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How relevant are figures from the classical sociological canon for present day efforts to found cosmopolitan forms of sociological thought? According to the critique of Ulrich Beck, the classical sociologists remain far too wedded to nation-state-centred ways of thinking to play an important role in the development of cosmopolitan sociology. This paper argues that such a critique fails to account for the ways in which certain classical sociologists were attuned to the emerging cosmopolitical conditions of their own time, were not wholly wedded to nation-state-based conceptualizations, and thus can function as both groundings of, and inspirations for, cosmopolitan sociological endeavours. The apparently unpromising case of Tönnies is focused on, the paper showing how he outlined an account of how and why a planet-spanning condition of Gesellschaft developed a position which diverges from and counterpoints Marx's analysis of similar phenomena in important ways. The stereotype of Tönnies as an arch-conservative is also dissolved, allowing him to be considered as one of the most important antecedents of contemporary cosmopolitan sociological practice and a canonical figure still relevant for present-day purposes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The German business system has been regarded as a particularly tightly coupled system, with embeddedness of even multinational companies (MNCs) in their home base as particularly deep. A study of the impact of companies’ changing internationalization, if not globalization, strategies is therefore especially suited to test competing claims about their effects on the German business system. Are we experiencing an erosion of this system, an adaptation in a largely path-dependent way, or even a greater specialization and stronger crystallization of the German business system? To investigate these questions, the paper examines a small number of German MNCs in their domestic and international context. More particularly, the work focuses on whether and how their emergent globalization activities affect the reproduction or erosion of the three institutional complexes which shape the factors of production: the financial system; the innovation system; and the industrial relations system. The paper concludes that a new type of transformation – hybridization – is emerging. It is regarded as a consequence of German companies’ growing integration into a global economic system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper begins by noting a number of recent trends which challenge the self- contained autonomy of the nation-state, and the recent conceptualization of such trends in terms of 'globalization', a concept which is hard to fault, embracing as it does so many ambiguities and contradictions. Much related sociological work has focused on the cultural and economic dimensions of globalization, although one of its defining features is the emergence of multinational and transnational institutions. In the traditional intellectual division of labour it has fallen to our neighbour disciplines of law, international relations and political science to consider the substantive detail of such institutional developments. The present paper investigates their sociological significance, through a preliminary exploration of the issues raised by international population flows and policy responses in the context of the European Union (EU). Minimally, it proffers an account of the global/national tension noted in much of the globalization literature and apparent in the policy and politics of migration. More critically, this account attempts an assessment of quite how `post-national' Europe really is, and whether 'globalization' offers any help in unravelling the complexity of empirical evidence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the impact of the post-Cold War era on the social structure of the armed forces of the advanced societies. The end of the Cold War is viewed as one aspect of a broader social transformation. These 'New Times' are defined in terms of the growth of risk complexity, globalization, the relocation of political authority to transnational and subnational agencies, challenges to national sovereignty, and the impact of globalized communications on the relationship between politics and public opinion. The paper shows how armed forces are seeking to redefine their role and redesign their structures in order to address the inter- national and domestic challenges posed by these 'New Times'. The range of missions is being broadened and significant changes in the co-ordination of military and political decision-making are taking place. In response to strategic and financial pressures, armed forces are not only becoming smaller, they are also seeking to achieve greater flexibility in their organization structures. At the same time, armed forces have to respond to pressures from wider society to conform to civilian values such as social equality, as is reviewed in current debates on the position of women and homosexual personnel in the services. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Western theoretical traditions can benefit from systematic engagement with non- Western concepts: This is shown through an analysis of the Chinese concept guanxi. After considering the general nature of guanxi, including its possible association with corrupt practices and its particular cultural characteristics, the paper goes on to identify the elements of its general form which have universal representation. The possibility of conceiving guanxi as a variant form of social capital is explored. This shows the way in which both the expressive and instrumentalized forms of guanxi indicate otherwise neglected aspects of social and economic relationships not always recognized and addressed by analogous terms current in social theory but which are none the less important for its advancement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper introduces the special issue of the British Journal of Sociology on the subject of the transnational aspects of Olympic and world sport. The special issue is underpinned by the perspective that because sport provides a space for the forging of transnational connections and global consciousness, it is increasingly significant within contemporary processes of globalization and the making of transnational society. In this article, we examine in turn eight social scientific themes or problems that are prominent within the special issue: globalization, glocalization, neo-liberal ideologies and policies, transnational society, securitization, global civil society, transnational/global public sphere, and fantasy/imagination. We conclude by highlighting five 'circles' of future research inquiry within world sport that should be explored by social scientists. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides a sociological model of the key transnational political and economic forces that are shaping the 'global football field'. The model draws upon, and significantly extends, the theory of the 'global field' developed previously by Robertson. The model features four quadrants, each of which contains a dominant operating principle, an 'elemental reference point', and an 'elemental theme'. The quadrants contain, first, neo-liberalism, associated with the individual and elite football clubs; second, neo-mercantilism, associated with nation-states and national football systems; third, international relations, associated with international governing bodies; and fourth, global civil society, associated with diverse institutions that pursue human development and/or social justice. We examine some of the interactions and tensions between the major institutional and ideological forces across the four quadrants. We conclude by examining how the weakest quadrant, featuring global civil society, may gain greater prominence within football. In broad terms, we argue that our four-fold model may be utilized to map and to examine other substantive research fields with reference to globalization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Compressed modernity is a civilizational condition in which economic, political, social and/or cultural changes occur in an extremely condensed manner in respect to both time and space, and in which the dynamic coexistence of mutually disparate historical and social elements leads to the construction and reconstruction of a highly complex and fluid social system. During what Beck considers the second modern stage of humanity, every society reflexively internalizes cosmopolitanized risks. Societies (or their civilizational conditions) are thereby being internalized into each other, making compressed modernity a universal feature of contemporary societies. This paper theoretically discusses compressed modernity as nationally ramified from reflexive cosmopolitization, and, then, comparatively illustrates varying instances of compressed modernity in advanced capitalist societies, un(der)developed capitalist societies, and system transition societies. In lieu of a conclusion, I point out the declining status of national societies as the dominant unit of (compressed) modernity and the interactive acceleration of compressed modernity among different levels of human life ranging from individuals to the global community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper illustrates how varieties of cosmopolitanism are shaped through a mutually constitutive set of cultural dispositions and institutional practices that emerge at the interstices of global human right norms and local legal practices. Converging pressures of 'cosmopolitan imperatives' and the multiplicity of particularized manifestations are co-evolving in the context of intercrossings during which distinctive cosmopolitanisms are established. This complex relationship of global normative expectations and their local appropriations is elucidated through the dynamic of recursive cosmopolitization. Suggesting that, local problems are resolved with recourse to global prescriptions while local solutions are inscribed in international institutions consolidating the global Human Rights Regime. The Argentinean case carries conceptual and empirical weight as it underscores the recursivity of cosmopolitization by calibrating the tensions of universalism and particularism at the intersection of global, national and regional scales. Argentina is a paradigmatic instantiation for how cosmopolitanism can emanate in the periphery as local problems are globalized. This, in turn, has resulted in the institutionalization of a global Human Rights Regime which exercises normative and political-legal pressures on how states legitimately deal with human rights abuses. It is this cosmopolitan balance, rather than presuppositions of universalistic exogenous pressures or particularistic national exceptions, which is shaping the cultural and political relevance of human rights norms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The work of Ulrich Beck has been important in bringing sociological attention to the ways issues of risk are embedded in contemporary globalization, in developing a theory of 'reflexive modernization', and in calling for social science to transcend 'methodological nationalism'. In recent studies, he and his colleagues help to correct for the Western bias of many accounts of cosmopolitanism and reflexive modernization, and seek to distinguish normative goals from empirical analysis. In this paper I argue that further clarification of this latter distinction is needed but hard to reach within a framework that still embeds the normative account in the idea that empirical change has a clear direction. Similar issues beset the presentation of diverse patterns in recent history as all variants of 'second modernity'. Lastly, I note that ironically, given the declared 'methodological cosmopolitanism' of the authors, the empirical studies here all focus on national cases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cosmopolitanism is the focus of much current debate. This literature, however, is marked by a relative paucity of detailed research that examines the impact of cosmopolitanism as a social force within different societies. In particular, two topics that have received little attention despite their utter importance for current global challenges are the scale and impact of cosmopolitanism in China and the significance of ‘cosmopolitan innovation’. This paper explores both on the basis of evidence from over 70 interviews with parties involved in low-carbon innovation, a field that may be considered to be particularly propitious for cosmopolitan motivation. We argue that there is distinct evidence of cosmopolitanism in China but that this is a relatively fragile and elite development, despite China's increasingly deep integration into global networks and flows. Furthermore, the cosmopolitanism in evidence is a distinctly Chinese version, thereby offering important lessons regarding the nature of cosmopolitanism per se and the reciprocal challenge of China to the existing cosmopolitanism of the global North. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A joint concern with multidimensionality and dynamics is a defining feature of the pervasive use of the terminology of social exclusion in the European Union. The notion of social exclusion focuses attention on economic vulnerability in the sense of exposure to risk and uncertainty. Sociological concern with these issues has been associated with the thesis that risk and uncertainty have become more pervasive and extend substantially beyond the working class. This paper combines features of recent approaches to statistical modelling of poverty dynamics and multidimensional deprivation in order to develop our understanding of the dynamics of economic vulnerability. An analysis involving nine countries and covering the first five waves of the European Community Household Panel shows that, across nations and time, it is possible to identify an economically vulnerable class. This class is characterized by heightened risk of falling below a critical resource level, exposure to material deprivation and experience of subjective economic stress. Cross-national differentials in persistence of vulnerability are wider than in the case of income poverty and less affected by measurement error. Economic vulnerability profiles vary across welfare regimes in a manner broadly consistent with our expectations. Variation in the impact of social class within and across countries provides no support for the argument that its role in structuring such risk has become much less important. Our findings suggest that it is possible to accept the importance of the emergence of new forms of social risk and acknowledge the significance of efforts to develop welfare states policies involving a shift of opportunities and decision making on to individuals without accepting the ‘death of social class’ thesis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the widely accepted consequences of globalization is the development of individual outlooks, behaviours and feelings that transcend local and national boundaries. This has encouraged a re-assessment of important assumptions about the nature of community, personal attachment and belonging in the face of unprecedented opportunities for culture, identities and politics to shape, and be shaped by, global events and processes. Recently, the upsurge of interest in the concept of cosmopolitanism has provided a promising new framework for understanding the nexus between cosmopolitan dispositions and global interconnectedness across cultural, political and economic realms. Using data from a representative social survey of Australians this paper investigates the negotiation of belonging under the conditions of globalization. The data tap into attitudes and behaviours associated with a broad gamut of cosmopolitan traits in the domains of culture, consumption, human rights, citizenship, and international governance. They show how cosmopolitan outlooks are shaped by social structural factors, and how forms of identification with humanity and the globe are fractured by boundaries of self and others, threats and opportunities, and the value of things global and local. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper presents some key findings of qualitative research with older primary school children in Wales on their attachments to places and cultures. There is discussion of children's perspectives on the global, national and local arenas. We argue both that there are continuities with adult perspectives and that the children's views on place and identity need to be understood in the context of the social location of middle childhood. The study shows children making relatively little use of culturally-filled categories of local, national and global place-identifications. The differences they articulate are largely framed in terms of divisions between groups of people rather than in the characteristics of place, and generally related back to the self. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The concept of generation within sociology has until recently been a marginal area of interest. However, various demographic, cultural and intellectual developments have re-awakened an interest in generations that started with the classic essay by Karl Mannheim. To date, the sociological literature has generally conceptualized generations as nationally bounded entities. In this paper we suggest that the sociology of generations should develop the concept of global generations. This conceptual enhancement is important because the growth of global communications technology has enabled traumatic events, in an unparalleled way, to be experienced globally. The late nineteenth and early twentieth century was the era of international generations, united through print media, and the mid-twentieth century saw the emergence of transnational generations, facilitated by new broadcast communications. However, the latter part of the twentieth century is the period of global generations, defined by electronic communications technology, which is characterized, uniquely, by increasing interactivity. The 1960s generation was the first global generation, the emergence of which had world-wide consequences; today with major developments in new electronic communications, there is even more potential for the emergence of global generations that can communicate across national boundaries and through time. If in the past historical traumas combined with available opportunities to create national generations, now globally experienced traumas, facilitated by new media technologies, have the potential for creating global generational consciousness. The media have become increasingly implicated in the formation of generational movements. Because we are talking about generations in the making rather than an historical generation, this article is necessarily speculative; it aims to provoke discussion and establish a new research agenda for work on generations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The concept of 'identity' is central to much contemporary sociology, reflecting a crisis that manifests itself in two ways. Firstly, there is a view that identity is both vital and problematic in this period of high modernity. Secondly, while this awareness is reflected in sociology, its accounts of identity are inconsistent, under-theorized and incapable of bearing the analytical load required. As a result, there is an inherent contradiction between a valuing of identity as so fundamental as to be crucial to personal well-being, and a theorization of 'identity' that sees it as something constructed, fluid, multiple, impermanent and fragmentary. The contemporary crisis of identity thus expresses itself as both a crisis of society, and a crisis of theory. This paper explores the diverse ways in which 'identity' is deployed before turning to case-studies of its use by Anthony Giddens and Manuel Castells. This strategy demonstrates the widespread and diverse concern with identity before exploring how problematic it has become, even in the work of two of the world's leading sociologists. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Convergence of policies and institutions across countries has been a recurrent theme within social sciences. 'Old' and 'new' convergence hypotheses have been associated with changing concepts and catchwords, such as modernization, logic of industrialism, post-industrialism, post-Fordism and globalization, but share some underlying theoretical perspectives. The purpose of this paper is to analyse tendencies towards convergence of social insurance systems in 18 OECD countries between 1930 and 1990, a period which has seen our sample of countries develop from predominantly agricultural societies to industrial or post-industrial market democracies. Data from the Social Citizenship Indicator Program (SCIP) are used to examine the development of institutional variables within the various national social insurance systems. Sub-samples of larger and smaller countries are examined separately, in order to test the open-economy hypothesis that smaller countries, being more exposed to international pressures than larger ones, could be expected to show higher degrees of social protection and also more convergence. Hypotheses on differentiated institutional barriers against pressures from the processes of transnationalization of the economy, as well as possible convergence effects of the supra-national policy making within the European Union, are discussed in the last section. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the BSE problem as an example of the 'globalization of risk'. In order to determine whether the 'globalization of risk' is a social construction depending on the context, the paper emphasizes the particular role of organizations. It makes an empirical comparison of the BSE-related risk-constructions of five business associations in the German meat industry sector. The results show that the associations construct the risk in close relation to their horizons of globalization, thereby reflecting provision problems, which the companies they are representing face. While the main organizational domains in the sector tried to cope with the risk problem by different means of local market 'closure', one association, founded in reaction to the BSE problem, took over a 'reflexive' role with regard to the emerging risk communication on BSE in Germany. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The understanding of the European Union poses a challenge for Sociology and its traditional conceptions of the state. In particular, the impact of the social dimension has been underestimated and undervalued. This paper explores the implications of the developing social dimension of the European Union for European social relations in the context of globalization which allegedly reduces the power of states to act effectively in the social realm. It argues for a broader conceptualization of the social dimension and for a new conception of the regulatory state. It argues that the significance of a politico-legal project social justice. It concludes with a re-consideration of the powers of the state in an era of globalization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]