What drives social change - and how does control persist?
This book offers a bold and original framework for understanding how domination and autonomy constantly shift within our relationships, institutions and political systems. Drawing on both classical and contemporary theory, Browne traces how struggles against injustice generate change-while also giving rise to new forms of control.
From the workplace to the state, this book explores how power is negotiated, resisted and reasserted. Setting out an innovative agenda for critical social theory, it reveals how the push for greater autonomy drives both social conflict and institutional transformation.
Table of Contents:
Part I: Sketch of a Synthetic Social Theory
1. Introduction
2. Outline of a New Critical Model
Part II: From Hegel’s Dialectic to Critical Social Theory
3. Hegel’s Philosophical Origination
4. Marx’s Antinomian Project
5. The Struggle for Recognition and the Dialectic of Control
Part III: The Rationalization of Control
6. A Historical Ontology of Control
7. The Reorganization of Social Relations, Institutions and Subjectivity
Part IV: Modernity as a Constellation of Social Conflict
8. The Constituting of Modernity
9. Projects and Crises: Tensions, Antagonisms and Contradictions
Part V: Conclusion to a Sketch for a Critical Theory of Society
10. Conclusion
About the Author :
Craig Browne is Associate Professor in the School of Social and Political Sciences at the University of Sydney.
Review :
'This work showcases Craig Browne’s impressive mastery of critical social theory, offering a complex and thought-provoking contribution to the field. With this contribution, Browne firmly establishes himself as a leading voice in the discipline.' Benno Herzog, University of Valencia
