Making Global Society

Barry Buzan proposes a new approach to making International Relations a truly global discipline that transcends both Eurocentrism and comparative civilisations. He narrates the story of humankind as a whole across three eras, using its material conditions and social structures to show how global society has evolved. Deploying the English School's idea of primary institutions and setting their story across three domains - interpolity, transnational and interhuman - this book conveys a living historical sense of the human story whilst avoiding the overabstraction of many social science grand theories. Buzan sharpens the familiar story of three main eras in human history with the novel idea that these eras are separated by turbulent periods of transition. This device enables a radical retelling of how modernity emerged from the late 18th century. He shows how the concept of 'global society' can build bridges connecting International Relations, Global Historical Sociology and Global/World History.

Barry Buzan proposes a new approach to making International Relations a truly global discipline that transcends both Eurocentrism and comparative civilisations. He narrates the story of humankind as a whole across three eras, using its material conditions and social structures to show how global society has evolved. Deploying the English School's idea of primary institutions and setting their story across three domains - interpolity, transnational and interhuman - this book conveys a living historical sense of the human story whilst avoiding the overabstraction of many social science grand theories. Buzan sharpens the familiar story of three main eras in human history with the novel idea that these eras are separated by turbulent periods of transition. This device enables a radical retelling of how modernity emerged from the late 18th century. He shows how the concept of 'global society' can build bridges connecting International Relations, Global Historical Sociology and Global/World History.

GLOBALIZATION “Lechner has drawn on his extensive work on, and his deep knowledge of, globalization to write a brief, accessible, and highly successful introduction to the field. The early chapters on food, sport, and mass media should pique the student’s interest and lure them into a deeper involvement with later chapters and the field in general.” George Ritzer, University of Maryland “Frank Lechner’s text takes on key issues in the study of globalization with real clarity and critical power. An authoritative account of the major issues, theories, and debates in the field, aptly illustrated by diverse contemporary examples, this text offers a clear analysis of a complex topic that will be an invaluable resource for students and scholars.” Fran Tonkiss, London School of Economics Written in a lively and accessible style, Globalization: The Making of World Society shows how globalization affects everyday experience, creates new institutions, and presents new challenges. With many examples, Lechner describes how the process unfolds in a wide range of fields, from sports and media to law and religion. While sketching the outlines of a world society in the making, the book also demonstrates that globalization is inherently diverse and contentious. In this concise analysis of a complex subject, Lechner presents some of the best work in the social sciences in clear and readable fashion. Globalization: The Making of World Society will serve as a stimulating, state-of-the-art text for any student of globalization, beginner or advanced.

The author introduces readers to the philosophical underpinnings of the "global community," while illuminating the international institutions that made such a community possible in the real world. (Politics & Government)

This narrative text takes a global approach to the 20th century, examining all regions in a balanced fashion without over-emphasizing western Europe or the United States. The text's focus on environmental and technological innovations ensures that attention is given to all regions.

Explores the ways in which the activities of civil society can make global governance more democratic.

International Politics: A Journal of Transnational Issues and Global Problems has, since 1997, published an extraordinary array of path-breaking analyses about the world's political metamorphosis. Featuring scholarship that transcends boundaries of states and disciplines, International Politics editors and contributors have joined to assemble, from the journal's last few volumes, a far-reaching portrait of new actors, identities, norms, and institutions that populate a stage once confined to states, power, and national interests. Further, interventions to build states, make or keep the peace, impose sanctions or save currencies are examined, as are the institutional enlargements at the forefront of policy in Europe. This book offers a wealth of policy-relevant scholarship about a world-in-making--not yet detached from Cold War or even Westphalian roots, but certainly in process towards a qualitatively different global system. All published after rigorous peer review, chapters in Global Society in Transition will provide comparative politics, international relations, and world affairs courses at undergraduate and graduate level with instant access to the best of new research and innovative thinking in these fields.

Social Policy in a Global Society: Parallels and lessons from the Canada-Latin America experience