This innovative book provides new perspectives on the globalization of knowledge and the notion of hegemonic sciences. Tying together contributions of authors from all across the world, it challenges existing theories of hegemonic sciences and sheds new light on how they have been and are being constructed. Examining more closely the notions of 'human rights' and 'individualization', this much-needed volume offers new and alternative ideas on how to transform the universalization of the Western model of science and can serve as an eye-opener for all those interested in non-hegemonic scientific discourse. This book is published within the Series 'Beyond the Social Sciences'.

The European social sciences tend to absorb criticism that has been passed on the European approach and re-label it as a part of what the critique opposes; criticism of European social sciences by “subaltern” social sciences, their “talking back”, has become a frequent line of reflection in European social sciences. The re-labelling of the critique of the European approach to social sciences towards a critique from “Southern” social sciences of “Western” social sciences has somehow turned “Southern” as well as “Western” social sciences into competing contributors to the same “globalizing” social sciences. Both are no longer arguing about the European approach to social sciences but about which social thought from which part of the globe prevails. If the critique becomes a part of what it opposes, one might conclude that the European social sciences are very adaptable and capable of learning. One might, however, also raise the question whether there is anything wrong with the criticism of the European social sciences; or, for that matter, whether there is anything wrong with the European social sciences themselves. The contributions in this book discuss these questions from different angles: They revisit the mainstream critique of the European social sciences, and they suggest new arguments criticizing social science theories that may be found as often in the “Western” as in the “Southern” discourse.

Confucianism and Reflexive Modernity offers an excellent example of a dialogue between East and West by linking post-Confucian developments in East Asia to a Western idea of reflexive modernity originally proposed by Ulrich Beck, Anthony Giddens, and Scott Lash in 1994. The author makes a sharp confrontation with the paradigm of Asian Value Debate led by Lee Kwan-Yew and defends a balance between individual empowerment and flourishing community for human rights, basically in line with Juergen Habermas, but in the context of global risk society, particularly from an enlightened perspective of Confucianism. The book is distinguished by sophisticated theoretical reflection, comparative reasoning, and solid empirical argument concerning Asian identity in transformation and the aspects of reflexive modernity in East Asia.

This edited volume assesses governance innovation and institutional change under the fifth generation of China’s political leaders headed by Xi Jinping. The configuration of long-term policy innovation without regime change requires skilled political actors who secure strategic majorities and set up coalitions to design and launch new policies. Recalibrations or reconfigurations of the governance model respond to domestic reform pressures or external shocks in order to secure regime survival. Given that most structural constraints and reform pressures do not arise out of a sudden, the thrilling question is why the political elites sometimes decide not to engage in institutional reforms despite of widespread societal support for major restructuring and why they suddenly launch institutional changes in times of relative stability. The authors address these issues by focusing on basic patterns and paradigms of governance and institutional change in China, the actors and drivers of governance innovation, as well as the impact of norms, values, and socio-cognitive orientations. This is added by some reflections on the interplay between abstract ideas, reform debates, and the making of concrete decisions as outlined by the Third Plenum on (socio-)economic reforms in 2013 and the Fourth Plenum on rule-based governance (fazhi) in 2014.

Within a movement towards the circulation and globalisation of knowledge, new centres and new peripheries form and new hierarchies appear - more or less discretely - producing competition and rivalry in the development of “new” knowledge. Centres of gravity in social sciences have been displaced towards Asia, especially China. We have entered a period of de-westernization of knowledge and co-production of transnational knowledge. This is a scientific revolution in the social sciences which imposes detours, displacements, reversals. It means a turning point in the history of social sciences. From the Chinese experience in sociology the author is opening a Post-Western Space where after Post-Colonial Studies, she is speaking about the emergence of a Post-Western Sociology.

Although sociology is present as a discipline or as a social practice in most countries in the world, its future as a not-only Western social science has hardly been addressed before. In this book, a team of interdisciplinary scholars have been working together not so much to offer one single response to the question than to raise important issues at stake for the future of sociology. Is it universal? Can it be indigenous? How is it possible – and is it even desirable – to write its history differently so as to know better about its early world diffusion and gradual Westernization? Do we need to expand or change its canon? This collection brings together essays that are all engaged in international discussions concerning the universality of sociology, or more precisely the epistemological and theoretical conditions of this universality. The postcolonial and decolonial critiques of the Eurocentrism of sociology are the basis for a reflection on how to continue to do sociology in a non-hegemonic way. That is, sociological ways of describing reality - including the history of sociology and its canon - that are not limited by Western-centrism or other nationalist or religious hegemonies.

The current social reality and changing global forces and spaces are inspiring the rethinking, refining, and re-empowering of the world social sciences to broach the frontiers of human knowledge, enhance mutual understanding across cultures and civilizations, and shape a better world. Taking Tsinghua University’s sociology as a case, this book concentrates on how internationalization shapes disciplinary development in a global context of asymmetrical academic relations. This inquiry is set amidst China’s dramatic economic, social, political, and cultural transformations, as well as the institutional reforms in this Chinese flagship university. This book seeks to probe how Chinese and Western knowledge, institutions, and cultures are integrated in the ongoing process of internationalization and concentrates on the disciplinary evolution of Tsinghua’s sociology—intellectually, institutionally, and culturally—drawing on top-down higher education policy and bottom-up perceptions and experiences of Tsinghua’s social scientists. This book highlights that higher education internationalization is an evolving process whose advanced phase would require Chinese social scientists to bring China to the world. It is time for Tsinghua University to reassess the long-term impact of internationalization on its academic disciplines and provide sufficient support for the development of the social sciences.This book will attract academics, practitioners, and postgraduate students interested in higher education internationalization, international academic relations, global constellation and distribution of academic power, academic knowledge production, and the development and intellectual influences of the Chinese social sciences.