Page 12 - Contemporary Political Sociology Globalization Politics and Power

x Preface to the Second Edition

debates over modernity, post - modernity, and postmodernism, which no
longer engage sociologists as they did ten years ago. In part, no doubt,
this is due to the resurgence of what seem very modern questions, con-
cerning capitalism and imperialism, inequalities and redistribution, state
sovereignty and universal human rights. It is also related to a sense that
learning to think in radically different ways, though exciting, is no longer
enough if does not offer the tools for “ positive ” political visions. Of
course, dreaming up abstract and idealist political programs is not an
appropriate task for sociology, but it is important to be able to study how
social actors are trying to bring about social change, and the challenging
movements, events and projects of globalization are not easily mapped in
terms of resistance/deconstruction or radical multiplicity. I have com-
pletely altered chapter 5 in order to discuss the concrete projects of
democratization I see emerging out of current political practice.
I have also modified somewhat my understanding of cultural politics

and the state. Although I thought, and still think, of “ cultural politics ”
as involving the contestation and redefinition of meanings in all ongoing

social structures and settings, I now realize that I under - estimated the
importance of the state as an especially signifi cant site and target of
cultural politics. Writing in the 1990s, I was perhaps more infl uenced
than I supposed by ideas that the state was no longer relevant, by
Foucauldian and other approaches, by new social movement theorists,
and also by the rather loose ideas about globalization that were in the
air (though not in sociology, where they were very much challenged).
Although I certainly did not see the state as irrelevant, the theory of
cultural politics I suggested as a way of studying the deep - rooted and
far - reaching effects of social movements tended, I think now, to neglect
the particular privileges of states with regard to force, which enables
them to make and enforce law, to collect and re - distribute wealth, and
to go to war. It would be much more difficult with the rise of the “ security

state ” and human rights issues today, not to mention wars in Afghanistan
and Iraq, to neglect the importance of force to the exercise of state
power; and I also have a better understanding of the role of the state
as actively involved in projects of in neo - liberal globalization. I have
consequently revised the theory of cultural politics to include an under-

standing of the use of force that is defined and used “ in the name of
the state ” in chapter 1 . I have also become interested in a wider range
of ways of understanding cultural politics, and I have learned a lot
from writings in American cultural sociology, especially those of
Jeffrey Alexander. I have found his ideas of the civil sphere especially
useful as a way of understanding the informal, and yet bounded, aspects
of citizenship. I have also added a section in chapter 1 on the