Suchergebnisse

"Die besondere Natur der Weltgesellschaft zeigt sich auch in einem sehr besonderen Verhältnis zur primären resp. als primär geltenden Natur. Neben - und in Verbindung mit - der allgemeinmenschlichen und insofern unvermeidlich 'formalen' Rationalität ist eine so verstandene Natur nämlich der wichtigste universelle Bezugsrahmen eines alle Menschen einschließenden und verbindenden Kommunikations- und Handlungszusammenhangs, und zwar in Gestalt der allgemeinmenschlichen Natürlichkeit (Leiblichkeit/ Sinnlichkeit/ elementare Emotionalität) einerseits, der natürlichen 'Umwelt' andererseits. Dies erklärt, warum Ernährung und Nahrungsmangel, Gesundheit, Krankheit und medizinische Versorgung, Sexualität und Sport ebenso zu vorherrschenden Themen der welt-gesellschaftlichen Kommunikation geworden sind wie ökologische Probleme und Naturkatastrophen. Der Prozess der Herausbildung einer erdumspannenden Weltzivilisation erweist sich insofern tatsächlich, und aus einsichtigen Gründen, als ein Prozess der 'Naturalisierung des Menschen'. Ob damit, wie Marx annahm, eine 'Humanisierung der Natur' einhergeht, erscheint fraglich. Jedenfalls ist unklar, was 'Humanisierung' bedeutet, wenn der weltgesellschaftlich existierende, also allgemeine Mensch sich selbst als Naturwesen auffasst - und auffassen muss." (Autorenreferat)

"World Society, World-Polity Theory, and International Relations" published on by Oxford University Press.

In taking up current discussions in IR, the article argues that behind the historical constitution of world society there is the still ongoing process of modernization. Based on sociological authors such as Marx, Elias and Weber, the concept supplements the classical dichotomy between tradition and modernity with Habermas's more recent sociological paradigm of the differentiation between system and lifeworld, thereby focusing on modern state formation and its implications for a political sociology of world society. Against the background of this theoretical framework, the article further addresses three interrelated issue complexes of international politics — the state of the nation-state, global community formation and the transnationalization of law. With this sociologically inspired approach to world society, the article aims at contributing to theoretical and empirical debates in both International Relations and development studies.

This article is an inquiry into the relationship between diplomacy and public imagination in world politics. Neither the conventional conceptions of diplomacy as the art or practice of negotiations among groups or states, nor more critical meditations on the mediation of conflictual narratives, it is argued, can adequately explain the very subjective foundations of diplomacy as a normative practice in world politics. This glaring oversight is in large part due to the lack of engagement with the varied contours of historical meaning and memory that condition human thoughts and relations in world society. Diplomacy, I argue, is very much implicated in the normative dictates of public imagination: namely, the public understanding of history which arises from the exclusionary-and hence often conflicting-cultural narratives about nationhood, justice, language, rights, personhood, et cetera that remain the perennial facts of human relations in world society. As such, the practice of diplomacy can be reconceived as a paradox: an intervention into, and an enabler of, exclusivist narrations of public imagination in world society. Adapted from the source document.

In the current attempt to develop a Global Political Sociology, the concept of functional differentiation increasingly attracts attention. Functional differentiation seems to promise an avenue to describe global processes beyond a methodological nationalism. In this contribution I argue that while we have already made some progress in describing the spatial implications of functional differentiation, less effort has been spent on the temporal side of the story. This contribution highlights this aspect and points to shifting temporalities in the context of finance and international law. This perspective suggests that many "governance problems" might be due to the clash of different temporalities co-existing in world society. Adapted from the source document.

Discusses the difficulties and obstacles in the path of a world society. Suggests that the greatest obstacle to this is the unbroken strength of nationalism. (Original abstract - amended)