Social Theory
The Civil Condition in World Politics
Beyond Tragedy and Utopianism
Bringing together an international team of contributors, this volume draws on international political theory and intellectual history to rethink the problem of a pluralistic world order.
States and Welfare States
Government for the People
Most governments in the world have taken responsibility for social policy and elected to develop services in health, education and social security. This book explores the role of government and the state in the contemporary world and discusses views about government responsibility for social welfare services.
Spatializing Marcuse
Critical Theory for Contemporary Times
This reappraisal of the geographical aspects of philosopher Herbert Marcuse’s theories finds fresh meanings and contemporary applications in his work. The book reveals what they tell us about space and politics today, how they can interpret modern geopolitics and provide the tools to overturn the status quo.
Applied ethics and social problems
Moral questions of birth, society and death
"Applied ethics and social problems" presents introductions to the three most influential moral philosophies and relates these to some of the most urgent questions in contemporary public debates about the future of welfare services.
Social Work and Social Theory
Making Connections
This book imaginatively explores ways in which practitioners and social work educators might develop more critical and radical ways of theorising and working. It is an invaluable resource for students and contains features such as Reflection Boxes and Talk Boxes to encourage classroom and workplace discussions.
Discursive analytical strategies
Understanding Foucault, Koselleck, Laclau, Luhmann
This exciting and innovative book fills a gap in the growing area of discourse analysis within the social sciences. It provides the analytical tools with which students and their teachers can understand the complex and often conflicting discourses across a range of social science disciplines.
Not so New Labour
A sociological critique of New Labour's policy and practice
New Labour has concentrated many of its social policy initiatives in reinvigorating the family, community and work. But just how 'new' are the ideas driving policy and practice?
This book shows how New Labour has drawn on the ideas and premises of functionalism, which dominated British and American sociological thought from the 1940s to the 1960s.
Major Thinkers in Welfare
Contemporary Issues in Historical Perspective
Focusing on a range of welfare issues this book examines the views, values and perceptions of a number of theorists from ancient times to the 19th century, including Plato, St Aquinas, Hobbes, Wollstonecraft and Marx.
Democracy and the Public Sphere
From Dystopia Back to Utopia
Exploring the creative and destructive ways individuals and groups make use of new digital and social media in democratic societies across the world, this book presents a much-needed critical theory of the public sphere as we enter the new digital age.
Alienation and Wellbeing
This book offers insights into the argument that capitalist society damages human health and well-being. Drawing on and bringing Marx’s theory of alienation forward to the present day, it uniquely links it to well-being.
Social Divisions
Inequality and Diversity in Britain
Informed by sociological theory and recent empirical analysis, the new edition of this classic textbook is an accessible account of the major social divisions that structure social life. Written by experts, it covers an unrivalled range of social divisions, diversity and inequalities. This is an invaluable sourcebook for social science students.
Everyday Europe
Social Transnationalism in an Unsettled Continent
This book offers an empirically-based view on Europeans’ interconnections in everyday life. It looks at the ways in which EU residents have been getting closer across national frontiers. The book considers how people reconcile their increasing cross-border interconnections and a politically separating Europe of nation states and national interests.