In the first centuries of modernization in the West, the social world was described and thought of in terms of politics: order and disorder, king and country, the people and revolution. In the wake of the industrial revolution, capitalism freed itself from political power and gave birth to another paradigm, one that was both economic and social. We began to speak in terms of class and inequality, wages and strikes, wealth and its redistribution.

Today, in the age of a global economy and the triumph of the individual, globalization has shattered these old models of society. Each of us, caught up in processes of production and mass culture, strives to escape from them and to make ourselves the subject of our own lives. The new paradigm through which we try to make sense of these new preoccupations is cultural. The great questions of our age bear witness to this: how should we protect the rights of minorities? Should sexuality be placed at the centre of our lives? Are we witnessing a return to religion?

The old paradigms were oriented towards conquering the world; the new paradigm revolves around us. Just as we are faced with the breakdown of a world once run by men, we are now entering into a society of women.

As ever in the writings of Alain Touraine, the concern to give theoretical form to our social practices is nourished by life as it is actually lived, and everything thought through here refers back to the most everyday experiences of the globalized world in which we are currently living.

This book will be of primary interest to advanced undergraduates, graduates and

A.Touraine, Director, Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales

Translated by G.Elliot

Introduction: A New Paradigm

Part One: When We Referred to Ourselves in Social Terms

1 The Break

9/11

Fear

A world in decline

Where is meaning to be found?

2 Globalization

From the post-war states to the globalization of the economy

An extreme capitalism

The rupturing of societies

Alter-globalism

From society to war

A globalized world

3 Europe: A State without a Nation

The decline of the national state

Is European unity possible?

The EU and the USA

The European state

European powerlessness

The absence of a European consciousness

4 The End of Societies

The social representation of societies

The European mode of modernization

Society and modernity

The crisis of representation

The three deaths of European society

The irruption of democracy

The return of the political

Farewell to society

The war above us

When system and actors separate off

The rupturing of the social bond

Are we witnessing the end of social movements?

Conclusion

5 Revisiting the Self

What is modernity?

The victory of modernity

The end of social thinking

Emancipatory individualism

Forms of social determinism

From focusing on the world to focusing on the self

The awakening of the subject

Part Two: Now that We Refer to Ourselves in Cultural Terms

6 The Subject

The subject and identity

Sources of the subject

Defence of sociology

The individual subject

Rights

Are we all subjects?

The negation of the subject

A related note

The subject, social movements and the unconscious

Proximity

The subject and religion

The subject and the school

The experience of being a subject

The anti-subject

Between gods and societies

7 Cultural Rights

Political rights and cultural rights

Minorities, multiculturalism, communitarianism

Redistribution and recognition

The new social movements

Modernizations

Entry into the post-social world

Sexual rights

The limits of cultural mixing

About the 'veil'

Communities and communitarianisms

Liberals and communitarians

Secularism

Inter-cultural communication

Return to new ideas

8 A Society of Women

An altered situation

Equality and difference

Sexuality and gender

The woman-subject

The role of men

Post-feminism

The Argument: By Way of Conclusion

Bibliography

Name Index

Subject Index