Showing papers in "Distinktion: Scandinavian Journal of Social Theory in 2010"

What's wrong with Essentialism?

Abstract: This paper identifies and discusses four distinct meanings of essentialism. The first is the attribution of certain characteristics to everyone subsumed within a particular category: the ‘(all) women are caring and empathetic’, ‘(all) Africans have rhythm’, ‘(all) Asians are community oriented’ syndrome. The second is the attribution of those characteristics to the category, in ways that naturalise or reify what may be socially created or constructed. The third is the invocation of a collectivity as either the subject or object of political action (‘the working class’, ‘women’, ‘Third World women’), in a move that seems to presume a homogenised and unified group. The fourth is the policing of this collective category, the treatment of its supposedly shared characteristics as the defining ones that cannot be questioned or modified without undermining an individual's claim to belong to that group. Focusing on these four variants enables us to see that the issue is sometimes one of degree rather than a categ...

Successive Modernities and the Idea of Progress: A First Attempt

Abstract: The idea that modern society is not a unique institutional arrangement, functionally and normatively superior to all others, but that plural forms of modernity may exist is by now rather widely accepted. Its implications for a social theory and political philosophy that keeps normative concerns alive and aims to articulate them with socio-political analysis, however, are often unclear. Embracing the concept of plural modernities is often seen to entail the abandoning of normative concerns that ultimately are universal and unique, not plural and particular. This article first briefly discusses one central strand of ongoing historico-sociological research, the ‘multiple modernities’ debate, and argues that normative concerns about relativism that emerged from this debate have not been conclusively addressed. Subsequently, it is shown that the plurality of modernity that results from historical transformations of modernity, from ‘successive modernities’ (Johann Arnason), is of a different kind. Concerns abou...

Another Modernity is Possible? The Global Justice Movement and the Transformations of Politics

Abstract: Using and expanding upon the conception of ‘successive modernities’ that has recently been developed within social theory, this article offers an interpretation of the political aims, ideas, and pr ...

Essentialism vs. Constructivism: Introduction

Abstract: (2010). Essentialism vs. Constructivism: Introduction. Distinktion: Journal of Social Theory: Vol. 11, No. 1, pp. 39-45.

Social Exclusion in the Welfare State: The Implications of Welfare Reforms for Social Solidarity and Social Citizenship

Abstract: Despite the fact that most European countries have well established welfare systems, social exclusion is a growing problem in most modern Western societies. It is a problem that affects not only the individual but society as a whole. At individual level, exclusion refers to the failure to participate in social activities and to build social relations. At societal level, exclusion reflects inadequate social cohesion and integration. All forms of social exclusion point to a decline of social solidarity. The article addresses the problem of social exclusion in the welfare state from the perspective of legal and social theory. It examines the theoretical foundations of the welfare state by virtue of an analysis of different concepts of solidarity. This analysis will help to reveal a paradigm shift which was prompted by recent welfare reforms and which has affected the foundations of the welfares state. The aim is to show how this paradigm shift has changed the concepts of social solidarity and social citizens...

The Imaginary Significations of Modernity: A Re-Examination

Abstract: This article deals with the concept of modernity upon which one of the most interesting contemporary theories about modern social change is based—Peter Wagner's theory of successive modernities. Wagner understands modernity as a double imaginary signification which entails a basic tension between liberty and discipline. This conception is almost directly taken from Cornelius Castoriadis. I argue that this tension exists in two versions in Castoriadis' philosophy and that the two versions are incompatible. It is further claimed that the two versions reappear in Wagner's theory, which makes his theory of successive modernities partly inconsistent. A stance is taken for one of these versions and it is argued that the theory of successive modernities should appropriate that version as its point of departure in order to grasp the history of modernity in a consistent way.

Dangerous Dogs, Constructivism and Normativity: The Implications of Radical Constructivism

Abstract: This article argues that although there is no necessary link between constructivism and particular sets of norms, constructivism opens up a space for normativity and can be articulated through particular normative or political programmes. In the article it is shown how Laclau's deconstructive constructivism can be articulated within the framework of an ethos of democratisation. The article takes its empirical point of departure in recent Danish debates on dangerous dogs.

Democracy and the Separation of Powers: A Rancièrean Approach

Abstract: This article presents an interpretation of the principle of separation of powers in light of Jacques Ranciere's conception of liberal democracy. It seems that, hitherto, this principle has been con...

Gender and sex: What are they? : Sally Haslanger’s debunking social constructivism

Abstract: Sally Haslanger is a ‘debunking’ social constructivist, but when it comes to sex, she defends a refined realist view. The debunking project aims at showing how some presumably natural kind actually is a social kind. In defining what it is to be, e.g., a woman, we must make reference to social factors. These tunes are familiar. But how does Haslanger conceive of sex? And why ought we not to not debunk sex as well as gender? Since Haslanger defines gender in terms of sex, and criticizes other constructivists for going too far with their constructivist claims, she ought to make some important difference between gender and sex. And so she seems to do. She argues that the sexes are two objective natural types of bodies, while the genders—man and woman—are social types. Nevertheless, since the rationale for our current sex categories is pragmatic or social according to Haslanger, it is possible to debunk sex—in some sense—also within her theory. Many feminists and queer theorists believe that a pluralistic syst...

Resistance, Politics, Space, Architecture: Interview with Nigel Thrift

Abstract: This interview was conducted in Copenhagen on January 23rd 2010 after Professor Nigel Thrift's keynote lecture on ‘Life World Inc.’, delivered at the Danish Sociological Congress. The interview takes as its starting point Professor Thrift's lecture but soon moves on to a broader discussion of resistance, politics, space, and architecture, among other things.

Gender Constructions: The Politics of Biological Constraints

Abstract: Genetic determinists about gender think that gender differences are a result of biologically, hard-wired differences between the sexes reflecting differential sets of attributes maximizing fitness in human pre-history. Radical social constructivists about gender deny that it has any biological basis. I explore a moderate version of social constructivism—genetically constrained constructivism—about gender tied to a socio-biological approach to gender differences. On this view biological factors interact with non-biological factors to determine gender. My aim is not to defend this view, but to show that it can accommodate social constructivists' main worries about the normative and political implications of genetic determinism about gender, viz.: that it falsely represents gender differences as unavoidable; that it embodies stereotypical conceptions of women and men; that it suppresses the possibility of individuals who are neither happily classified as men, nor as women; and that it canvasses constraining ...

Amateur Hour is Over

Abstract: Across Europe, there has been growing enthusiasm for the inclusion of voluntary organizations in welfare work. This article shows that this results in a new politics of voluntarism in a Danish social policy context. The communication of various organizations taken together constitutes the self-referential communication of a hybrid ‘third-order’ organization. Using key notions drawn from the work of Niklas Luhmann, the article explores how the communication of what Gunther Teubner has called the ‘many-headed hydra’ of such organizations can be understood. In the case of voluntary social work, communication rests on an undisputed distinction between professionalism and amateurism that fosters a number of paradoxes. These paradoxes are shown to be constitutive of voluntary social work itself.

Editorial: Successive Modernities

Abstract: (2010). Editorial: Successive Modernities. Distinktion: Journal of Social Theory: Vol. 11, No. 2, pp. 5-8.