Suchergebnisse

A review article on books by: Jurgen Habermas, The Philosophical Discourse of Modernity; & John F. Rundell, Origins of Modernity: The Origins of Modern Social Theory from Kant to Hegel to Marx (for each, Cambridge: Polity Press, 1987 [see listings in IRPS No. 58]). Ways that these works attempt to recuperate the project of modernity are discussed. A reevaluation of Immanuel Kant, Georg W. F. Hegel, & Karl Marx reveals that modernity has mistakenly conflated reason & production. It is argued that rationality must be freed from its subject-centered identification & move toward intersubjective or communicative reason. Practical application of this new modernity consists of creating a public sphere for the generation of meaning & solidarity alongside the existing modern projects of the state & economy. Six critiques of the Habermasian project are offered. L. Baker

For many theorists the problem of the capitalist state is seen to have been exhaustively posed in the 1970s by Miliband, Poulantzas and the state derivationists. Yet more recent years have seen the same issues that underlay these positions fuel a much broader and, in terms of the Marxist tradition, more heretical discussion of the nature of the relationship of state and society. This article traces the way in which this more recent debate has emerged and developed, (giving particular attention to the decisive contribution of Claus Offe), outlines the most important claims that have emerged from it and offers an (interim) evaluation of its success in re-casting the relations of state and society.

There has been long-standing debate in the comparative welfare state literature as to whether social policy regimes come to look more alike over time ("converge") or else retain their distinctiveness. In this article, we explore this question through a detailed interrogation of the social policy record since 1996 of three states widely classified as "liberal": Australia, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom. Overall, we find that the social/economic pressures faced by all three countries are more similar now than they were two decades ago and that each has sought to legitimize its politic response to the global financial crisis (GFC) in similar ways. In terms of the three policy areas we explore, we find convergence is much more substantial in "welfare-to-work" than in either child-contingent support, or pensions. But we also find that any straightforward convergence story is unsustainable, despite the GFC and accelerating globalization, and partisan effects remain important.