Crisis in social theory_v.4_casi final.pdf (251.26 kB)
Download fileOn the reflexivity of crises: lessons from critical theory and systems theory
journal contribution
posted on 2016-09-13, 13:32 authored by Rodrigo Cordero, A. Mascareno, Daniel CherniloThe main aim of this article is to offer a sociological concept of crisis that, defined as the expected yet non-lineal outcome of the internal dynamics of modern societies, builds on the synergies between critical theory and systems theory. It contends that, notwithstanding important differences, both traditions concur in addressing crises as a form of self-reproduction of social systems as much as a form of engagement with the complexities and effects of such processes of reproduction. In order to make our comparison exhaustive, this article explores critical and systems theories’ notions of crisis at three levels: (1) their conceptual delimitation of crises; (2) their methodological proposals to empirically observe crises; and (3) their normative attempts to contribute to their resolution. As crises remain a distinctive structural feature of the social world and a rich source of knowledge about it, reflexivity must be seen as a crucial form of engagement with the negative expressions of social life itself.
History
School
- Social Sciences
Department
- Communication, Media, Social and Policy Studies
Published in
European Journal of Social TheoryCitation
CORDERO, R., MASCARENO, A. and CHERNILO, D., 2016. On the reflexivity of crises: lessons from critical theory and systems theory. European Journal of Social Theory, 20 (4), pp. 511-530.Publisher
SAGE Publications / © The AuthorsVersion
- AM (Accepted Manuscript)
Publisher statement
This work is made available according to the conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) licence. Full details of this licence are available at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/Acceptance date
2016-08-19Publication date
2016Notes
This paper was accepted for publication in the European Journal of Social Theory, the definitive version is available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1368431016668869ISSN
1461-7137Publisher version
Language
- en