Past and present currents of sociology: 70 years of Current Sociology

This review paper marks the 70th anniversary of Current Sociology, the first journal founded by the International Sociological Association (ISA). The past seven decades have been a time of immense change within sociology and around the world, and the shifts within the structure and content of the journal mirror these transformations. Current Sociology today is a vastly different publication to the bibliography focused journal of 1952, and remains one of the top global sociology journals, and a proudly international publication. This short overview traces the history of Current Sociology across the decades, highlighting the work of the editors in guiding the development of the journal, and providing a glimpse into the development of the discipline, and the social developments of the past 70 years.

A Southeast Asian Perspective on the Role for the Sociology of Generations in Building a Global Youth Studies

This chapter interrogates and develops one of the major conceptual traditions for thinking about social change as it intersects with youth and the life course: the sociology of generations. Grounded in an overview of how the notion of generations is used in two Southeast Asian contexts, Indonesia and the Philippines, it develops an alternative concept of generation, emphasizing intergenerational relationships, the impact of youth on the life course, the continuing impact of history and the refiguring of long-standing inequalities in the context of rapid change. An orientation to generations is limited if it is only used to illustrate change across groups within countries, but not new connections across borders. However, the opposite is also a limitation, too easily slipping into claims of a homogenous global generation. A global sociology of generations needs simultaneously to be aware of these differences and similarities that are in a constant state of flux.

Global sociology: basic research strategies. Part II. Civilization approach

The civilization has a long history. It was formed in the framework of history and philosophy of history. In sociology it was used from time to time and only as a means of analysis of religion and culture. However in the middle of the XX century in the context of post-colonial studies it became evident that both the process of movement of different societies to modernity and the results of this movement show the lack of universalist patterns. It also become clear that one can use theory of civilization to explain all these phenomena. In fact the civilization approach turned out to be a useful alternative to the universalist approach as a way of understanding the contemporary global world especially of the processes of modernization.The civilization approach has made it possible to work out a new version of global sociology. It shows the way to investigate the culture-civilization complex which includes religion social institutes and identities.

Global sociology. Basic research strategies. Part I. Universalist approach

The global sociology was formed at end of the XXth century — at the beginning of the XXIth century. It consists of a great number of sociological theories belonging to different sociological traditions with different methodological approaches. These theories have a common object field and a common vision of sociological problems which need to be analyzed. The aim of the article is to clarify and to give a theoretical structure to the object field of the global sociology as a specifie research sphere. This specifie sphere of sociological research has its own systemic character due to the unity of the object field. The object field of the global sociology is formed, first, by the processes which have shaped the contemporary global world and second, by the structure and order of this global world. The theoretical and methodological analysis of the theories which make up the global sociology shows that these theories can be divided into two large groups. The first group is formed by theories based on a universalist approach and a universalist vision of the actual global order. The universalist sociological perspective is rooted in the Enligtenmeht social philosophy, in the theories of development of classical sociology, in the original impulses of theories of modernization and Westernization. The uniting principle of all the mentioned theories is the common vision of the contemporary world as the one universal social space which to one extent or other transcends both concrete societies and nation-states. This large group of theories can be subdivided in two subgroups. The first subgroup of universalist theories views the contemporary global world with its order as a result of some original impulses of development of modernity. These impulses are being realized as the universal global order. The article analyzes the sociological theories of I. Wallerstein and A. Giddens as examples of such universalist theories. The second subgroup is formed by theories of globalization which are based on the analysis of the processes of digitalization, networking and also of new basic “mobilities” which are shaping a new global morphology of the space of “flows”. The theories of M. Castels, J. Urry and U. Beck are the examples of such universalis theories. The article also analyzes a global sociological universalist discourse which conceptualizes the global order through “theories of empire”.The Part I of the article is dedicated to universalis theories of global sociology. The Part II is dedicated to the second large group of theories of the contemporary global sociology. These theories are based on the civilization approach which views the contemporary world as a set of civilizations.

Global sociology revisited: Toward new directions

As newly elected President of the International Sociological Association, I unfold my vision for new directions for global sociology. After defining what a global sociology is, I will point out two particular directions for this sociology: supplementing the postcolonial approach with an anti-authoritarian one, and theorizing post-secular society. One cannot but acknowledge the scars of the colonial era, but postcolonial studies have been rightly used but also abused. I would identify two abuses: the over-emphasis on external factors while neglecting local ones, and the binary logic of antagonistic categories such as East/West, universalism/contextualism. Thus, I make the call to supplement the postcolonial approach with an anti-authoritarian one. There are three levels of authoritarianism: one relates to the political regime; another relates rather to neoliberalism; and the third concerns attitudes. The authoritarian attitude is closely related to the difficulty of dealing with religion in our society. Global sociology should take into account in any contemporary analysis of society the new features of our post-secular society, a sort of low-key secularism in confluence with neoliberalism. In light of these two directions, I would like to see global sociology moving forward. But what should the features of this global sociology be? The article will discuss five features for global sociology.