VCH – Political Sociology for a Globalizing World

This accessible book addresses one of the twenty-first century’smost important issues: the increasing lack of connection betweenpolitical institutions and the social reality of our everydaylives. A gulf between popular expectations and formal politics haswidened continually since the revolts against authority of 1968,the Eastern European revolutions of 1989 and the growth of newsocial movements. Today, popular disillusion with politics isubiquitous. Enormous social transformations on a global scale sincethe 1970s have produced no fundamental change in what areconsidered normal political institutions such as the state, or inmainstream political ideologies and parties.

This book provides tools to understand the apparent irrelevanceof formal political institutions and practices to social life. Inorder to enable us to begin to rethink the relations betweenpolitics and society, Michael Drake ably synthesises the newtheoretical developments that social transformations have produced,including the analysis of power, representation, social identities,social movements, sovereignty, statehood, globalization,revolution, risk and security. Ultimately, the book explores theemergent potentialities and problems of this new politics in aworld of continuous transformation, where the parameters of thepolitical are continuously shifting.

Chapter 1: Political Sociology and Social Transformation.

Chapter 2: Theorizing Power.

Chapter 3: From Identity Politics to the Politics ofRepresentation.

Chapter 4: Sovereignty and the State.

Chapter 5: Citizens, Nations and Nationalisms.

Chapter 6: Civil Society and the Public Sphere.

Chapter 7: Social Movements.

Chapter 8: Risk and Securitization.

Chapter 9: Cosmopolitanisms and Post-National Formations.

Chapter 10: War, Terror and Security.

Conclusion.

Bibliography.

“Drake has brought political sociology into the 21st century with this textbook. Essential.”
Choice

“Drake calls for a political sociology which will be critical to concepts inherited from modernity, and responsive to current transformations in politics and society. Drake’s research interests in political and historical sociology, politics and culture, war studies, and collective memory establish a vivid interdisciplinary ground for this introductory book: the author’s broad knowledge of contemporary social theory, his careful observations of political events, and sociological imagination to link the two are clearly evident throughout the work.”
Ideology and Politics

“This is an essential disciplinary update for all political sociologists and an exciting guide for all lay observers of politics. Drake offers a fresh look at the world of contemporary politics – itself a contested territory – at a time of global terrorist threats, mass mobilizations, spot insurgencies, spreading democratic aspirations and rapidly changing super-power relations.”
Jan Pakulski, University of Tasmania

“Political Sociology for a Globalizing World turns away from the standard approaches of the good old days to engage contemporary social conditions in depth. Drake’s focus on present-day political phenomena, particularly the central themes of sovereignty, citizenship, the state, and globalization, makes this work stand out as a text.”
Howard Winant, University of California, Santa Barbara

“Michael Drake has discarded many of the conventions of introductory textbooks.
Instead he engages the reader in a challenging set of arguments; an invitation to think and to argue. Political sociology is presented not as a set of perspectives, but as a lively intellectual reflection on key event: May 68, 1989, 9/11.”
Alan Scott, University of Innsbruck

Michael Drake is a Lecturer in Sociology at the University of Hull

M. Drake, Senior Lecturer, University of Hull