Late Modernity

This volume examines the reasons for intensified social change after 1980; a peaceful process of a magnitude that is historically unprecedented. It examines the kinds of novelty that have come about through morphogenesis and the elements of stability that remain because of morphostasis. It is argued that this pattern cannot be explained simply by 'acceleration'. Instead, we must specify the generative mechanism(s) involved that underlie and unify ordinary people's experiences of different disjunctions in their lives. The book discusses the umbrella concept of 'social morphogenesis' and the possibility of transition to a 'Morphogenic Society'. It examines possible 'generative mechanisms' accounting for the effects of 'social morphogenesis' in transforming previous and much more stable practices. Finally, it seeks to answer the question of what is required in order to justify the claim that Morphogenic society can supersede modernity.

Foreword. - Chapter 1. Introduction: ' Stability' or Stabilization' - on which would Morphogenic Society Depend? ; Margaret S. Archer. - Chapter 2. A Speeding up of the Rate of Social Change? Power, Technology, Resistance, Globalization and the Good Society; Tony Lawson. - Chapter 3. The Emergent Social Qualities of a ' Morphogenetic' Society: Cultures, Structures, and Forms of Reflexivity; Andrea M. Maccarini. - Chapter 4. Contemporary Mechanisms of Social Change; Douglas V. Porpora. - . - Chapter 5. The Generative Mechanisms Re-Configuring Late Modernity; Margaret S. Archer. - Chapter 6. On the Validity of Describing ' Morphogenic Society' as a System and Justifiability of Thinking about it as a Social Formation; Wolfgang Hofkirchner. - Chapter 7. Morphogenic Society and the Structure of Social Relations; Pierpaolo Donati. - Chapter 8. Morphogenesis Unbound from the Dynamics of Multilevel Networks: A Neo-Structural Perspective; Emmanuel Lazega. - Chapter 9. Morphogenesis and Normativity: Problems the Former Creates for the Latter; Ismael Al-Amoudi. - Chapter 10. Morphogenesis and Cooperation in the International Political System; Colin Wight.