms of identity development. It explains why culture has gained a more significant role in everyday life and also why it has come to preoccupy the Academy in recent years. Mike Featherstone looks at the effects of the multiplication of cultural goods and images on our ability to read culture and develop fixed meanings and relationships. He highlights the importance of the global in attempting to cope with the objective difficulties of cultural overproduction. The book concludes that the rise of non-Western nation-states with different cultural frames produces different reactions of modernity, making it more appropriate to refer to global modernities.

This volume offers a synthesis of what is known about very large and very small common-pool resources. Individuals using commons at the global or local level may find themselves in a similar situation. At an international level, states cannot appeal to authoritative hierarchies to enforce agreements they make to cooperate with one another. In some small-scale settings, participants may be just as helpless in calling on distant public officials to monitor and enforce their agreements. Scholars have independently discovered self-organizing regimes which rely on implicit or explicit principles, norms, rules and procedures rather than the command and control of a central authority. The contributors discuss the possibilities and dangers of scaling up and scaling down. They explore the impact of the number of actors and the degree of heterogeneity among actors on the likelihood of cooperative behaviour.

In this book leading social scientists from many countries analyze the extent to which we are seeing a globalization of culture. Is a unified world culture emerging? And if so, how does this relate to existing cultural divisions and to the autonomy of the nation state? Differing explanations are offered for trends towards global unification and their relation to an economic world-system. Will the intensification of global contact produce increasing tolerance of other cultures? Or will an integrating culture produce sharper reactions in the form of fundamentalist and nationalist movements? The contributors explore the emergence of `third cultures', such as international law, the financial markets and media conglomerates, as