Bücher der Reihe Sage Studies in International Sociology

Cutting edge handbook from the International Sociological Association. Wide in scope and full of global case studies.

In recent social and political theory the term 'civil society' has achieved renewed currency. This volume offers a critical examination of the normative sense of 'civil society'. It includes analyses of civil society and democracy, citizenship, race and ethnicity, and post-communism.

Internationally eminent contributors to this book focus on issues of social movements and social class from the perspective of collective action. An important addition to current debate, the text discusses such topics as: middle-class radicalism, racism, class, the institutionalization of movements, urban politics, citizenship, education and democracy.

The contributors to this volume offer both a measured reassessment of the experience of labour movements in the 1980s and a re-interpretation of their role in the new circumstances of the 1990s.

The last decade has witnessed a revival of interest in the problems of modernity and modernization. In particular, three major processes have emerged as objects of debate: " The transformations of capitalism manifested in globalization andthe unfolding of post-industrial society" The rapid and strong economic development of countries outside the West" The political and economic transformations in the post-Soviet countriesof Eastern Europe