From Financial Crisis to Social Change

Includes a foreword from Göran Therborn, one of Europe's most prominent social scientists, on the current socio-economic and political landscape Provides insight into cases of new social movements and protests in Ukraine, Greece, Portugal, Canada, and the UK Focuses on universities, social movements, and political theory as important sources for progressive social change

Autorentext

Torsten Geelan holds a PhD and MPhil in Sociology from the University of Cambridge, and a Bachelor in Economics and Social Science from the University of Manchester

Marcos González Hernando is Affiliated Researcher at the University of Cambridge and Principal Researcher at FEPS-Think tank for Action on Social Change (TASC)

Peter William Walsh is Affiliated Researcher in the Department of Sociology, University of Cambridge

Klappentext

Late neoliberalism marked a critical juncture that has upset socio-economic and political institutions. While certainly challenging democracy and increasing inequality, it also triggered progressive social movements with highly innovative characters. This volume helps us to understand their potential for building emancipatory alternatives to capitalism, by mobilizing the knowledge and experiences of a generation that the authors present as unemployed and discontented but also socially aware and politically active.

Donatella Della Porta, Professor of Political Science and Dean of the Institute for Humanities and the Social Sciences at Scuola Normale Superiore

The repercussions of the financial crisis continue to shake the world's developed societies because they strike at basic contradictions in an era of great transformations. Not only economic but also political and, crucially, academic institutions remain in upheaval. This book delves into the full range andcomplexities of challenges and changes underway.

Craig Calhoun is Global Distinguished Professor of Sociology at New York University and Centennial Professor at the London School of Economics and Political Science

This edited collection critically engages with a range of contemporary issues in the aftermath of the North Atlantic financial crisis that began in 2007. From challenging the erosion of academic authority to the myth that parliamentary democracy is not worth engaging with, it addresses three interrelated questions facing young people today: how to reclaim our universities, how to revitalise our democracy and how to recast politics in the 21st century.

This book emphasises the crucial importance of generational experience as a wellspring for progressive social change. For it is the young generations who have come of age in a world marred by crises that are at the forefront of challenging the status quo.

Withinsight into new social movements and protests in the UK, Canada, Greece and Ukraine, this stimulating collection of works will be invaluable for those teaching, studying and campaigning for alternatives. It will also be of relevance to scholars in social movement studies, the sociology and anthropology of economic life, the sociology of education, social and political theory, and political sociology.

Inhalt

1. Introduction; Torsten Geelan, Marcos González Hernando, and Peter William Walsh.- 2. Consecrating the Elite: Culturally Embedding the Financial Market in the City of London; Alex Simpson .- Section 1: Reclaiming Universities .- 3. The Never-Ending Crisis in British Higher Education; Mike Finn .- 4. The Coming Crisis of Academic Authority; Eric Royal Lybeck .- 5. Consuming Education; Alice Pearson .- Section 2: Revitalising Democracy .- 6. Local Maidan Across Ukraine: Democratic Aspirations in the Revolution of Dignity; Olga Zelinska .- 7. Opportunity in Crisis: Alternative Media and Subaltern Resistance; Benjamin Anderson .-8. The Battle of Barton Moss; Steven Speed .- Section 3: Recasting Politics .- 9. The Limits of Populism: Mills, Marcuse and 1960s Radicalism and Occupy; Mike O'Donnell .- 10. The Myth of Bourgeois Democracy; Andreas Møller Mulvad and Rune Møller Stahl .- 11. Seeing like a PIG: The Crisis in Greece as a tale of Hope and Disillusionment; Rosa Vasilaki .- 12.Unleashing the Emancipatory Power of the 'Spirit of Free Communal Service': G.D.H. Cole, Dialogical Coordination and Social Change; Charles Masquelier .- 13. Afterword; Torsten Geelan, Marcos González Hernando, and Peter William Walsh.<p