This book seeks to develop a new agenda for the centre-left. During the 1990's, left of centre governments or coalitions came into power in the US, many of the European Union countries, and in societies elsewhere too. The modernisation of social democracy was crucial to these successes - all centre-left parties that came to power revised and updated their traditional doctrines. Recent years have seen the widespread return of the right to power, coupled to the prominence of far right parties in many countries.





The centre-left must respond. Third-way...

This book tackles one of the most pressing issues currently facing centre-left governments: social inequality. At a time when the traditional mechanisms of social cohesion have been undermined by greater individualism, the globalization of production, and the fragmentation of social life, the challenges posed by inequality are more pronounced than ever before. As communities and cultures become more complex, social solidarity and social justice can increasingly seem like impossible ideals.





Bringing together original contributions from globally...

This book tackles one of the most pressing issues currently facing centre-left governments: social inequality. At a time when the traditional mechanisms of social cohesion have been undermined by greater individualism, the globalization of production, and the fragmentation of social life, the challenges posed by inequality are more pronounced than ever before. As communities and cultures become more complex, social solidarity and social justice can increasingly seem like impossible ideals.





Bringing together original contributions from globally...

This book makes an essential contribution to the debate now opening up over the future of Europe in the wake of the demise of the Constitution. Since 1989 much about the European Union has changed, including the very definition of 'Europe' itself. The EU has enlarged to 25 countries and the division between Western and Eastern Europe has disappeared.

The EU has responded positively to these changes, not only by making a success of enlargement, but by pushing ahead with the Single Market and the Single Currency. These very successes, however, have led to a reaction. Those who...

Europe's social model - its system of welfare and social protection - is regarded by many as the jewel in the crown. It is what helps to give the European societies their distinctive qualities of social cohesion and care for the vulnerable. Over recent years, however, the social model has come under great strain in many states within the European Union - unemployment, for example, remains stubbornly high. The resulting tensions have fuelled dissatisfaction with the European project as a whole, culminating in the rejection of Europe's proposed new constitution.

Reform of the social...

Anthony Giddens' The Third Way had a far-reaching impact upon the evolution of New Labour in the UK, and upon left of centre policies in many other countries too. Today, nearly a decade later, Labour stands again at a decisive point in its history. A change of leadership can help reinvigorate the party, but winning a fourth term of government will be impossible without reinvigorating Labour's ideological position and policy outlook.

What form should these innovations take? The author argues that the core emphases that have sustained Labour's hold over power for three successive...

Anthony Giddens' The Third Way had a far-reaching impact upon the evolution of New Labour in the UK, and upon left of centre policies in many other countries too. Today, nearly a decade later, Labour stands again at a decisive point in its history. A change of leadership can help reinvigorate the party, but winning a fourth term of government will be impossible without reinvigorating Labour's ideological position and policy outlook.

What form should these innovations take? The author argues that the core emphases that have sustained Labour's hold over power for three successive...

In this book Anthony Giddens addresses a range of issues concerning current developments in social theory, relating them to the prospects for sociology in the closing decades of the twentieth-century.

Social theory has undergone dramatic changes over the past fifteen years. The aim of this book is to provide a comprehensive survey of those changes, and an authoritative statement on current trends of development in social thought. The contents of the book range in a systematic way across the major traditions of social theory prominent today. Among the topics covered are the relationships between modern social theory and the 'classics' of the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries; the connections between social theory and mathematical social science; and the logical status of...

In this major theoretical statement, the author offers a new and provocative interpretation of institutional transformations associated with modernity. What is modernity? The author suggests, "As a first approximation, let us simply say the following: 'modernity' refers to modes of social life or organization which emerged in Europe from about the seventeenth century onwards and which subsequently became more or less worldwide in their influence." We do not as yet, the author argues, live in a post-modern world. The distinctive characteristics of our major social institutions in the closing...