Classical Sociology Beyond Methodological Nationalism defends classical sociology from the accusation of ‘methodological nationalism’. To reject such accusation, the volume presents three arguments. The first contends that classical sociology has not failed to deal with the global world (Part I). The second, that classical sociology has more frequently dealt with the transnational category of the ‘social’, rather than with the ‘national’ (Part II). The third, that where classical sociology has analysed national society, the latter has never been envisaged as a rigidly confined entity within its political boundaries (Part III). The outcome is a re-evaluation of classical sociological thought as a more functional tool for analysing the political forms of modernity in the era of globalisation. Contributors include: Vittorio Cotesta, David Inglis, Austin Harrington, Massimo Pendenza, Michael Schillmeier, Emanuela Susca, Dario Verderame, and Federico Trocini.

A Social Theory of the Nation-State 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.

Sociology for Durkheim was by no means a knowledge closed in its specificity. It was rather an open science, permeable to contributions coming from other disciplines. For him, the task of sociology was to study what held societies together, giving place to reflective change and progressive development. This is an epistemological and political model that still retains all its relevance today: an example to be rediscovered against any reductionist conception of the vocation and object of social sciences; an encouragement to see sociology as an indispensable protagonist for an authentic interdisciplinary dialogue in the field of humanities. It is one of the best legacies Durkheim left us, that this book attempts to illustrate.

While each chapter seizes the dialectic of enlightenment and counter-enlightenment at work in the global world, the volume insists on the moral, intellectual, structural, and historical resources that still make cosmopolitanism a real possibility even in these hard times.

Robert Michels (1876-1936) is best known for his 1911 book Political Parties, which is still a standard reference in political science debates. Michels' work sought to prove an "iron law of oligarchy" that governs the organisational evolution of democratic political parties. The work was closely informed by Michels' engagement with the German Social Democratic Party in the early 1900s, his involvement in radical politics in France and Italy in this period, and by his interest in a range of intellectual and social movements - including feminism, nationalism, racial theory, and the emerging disciplines of sociology and political science. Using archival and printed sources hitherto overlooked in work on Michels, this new study contests previous arguments which have sought to explain Michels as a disillusioned adherent of ideas of direct democracy or as an extremist moving from revolutionary syndicalism to fascism. The biographical and intellectual influences on Michels are shown to be more complex, and more transnational, than such schematic explanations have allowed. Andrew Bonnell sheds new light on Michels' relationship with the German Social Democratic Party and on his understanding of his own role as an intellectual in a workers' party. Bonnell also analyses Michels' problematical relationship with revolutionary syndicalism in France and Italy. Michels was connected to a possibly uniquely diverse network of intellectual and political contacts in pre-1914 Europe. This transnational intellectual history illuminates the intellectual worlds in which Michels moved and presents a new interpretation of his shift from the radical left of the spectrum to Italian fascism, an intellectual itinerary which has intrigued many historians.

Cross-border studies have become attractive for a number of fields, including international migration, studies of material and cultural globalization, and history. While cross-border studies have expanded, the critique on nation-centered research lens has also grown. This book revisits drawbacks of methodological nationalism in theory and methodological strategies. It summarizes research methodologies of the current studies on transnationalization and globalization, such as multi-scalar and transnational approaches, global and multi-sited ethnography, as well as the entangled history approach and the incorporating comparison approach. This collected volume goes beyond rhetorical criticism on methodological nationalism, which is mainly associated with the ignorance and naturalization of national categories. It proffers insights for the systematic implementation of novel research strategies within empirical studies deployed by young and senior scholars. The novelty lies in an interdisciplinary lens ranging from sociology, social anthropology and history.

Volume 1 of Theaters and Public Sphere in a Global and Digital Society inquires theatre, in all of its accepted meanings, in its relationship with society, institutions, cultural and local norms, and the collective imagination which these reveal.