Series: Critical Theory and Contemporary Society

Democracy in the twenty-first century faces a number of major challenges, with populism, neoliberalism, and globalisation being three of the most prominent. Critical Theory and Sociological Theory examines these challenges by investigating how the conditions of democratic statehood have been altered at several key historical intervals since 1945. The book demonstrates that the formal mechanisms of democratic statehood, such as...

Populism is a powerful force today, but its full scope has eluded the analytical tools of both orthodox and heterodox 'populism studies.' Critical Theory and Demagogic Populism provides a valuable alternative perspective. It reconstructs in detail for the first time the comparisons with contemporary approaches. Modern demagogy emerges as a key under-researched feature of populism, since populist movements, whether 'left'...

Anti-capitalist activism has taken a wrong direction and social and political theoretical theorists have failed to realise this. The trend for building, what has become called, 'Alternative Societies', spaces such as mutual aid groups and workers' co-operatives, failed to grasp the true power of the capitalist totality. Drawing on the work of the early Frankfurt School, Critical Theory and the...

Modernity and Philosophy in Max Horkheimer reveals how Max Horkheimer's programme of critical theory and his scholarly work as a university professor and thinker are deeply rooted in the cogency of philosophical questions. It also shows his in-depth knowledge of the historical development of philosophical problems, closely intertwined with the socio-economic framework that shaped 'bourgeois society' and the Modern Era....