Crisis

Category: Fields of research

Crisis refers to an event or period of instability or danger and can lead to significant (positive and negative) social, cultural, political, or economic changes.

In Legitimation Crisis (1975, in German 1973), Jürgen Habermas combines the theoretical approach of Frankfurt's school of critical theory, on the one hand, and the systems theory of Niklas Luhmann and functionalism of Talkot Parsons, on the other, to study the crisis of legitimacy in the modern capitalist society. Habermas approaches the crisis from the perspective of systems theory. Crises occur when the structure of a social system comes to have fewer opportunities for solving problems than what is needed to maintain the structure of the system. Crises of the system are a consequence of the state in which the structures, which are necessary to fulfill the imperatives of the system, come into contradiction with each other, which causes the loss of the identity of the system itself.

In Contradictions of the Welfare State (1984), Claus Offe studied what he calls the "crisis of crisis management" in social security systems in capitalist countries. He believes that the modern state is no longer able to fully solve the socio-economic problems and conflicts of late capitalism.

Ulrich Beck is best known for promoting the idea of a "risk society", which he began to develop in the mid-1980s in his book Risk Society (1986). He is a proponent of the thesis that there are several parallel crises happening, that would lead to key social changes. The old patterns of industrial society are dying out, and a new, risky society is rising. Compared to earlier times, when people were unaware of the environmental dangers caused by industrial development, there is a change in attitudes and patterns of behavior in a risky society. People are paying more and more attention to environmental hazards, especially chemical and nuclear pollution, as well as to genetic engineering. The changed social situation requires the rejection of earlier sociological concepts, such as: social classes, households, gender roles, and national state. Instead of these old concepts, it is necessary to introduce new sociological concepts to better explain the changed social reality. The new age of risk brought with it new forms of work, as well as new family patterns; it is a world in which individuals must constantly question their own identity, cultural meanings, and social affiliation. This new "risk awareness" is conditioned by the processes of individuation and reflective modernization. In the book, Beck advocates a radical form of modernity shaped by environmental enlightenment.

In his book World Risk Society (1998), Beck applies the idea of the risk society to the analysis of the globalized world at the end of the 20th and the beginning of the 21st century. Beck believes that insecurity and endangerment have always been a part of human existence, but with the progress of civilization, which led to industrialization and modernization, a completely new "semantics of risk" emerged. This semantics of risk concerns new forms of uncertainty that must be addressed by deliberation and calculation of the probability of different outcomes; therefore, from the current thematization of future threats. Beck singles out three most important types of global risks, each of which has its own "logic": 1) environmental crises; 2) global financial risks; and 3) planetary terrorism.

References:

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Amin, and Arrighi. Dynamics of Global Crisis (1982);

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Bauman. Memories of Class (1982);

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Bourdieu. Counterfire: Against the Tyranny of the Market (2003, in French 1998);

Castells. The Economic Crisis and American Society (1980);

- Aftermath: The Cultures of the Economic Crisis (2012);

- Networks of Outrage and Hope: Social Movements in the Internet Age (2012);

- Another Economy is Possible: Culture and Economy in a Time of Crises (2017a);

- Europe’s Crises (2017b);

- Rupture: the Crisis of Liberal Democracy (2018);

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- The Varieties of Transition: The East European and East German Experience (1996);

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