Rich Weiner co-edited this featured volume with Francesca Forno. He is a political sociologist with a strong foundation in the history of political and social thought. He has served for twenty-two years as dean of the faculty of arts and sciences. His focus has been on non-statist political organizations and social movements with a perspective of middle-range theorizing enriched by three generations of Frankfurt School critical theory of society.
I wrote
Sustainable Community Movement Organizations: Solidarity Economies and Rhizomatic Practices
This volume shines a light on emergent non-hierarchical community-based socio-economic movements with alternative forms of consumption and production very much…
Countering a drifting away from an appreciation of the demos, the book encourages us to build a democratic constitutional political economy that renews traditions of egalitarianism and social rights rather than the recent neoliberalism’s imagined market-based orientation of freedom alone.
I like the way the book revives the American constitutional tradition of discourse emphasizing how constraint of the concentration of wealth is necessary to preserve a democratic republic.
A bold call to reclaim an American tradition that argues the Constitution imposes a duty on government to fight oligarchy and ensure broadly shared wealth.
Oligarchy is a threat to the American republic. When too much economic and political power is concentrated in too few hands, we risk losing the "republican form of government" the Constitution requires. Today, courts enforce the Constitution as if it had almost nothing to say about this threat. But as Joseph Fishkin and William Forbath show in this revolutionary retelling of constitutional history, a commitment to prevent oligarchy once stood at the center of a…
A collection of exceptional scholars explore what replaced the New Deal Order’s focus on economic justice at the end of the 1970s with a regime that came to be known as neoliberalism.
This very accessible book approaches the possibility of new forms of life known as solidarity economies and with it a turn toward social-economics.
I appreciate the attempt this history book makes to both take a long view and to create a conceptual framework regarding empirical cases.
Ever since introducing the concept in the late 1980s, historians have been debating the origins, nature, scope, and limitations of the New Deal order-the combination of ideas, electoral and governing strategies, redistributive social policies, and full employment economics that became the standard-bearer for political liberalism in the wake of the Great Depression and commanded Democratic majorities for decades. In the decline and break-up of the New Deal coalition historians found keys to understanding the transformations that, by the late twentieth century, were shifting American politics to the right.
In Beyond the New Deal Order, contributors bring fresh perspective to the…
Describes in depth a brave new world of uncertain constant acceleration and continued change in institutions and social relations.
I like the way Bauman depicts a condensing resonance, a new way of “being in the world.” Specifically, this is an increasing fluidity and fragmentation of social solidarities, where nothing is secure and where everything can be made redundant.
A world that Ulrich Beck, even before the new century, referred to as “the Second Modernity.”
In this new book, Bauman examines how we have moved away from a a heavya and a solida , hardware--focused modernity to a a lighta and a liquida , software--based modernity. This passage, he argues, has brought profound change to all aspects of the human condition. The new remoteness and un--reachability of global systemic structure coupled with the unstructured and under--defined, fluid state of the immediate setting of life--politics and human togetherness, call for the rethinking of the concepts and cognitive frames used to narrate human individual experience and their joint history. This book is dedicated to this task. Bauman…
Wide-ranging philosophical conversation and moral critique of capitalism as an instituted social order wherein a structure of domination establishes and reinforces an entire way of life attuned to the hegemony of exchange value as well as commodity production, and their social reproduction.
I very much appreciate the book’s strategy of cogent, accessible and explorative dialogue rather than tit-for-tat debate.
In this important new book, Nancy Fraser and Rahel Jaeggi take a fresh look at the big questions surrounding the peculiar social form known as "capitalism," upending many of our commonly held assumptions about what capitalism is and how to subject it to critique. They show how, throughout its history, various regimes of capitalism have relied on a series of institutional separations between economy and polity, production and social reproduction, and human and non-human nature, periodically readjusting the boundaries between these domains in response to crises and upheavals. They consider how these "boundary struggles" offer a key to understanding capitalism's…
A synoptic and synthetic exploration of “civil society” as a mode of governance with a degree of capacity/capability of coordinating the power of social relations and solidarities.
I very much like the book’s focus on networks and solidarity rather than the usual market versus state command binary.
Specifically, I appreciate how the book poses the issue: Can webs of governance – focused on new forms of legitimacy and solidarity – counter webs of capital accumulation uncoupled from territorial spatial boundaries?
Renowned social and political theorist Bob Jessop explores the idea of civil society as a mode of governance in this bold challenge to current thinking. Developing theories of governance failure and metagovernance, the book analyses the limits and failures of economic and social policy in various styles of governance. Reviewing the principles of self-emancipation and self-responsibilisation it considers the struggle to integrate civil society into governance, and the power of social networks and solidarity within civil society. With case studies of mobilisations to tackle economic and social problems, this is a comprehensive review of the factors that influence their success…
This volume shines a light on emergent non-hierarchical community-based socio-economic movements with alternative forms of consumption and production very much at their core. The essays in this collection explore new geographies of solidarity practices ranging from forms of horizontal democracy to interurban and transnational networks.
I’ve always been fascinated by group dynamics, large and small. Why things functioned well, why they didn’t. It’s possible my ability to empathize and use humor as a consensus-builder is the reason I was elected president of a homeowners association, a music production association, and even an agricultural group. Books were not particularly involved in this fascination! But in recent years, experiencing the breakdown of civility and trust in our political and cultural discourse, I’ve taken a more analytical view of the dynamics. These books, in their very different ways, have taught me lessons about life, understanding those with different beliefs, and finding ways to connect and move forward.
We’ve all experienced the overwhelming level of political and social divisiveness in our country. This invisible “virus” of negativity is, in part, the result of the name-calling and heated rhetoric that has become commonplace among commentators and elected leaders alike.
My book provides a clear perspective on the historical and modern-day causes of our nation's divisive state. It then proposes easy-to-understand solutions—an action plan for our elected leaders and citizens as well. Rather than a scholarly treatment of a complex topic, the book challenges us to take the obvious steps required of those living in a free democracy. And it…
Uniting the States of America: A Self-Care Plan for a Wounded Nation
Lyle Greenfield's "Uniting the States of America―A Self-Care Plan for a Wounded Nation" is a work of nonfiction and opinion. Incorporating the lessons of history and the ideas and wisdom of many, it is intended as both an educational resource and a call-to-action for citizens concerned about the politically and culturally divided state of our Union. A situation that has raised alarm for the very future of our democracy.
First, the book clearly identifies the causes of what has become a national crisis of belief in and love for our country. How the divisiveness and hostility rampant in our political…
