This brilliant new book by one of Europe’s leading social thinkers
throws light on the global power games being played out between
global business, nation states and movements rooted in civil
society. Beck offers an illuminating account of the changing nature
of power in the global age and assesses the influence of the
ever-expanding counter-powers.
The author puts forward the provocative thesis that in an age of
global crises and risks, a politics of ‘golden handcuffs’ – the
creation of a dense network of transnational interdependencies – is
exactly what is needed in order to regain national autonomy, not
least in relation to a highly mobile world economy. It is
imperative that the maxim of nation-based realpolitik – that
national interests have necessarily to be pursued by national means
– be replaced by the maxim of cosmopolitan realpolitik. The more
cosmopolitan our political structures and activities, Beck
suggests, the more successful they will be in promoting national
interests, and the greater our individual power in this global age
will be.
Table of Content
Reflections on the rise of right-wing populism in Europe
Foreword
Chapter I Introduction: New Critical Theory with cosmopolitan intent
Chapter II Critique of the national outlook
Chapter III Global domestic politics changes the rules: On the breaching of boundaries in economics, politics and society
Chapter IV Power and counter-power in the global age: The strategies of capital
Chapter V State strategies between renationalization and transnationalization
Chapter VI Strategies of civil society movements
Chapter VII Who wins? On the transformation of concepts and forms of the state and politics in the second modernity
Chapter VIII Brief funeral oration at the cradle of the cosmopolitan era
References
About the author
U.Beck, Ludwig-Maximilian University, Munich
Translated by Kathleen Cross
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