Political Modernity and Beyond

Amidst rising tensions affecting democracy, capitalism and planetary life, this book discusses the multiple crises, processes and conflicts reconfiguring modernity. Tracking the political, social and ecological dynamics at play, it offers a critical perspective on the forces that may redefine the futures of political modernity. It asks whether a transition is unfolding and whether a new phase of modernity is emerging, or whether it is only an inflexion that we are witnessing, with the prepandemic imaginary and institutions retaining their strength, apart from smaller adaptions. Drawing on a range of cutting-edge contributions emerging from a conference at the Social Sciences Institute of University of Lisbon, it tackles issues of democracy, statehood, empire, coloniality, authoritarianism, the Anthropocene and the social bond, to offer a systematic analysis and conceptualization of ongoing changes. It offers a global perspective on the debate. Empirical and theoretical threads are brought together by the idea that we are transitioning to a world somehow yet unknown but whose contours we can already fathom. An innovative, empirically based and path-breaking analytical contribution it will appeal to specialists, researchers and postgraduate students of sociology, social theory and political theory. The Open Access version of this book, available at http://www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license.

Sofia Aboim is Research Professor at the Institute of Social Sciences (ICS), University of Lisbon (Portugal). Her fields of interests are gender, migration, race and ethnicity, especially in the historical borders of the former Portuguese Empire. Her last book is Gender Fields (2024). José Maurício Domingues is Professor at Institute for Social and Political Research of University of the State of Rio de Janeiro (IESP-UERJ) (Brazil). He received the Anneliese Maier-Forschungspreis from the Alexander von Humboldt-Stiftung (2018). He researches on social, political and critical theory. His last book is Political Modernity and Social Theory (2024). Filipe Carreira da Silva is Research Professor at the Institute of Social Sciences (ICS), University of Lisbon (Portugal) and Fellow of Selwyn College, University of Cambridge (United Kingdom). His interests include sociological, social and political theories. He has authored, with Mónica Brito Vieira, the forthcoming book Democratic Resentment.

INTRODUCTION Crises 1. Democracy and Statehood: Varieties of (Pandemic) Crises and Their Consequences 2. The Fate of Democracy and the Weakening of Its Moral and Socio-Cultural Supports in Contemporary Societies. The Case of Chile. 3. Taxing Political Modernity. Fiscal Relations in Europe since 2020 4. Modernity and the Anthropocene: Between Rupture and Fulfilment Struggles 5. From the Geopolitics of Inter-Imperial Rivalry to the Geo-ideology of Inter-Civilizational Struggle 6. Empire Reloaded: Rethinking Modernity through Territorial and Digital Border Crises 7. Intersectional Situations and Politics: Far-Right Voters in Brazil and Germany 8. Racial Capitalism, the Politics of Care, and People as Profit Reconfigurations Modernity and Its Horizon Today: Phases, Challenges and Perspectives 10. Re-modernity: Making Sense of Social Experience in Times of Digital Platforms, New State Interventionism and Technological Megalomania 11. Post-disciplinary Science and Post-national Politics: Rethinking Political Modernity 12. Global Perspectives on Local Solutions: eHealth and Digital Divide Through the Lens of Comparative Law