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"An examination of the three unique structural features of modern societies: inclusion of the whole population into the nation state, top-down differentiation of institutional spheres and the expansion of individualisation from the top to the base of the social pyramid. The author shows how the above features relate to present day religious phenomena such as secularisation/desecularisation, the new religious movements and the forms of present day spiritualities. He examines the extent to which secularisation and rationalisation led to the "disenchantment of the world". Later, however, one observes a reaction to the established, hierarchically organised churches and to the adherence, mainly of young people, to less structured religious groups, to religious syncretism and to individual seekers who tried to find "their own God". From this perspective, one can argue that we have a partial "re-enchantment of the world""--

Cover -- Half Title -- Title Page -- Copyright Page -- Dedication -- Contents -- Acknowledgements -- Preface -- 1. A Theoretical Framework -- 2. Organizational Fatality -- 3. Failure Prediction Models -- 4. Maladies and Disorders -- 5. The Spiral of Decline -- 6. The Perils of Politics -- 7. Greed and Corruption -- 8. Corporate Crime -- 9. Crises and Fixations -- 10. Failing and Surviving -- 11. Disbandment and Closure -- 12. Lessons Learned -- References -- Index

"There is a growing conflict between modern and postmodern social theorists. The latter reject modern approaches as economistic, essentialist and often leading to authoritarian policies. Modernists criticize postmodern approaches for their rejection of holistic conceptual frameworks which facilitate an overall picture of how social wholes (organizations, communities, nation-states, etc.) are constituted, reproduced and transformed. They believe the rejection of holistic methodologies leads to social myopia - a refusal to explore critically the type of broad problems that classical sociology deals with. This book attempts to bridge the divide between these two conflicting perspectives and proposes a novel holistic framework which is neither reductionist/economistic nor essentialist. Modern and Postmodern Social Theorizing will appeal to scholars and students of social theory and of social sciences in general."--Jacket

This paper argues (a) that some of the present difficulties experienced by the sociology of development can be overcome by a macro comparative historical focus on the qualitative differences between the long term development of the capitalist centre and periphery, as well as on the strikingly different developmental trajectories to be seen within the third world; (b) that Marxism in general, and the dependency approach in particular, although more suitable than alternative paradigms for such a historical comparative task, present certain limitations that can only be dealt with by the creation of new tools for the study of the non-economic spheres (particularly the political).