Problem Of Order

This important contribution to the study of the problem of order, which figures prominently in today's globalization debate, focuses on the role of sovereignty. It advances arguments based on psychocultural perspectives and looks at postcommunist transformations and changes in political, economic and cultural orders at all levels of social life.

At the end of the twentieth century, many fear that the bonds holding civil society together have come undone. Yet, as the noted scholar Dennis Wrong shows us, our generation is not alone in fearing a breakdown of social ties and a descent into violent conflict.

This book seeks to offer a general interpretation and critique of both methodlogical and substantive aspects of International theory.

Shows how the problem of social order has shaped concept formation, theory, and normative argument in political science.

This monograph is the first systematic exposition of the theory of the Cauchy problem for higher order abstract linear differential equations, which covers all the main aspects of the developed theory. The main results are complete with detailed proofs and established recently, containing the corresponding theorems for first and incomplete second order cases and therefore for operator semigroups and cosine functions. They will find applications in many fields. The special power of treating the higher order problems directly is demonstrated, as well as that of the vector-valued Laplace transforms in dealing with operator differential equations and operator families. The reader is expected to have a knowledge of complex and functional analysis.

At the end of the twentieth century, many fear that the bonds holding civil society together have come undone. Yet, as the noted scholar Dennis Wrong shows us, our generation is not alone in fearing a breakdown of social ties and a descent into violent conflict.

Although some critics of Eric Voegelin's later work have faulted his failure to deal with the historical Jesus and to address the implications of Christianity for social and political life, the recent publication of Voegelin's History of Political Ideas has allowed a more complete assessment of his position regarding the Christian political order. This book addresses that criticism through an analysis of Voegelin's early work. In Eric Voegelin and the Problem of Christian Political Order, Jeffrey C. Herndon analyzes the development of Voegelin's thought regarding the origins of Christianity in the person of Jesus, the development of the church in the works of Paul, and the relationship between an immanent institutional order symbolizing the divine presence and the struggle for social and political order. Focusing on the tension between a spiritual phenomenon based on Pauline faith and the institutionalization of that experience in the church, Herndon offers one of the first examinations of the relationship of the History of Political Ideas to Voegelin's larger body of work. In his wide-ranging study, Herndon explores Voegelin's examination of the problem of Christian political order from the inception of Christianity through the Great Reformation. He also presents a clarification of Voegelin's theory of civilizational foundation and of Voegelin's philosophy of history with regard to Christianity and Western political order. Herndon addresses not only the nagging problem in Voegelin scholarship regarding his relationship with the historical Jesus but also the "Pauline compromises with the world" that enabled Christianity to become the instrument by which the West was civilized. He also shows that Voegelin's interpretation of the historical pressures released by the Great Reformation is important to an understanding of his later work regarding the negative effect of Christian symbols in the creation of ideological disorder. Eric Voegelin and the Problem of Christian Political Order clarifies issues in Voegelin studies regarding the intersection between political theory and Christian concerns, addressing the relation of religious experience to the public sphere of political life in the West and helping to explain Voegelin's contention that the death of the spirit is the price of progress. It offers scholars a perspective heretofore lacking in Voegelin scholarship and a clearer view of Voegelin's understanding of the Christian dispensation and its influence on the course of Western development, history, and philosophy.

Social problems such as unemployment, poverty and drug addiction are a fact of life in industrialised societies. This book examines the sociology of social problems from interesting and challenging perspectives. It analyses how social problems emerge and are defined as such, who takes responsibility for them, who is threatened by them and how they are managed, solved or ignored. The authors examine and critique existing theories of social problems before developing their own theoretical framework. Their 'theory of residualist conversion of social problems' explains how certain social problems threaten legitimate power structures, so that problems of a social or political nature are transformed into personal problems, and the 'helping professions' are left to intervene. This book will become a key reference on class, inequality and social intervention and an important text for students in sociology and social work courses.