International Relations of Social Change Book

Social change has become highly internationalized in the modern era. Democratization, industrialization, the development of capitalism, the emergence of nations, the rise and fall of communism, various types of religious revivalism: most of the key developments in social life of our times have unfolded on a world scale. Indeed, the most fundamental transformation of recent history may be the process of globalization itself. Yet the field of international relations has, to date, contributed relatively little to the understanding of social change. This text aims to equip students of IR to analyze social change in global perspective. Early chapters examine key concepts and methodological issues in the study of social change. The book then critically reviews principal theories of the international dynamics of social change, including liberal modernization theory, Marxism, world-system theory, neo-Weberian approaches and recent developments in critical theory. "International Relations of Social Change" has been written primarily with advanced undergraduates in mind, but it should also appeal to international relations specialists, sociologists and historians at all levels who see a need for reconstructed theory in order to understand more fully the problems of social transformation.Read More