Other contemporary sociological theorists argued that for all its disasters, modern social change was both real and sometimes positive. We should build on its strengths not give up on it. Jeffrey Alexander (excerpted here) emphasized in particular that modernity had given us not only ever-larger markets, corporations, and states but also a “civil sphere.” This is composed of independent institutions and settings for public debate and free formation of culture; it allows us freedom to pursue our values not just respond to necessity. Democratic social integration depends on the civil sphere, and when it is weakened – as it has been lately – we should shore it up. Likewise, Michele Lamont (excerpted here) suggests that efforts to reverse stigmatization and reduce inequality represent modern tendencies, not just quixotic projects. Successful modern societies involve important levels of mutual recognition across lines of difference. This complements Norbert Elias’s account of “the civilizing process” that helped to forge modernity (excerpted here). Learning to interact politely with strangers went along with learning good manners and helped to produce a culture of civility. Life in Alexander’s civil sphere is not just a matter of institutions or debates but also norms about how we should interact; these are crucial equally to Lamont’s projects of destigmatization. Uncivil politics and personal interactions are linked to polarized divisions, and civility is linked to solidarity.
The most important contemporary sociological theorist of modernity and its social transformations has been Jürgen Habermas (excerpted here). He was part of a new generation in Frankfurt School critical theory. Like Adorno and Horkheimer, he combined a broad philosophical background with strong influences from Weber and Marx. Distinctively, he drew on the classical sociology of George Herbert Mead and the pragmatist tradition more generally to develop a theory of communication action. He saw this as the basic source of social life. But it was a capacity improved through learning, which accounted for evolution and the possibility of error correction.
Habermas contributed to many of the key developments in contemporary sociological theory from the early 1960s to the present. In dialog with Niklas Luhmann, he explored the role of technology in modern society, enabling radical advances in productivity and creating depersonalized systems. He addressed the tension embedded in what Weber called “rationalization” – the relationship of growing opportunities for reasoned choice to both freedom and the development of bureaucratic and economic systems experienced as oppressive.
Concerned to defend a robust idea of the human, Habermas challenged technological transformations such as cloning and gene editing. He also sought to move beyond simplistic secularism to a “postsecular” recognition of the rights of religious citizens. Not religious himself, he nonetheless thought religious ideas could be important to counteracting the dominance of technical rationalism – and the threat of Weber’s “iron cage” – in contemporary culture.
Against theorists of power and capitalism who were tempted to give up on democracy, he makes a strong case for how democracy not only embodies citizen voice but also enables a valuable process of learning. This is grounded in public debate and also in the development of free associations in civil society. Habermas presents analyses of how democracy – and democratic use of law – can remake problematic institutions. He has been a forceful critic of nationalism and advocate for the European Union, which he thought embodied potential for cosmopolitan justice. For all his criticisms of the actually existing state of modernity, Habermas argues that the project of modernity still offered positive potential.
Globalization
From the 1970s, understanding modernity became inseparable from accelerating globalization. Financialization, agreements to reduce trade barriers, and new technologies each played a role. This was disruptive but also created opportunities. There were more billionaires than ever before, not just in the United States but around the world. Asia enjoyed dramatic growth, lifting millions out of poverty and bringing the rise of a new middle class. Asian countries assumed new stature in global affairs. The United States remained central to the global capitalist economy, and it continued to engage actively in international politics. But from the era of the Vietnam War and its end without victory through repeated wars in the Middle East, the shock of 9/11 and an attack in the United States itself, through a long war in Afghanistan, again with victory, US global hegemony declined. The United States remained the world’s most powerful country, both economically and politically, but by the 21st century, the rise of China – and other Asian economies – limited US action. The end of the Cold War – and the Soviet Union – gave Americans a brief sense of triumph in the 1990s. But it also became clear that the United States could not afford the economic costs of continual war abroad and was unwilling to accept the loss of lives.
So far, the 21st century has brought terrorism, financial crises and austerity programs, pandemics of increasing scale, and the threat of climate change. The German sociologist Ulrich Beck captured a mood as well as a trend by writing that modern society has become a risk society.34 Risks are global even when politicians respond with nationalist calls to close borders. The coronavirus pandemic revealed just how globalized economies were as it disrupted supply chains that stretched across continents to supply components to computers, cars, and air conditioners. The virus itself spread throughout the world. Coping with it was complicated by a wave of populist political mobilizations and problematic use of social media expressing suspicion of authorities – governmental or scientific, resentments of elites, and desires for security. Climate change poses a quintessential global challenge, but it has proven difficult to coordinate action in response.
Globalization is not all economics, politics, and risk. It is also culture: world music, dance crazes, TikTok (Douyin), Instagram, Weibo, Twitter and films from not just Hollywood but also Bollywood and Nollywood. It is global Islam and global Buddhism. It is money organized through cybercurrencies not based on any national government. It is migrations that have helped to make all the world’s richer and more developed countries increasingly multicultural. It is media that provide instant information about distant events – even if we do not always have the capacity to act on what we know. And it is social movements – both calls from young activists to see the urgency of responding to climate change and less positive networking on the far right.
Globalization does not erase nation states but does show the limits of a purely national perspective. Levitt and Schiller (excerpted here) show, for example, that transnational migration is not just a matter of moving from one nation state to another but that migrants maintain transnational ties. New spaces of social connection and identity are created. Still, as Calhoun suggests, as problematic as they may be, nations remain important units of solidarity. And for all the ways in which contemporary culture, economy, and migration cross national boundaries, nations continue to be reproduced in standard social imaginaries. We look at maps that fail to show the global flows but clearly demarcate borders among countries with colors. In an example of what Beck called “methodological nationalism,” social science uses statistics collected by nation states to try to understand global patterns.
Conclusion
Contemporary sociological theory is enormously diverse and multifaceted. It includes macroscopic studies of the structures of power, production, and trade that link and separate countries. It includes studies of interpersonal relations that emphasize both the process of communication and the formal structure of networks. And, it includes a variety of levels of analysis in between.
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