the book conducts in-depth inquiries into the practices, nature and theory of postindustrial cultural work and the humanities – and arts – based civic dialogues which cultural work promotes. Given the broad neglect of utopian thinking in the mainstream of critical social science, and in an attempt to sketch out a vision of an alternative future, the aim of the book is to outline an epistemology for cultural work as well as to reflect upon the prospects for educational cultural work practices and their function as a catalyst for civic dialogue and cultural change. A major focus of the book is on the epistemological, ecological, ethical and political dimensions of cultural work. This includes the prospects for a new form of communal workspace for knowledge and cultural learning. Cultural work and knowledge are the central topics of this book and intersect with many of the concerns on how to involve the general public in scientific, technological and economic developments to address urgent changes often deemed to be of a highly scientific nature – including climate change, sustainability, environment and development.

In 1976, Daniel Bell's historical work predicted a vastly different society developing—one that will rely on the “economics of information” rather than the “economics of goods.” Bell argued that the new society would not displace the older one but rather overlie some of the previous layers just as the industrial society did not completely eradicate the agrarian sectors of our society. The post-industrial society's dimensions would include the spread of a knowledge class, the change from goods to services and the role of women. All of these would be dependent on the expansion of services in the economic sector and an increasing dependence on science as the means of innovating and organizing technological change.Bell prophetically stated in The Coming of the Post-Industrial Society that we should expect “… new premises and new powers, new constraints and new questions—with the difference that these are now on a scale that had never been previously imagined in world history.”

We are living in the age of imagination and communication. This book, about the new ways time is experienced and organised in post-industrial workplaces, argues that the key feature of working time within knowledge, and other workplaces, is unpredictability, creating a culture that seeks to insert acceptance of unpredictability as a new 'standard'.

Knowledge Workers in the Information Society addresses the changing nature of work, workers, and their organizations in the media, information, and knowledge industries. These knowledge workers include journalists, broadcasters, librarians, filmmakers and animators, government workers, and employees in the telecommunications and high tech sectors. Technological change has become relentless. Corporate concentration has created new pressures to rationalize work and eliminate stages in the labor process. Globalization and advances in telecommunications have made real the prospect that knowledge work will follow manufacturing labor to parts of the world with low wages, poor working conditions, and little unionization. McKercher and Mosco bring together scholars from numerous disciplines to examine knowledge workers from a genuinely global perspective.

Why care about the environment? Is the earth's climate really changing for the worse? What are CFCs exactly? And who or what is the WTO? What are the causes of environmental problems? Who are the main actors, and what are the main ideas and issues in international environmental politics? Which countries have the best/worst environmental record and policies? The International Encyclopedia of Environmental Politics is the essential reference source to enable all those with an interest in the politics of the environment - particularly students and academics working within political science - to answer these questions, and to explore many other related topics in international environmental politics. It will be welcomed as an essential teaching resource and a trusty companion to independent study. Written by a team of international experts, the Encyclopedia is vital for fact-checking, provides authoritative initial orientation to a particular topic or issue and will serve as a solid starting point for wider explanation. With over 300 fully cross-referenced entries, many of which are followed with suggestions for further reading, the Encyclopedia includes: * Country and regional entries, with country entries giving a concise overview of the history, main actors, issues and policies related to its environmental politics * Normative and ethical dimensions of environmental politics, from animal rights, social and global justice to deep ecology * Environmental movements, organizations, struggles and actors from local to international levels * Issues in international environmental politics such as global warming, biodiversity, trade and the environment * Prominent individuals (historical and current) who have inspired or been actively involved in international environmental politics - such as Mahatma Gandhi, Petra Kelly, Vandana Shiva and Aldo Leopold * Central topics and issues in environmental politics - such as global warming, globalization, wildlife preservation, eco-taxes, energy production and consumption, sustainable development and the World Trade Organisation

The past several decades have seen profound changes in the political landscapes of advanced industrial societies. This volume assesses key political developments and links them to underlying socioeconomic and cultural forces. These forces include the growth of a well-educated middle class, the moderating of bipolar class divisions between wealthy capitalists and struggling workers, and the accelerated rise of new media technologies (especially television) as potent tools shaping the terms of public discussion. Related political transformations include the spread of new social movements on feminist, environmental, and civil liberties issues; economic concerns focusing more on growth, taxes, and middle class programs than on redistribution; the fracturing of core left and right political ideologies; and the growing centrality of electronic media as carriers of political opinions and rhetoric. The past several decades have seen profound changes in the political landscapes of advanced industrial societies. This volume assesses key political developments and links them to underlying socioeconomic and cultural forces. These forces include the growth of a well-educated middle class, the moderating of bipolar class divisions between wealthy capitalists and struggling workers, and the accelerated rise of new media technologies (especially television) as potent tools shaping the terms of public discussion. Related political transformations include the spread of new social movements on feminist, environmental, and civil liberties issues; economic concerns focusing more on growth, taxes, and middle class programs than on redistribution; the fracturing of core left and right political ideologies; and the growing centrality of electronic media as carriers of political opinions and rhetoric. In their introduction, Terry Clark and Michael Rempel pull together many seemingly disparate political changes to construct a clear, synthetic framework, identifying eight core components of postindustrial politics. Part Two examines shifts in underlying cultural values. It features a lively exchange between different contributors over whether apolitical, materialistic values have risen or declined since the 1960s. Part Three offers an in-depth look at the political views and party allegiances of the growing middle classes and Part Four examines some of todays most divisive issues.Although primarily adopting a cross-national perspective, Citizen Politics in Post-Industrial Societies includes several case studies of politics in the United States and one in Japan. Unique in its synthetic vision, this volume will stimulate and challenge readers from across the political and theoretical spectrum.

Economic, technological, and sociopolitical changes have been transforming the cultures of advanced industrial societies in profoundly important ways during the past few decades. This ambitious work examines changes in religious beliefs, in motives for work, in the issues that give rise to political conflict, in the importance people attach to having children and families, and in attitudes toward divorce, abortion, and homosexuality. Ronald Inglehart's earlier book, The Silent Revolution (Princeton, 1977), broke new ground by discovering a major intergenerational shift in the values of the populations of advanced industrial societies. This new volume demonstrates that this value shift is part of a much broader process of cultural change that is gradually transforming political, economic, and social life in these societies. Inglehart uses a massive body of time-series survey data from twenty-six nations, gathered from 1970 through 1988, to analyze the cultural changes that are occurring as younger generations gradually replace older ones in the adult population. These changes have far-reaching political implications, and they seem to be transforming the economic growth rates of societies and the kind of economic development that is pursued.