Details

Rearticulating critical theory with a contemporary focus, this book investigates how the conditions of democratic statehood have changed at key historical intervals since 1945. It argues that a sociological approach is needed to address conceptual deficits and explain how the mechanisms of democratic statehood can be updated today.

Introduction
1 Reconsidering the theoretical preconditions of modern democratic statehood: on mediated unity and overarching legal-political form
2 Mediated unity in question: on the relation between law, politics, and other social systems in modern societies
3 Functional differentiation <i>and</i> mediated unity in question: looming constitutional conflicts between the de-centralist logic of FD and the bio-political steering of austerity and global governance
4 Dilemmas of contemporary statehood: on the sociological paradoxes of weak dialectical formalism and embedded neo-liberalism
5 Re-thinking inclusion beyond unity and mediation beyond discretionary steering: on social systems and societal constitutions
Conclusion: democratic state, capitalist society, or dysfunctional differentiation?
Index

Darrow Schecter is Professor of Critical Theory and Modern European History at the University of Sussex

<b>'Sociological theory often seems remote from the everyday realities of coping with economic and democratic crises. Darrow Schecter gives the lie to that prejudice, showing through a careful, thoughtful, and original analysis how contemporary sociology can throw light on major issues often regarded as the monopoly of economists and political scientists.'</b>
<i>Colin Crouch, FBA, University of Warwick</i>

<b>'Darrow Schecter offers a convincing analysis of the distinct variants of populism and transnational constitutionalism in contemporary world society. He invites readers to rethink the future of western democracies at a time when the key institutions of statehood are clearly involved in a process of significant transition.'</b>
<i>Alberto Febbrajo, University of Macerata</i>

Democracy in the twenty-first century faces numerous challenges, with populism, neoliberalism, and globalisation being three of the most pressing. <i>Critical theory and sociological theory</i> explores and addresses these challenges by investigating how the conditions of democratic statehood have been altered at key intervals since 1945. At a time when mediations between citizens and statehood are rapidly changing, it argues that a sociological approach is urgently needed to address conceptual deficits and explain how the formal mechanisms of democratic statehood can be complemented and updated.