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Copyright of Anthropos: Revija za Filozofijo in Psihologijo is the property of Anthropos and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This review highlights the potential of a political ecology that approaches socionatures more experimentally and speculatively. We first consider theoretical frameworks which can help elucidate a conceptual and methodological pathway for more experimental and speculative political ecology scholarship. Next, we bring together and systematize multiple threads of political ecology scholarship that already lean into experimentation and speculation. We highlight what we see as their potential, particularly focusing on ongoing struggles for climate and environmental justice. First, we conclude that experimental and speculative approaches are critical for laying the foundations of a future-oriented and reparative mode of critique that illuminates emerging possibilities for alternative worlds. Second, these approaches can generate new registers of consciousness that make room for hope, possibility, creativity, and action. Third, experimental and speculative approaches reconfigure political ecological praxis by fostering a more proactive role for the researcher in addressing socioecological challenges as they emerge. It is our hope that this intervention inspires others to do work that is intentionally more experimental or speculative, creating conditions that could potentially lead to a more equitable society in the present with ramifications for a more just future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper attempts to respond to the objections that have been formulated in reference to the book Cannibal Capitalism (Laterza, Roma-Bari 2023). Fraser Fraser starts from the assumption that capitalism harbors a structural basis not only for class exploitation, but also for male domination, for racial imperial domination, ecological plunder, political authoritarianism, and exploitation. It follows that if we were able to disable the capitalism's cannibalizing logic we would have achieved a necessary but not sufficient condition for overcoming all of those injustices and irrationalities, including male domination. Above all a critical theory for our time should strive to develop a perspective that could, at least in principle, foster greater cooperation and coordination among social forces that are potentially emancipatory but actually dispersed. In Cannibal Capitalism the brunt of that burden falls on the concept of crisis. In her further reflection she explores another hypothesis, where the basis for cooperation would be a new, enlarged sense of working-class consciousness, premised on an expanded view of capitalist labor. Here an affective aspect enters the mix, as "labour" appears not only at the level of structure but also at that of identity. In addition to this, the author addresses other questions: the role of structural and symbolic violence within capitalist system and the imaginaries that can transcend it, the complicated relation between the processes of modern social differentiation and capitalism, the necessity to overcome the alternative between reformism and revolution, how to rethink the critique of alienation today, how to conceive of a feminism that is open to the practices and elaborations of the feminist movements of the global South. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyzes neoliberal articulations of the economic crisis in Greece, as they appear at the Ekathimerini daily. Neoliberalism is primarily understood as the ideology organizing the political strategies of late capitalist production. The analysis focuses on the ways the capitalist crisis is presented in the context of Greece, as well as the ways that socio-political opposition to neoliberal reforms are addressed. Ekathimerini reproduces the hegemonic explanations of the crisis that view the crisis as a national and moral problem rather than a global and systemic one. The analysis draws concepts from both discourse theory and critical theory. Discourse theory analyzes the neoliberal discourse organizing the political interventions for the reproduction of capitalism in the crisis-context, while political economy critiques the materiality of the capitalist process, which itself is based on discourses and political interventions. The article concludes that Ekathimerini 's crisis-coverage contributes to the form of social engineering organized by neoliberal policies in Greece, in order to produce the political and social norms for a post-crisis configuration of capitalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Global value chain (GVC)‐led development discourse has gained considerable traction in the international development policy debate. Multilateral institutions and donor agencies shape value chain discourse and practice. Through the scholarly literature, this study critically reviews the conceptual underpinnings of value chain theory and its discourse. The study reviews the thematic programmatic application of the US Agency for International Development (USAID) and analyses the application of value chain from a critical social theory perspective in Kenya. Findings demonstrate that the application of value chain theory to Kenya's development practice is unclear with regard to crucial elements of GVC configuration such as the state's role in facilitating development strategies, asymmetrical power relations within value chains and world historical processes affecting upgrading trajectories. This aspect is evident in the value chain‐led development interventions of the USAID in Kenya and supports neoliberal development agenda that caters to the business interests of multinational corporations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article proposes a reflexive theory of the conceptions of capitalist crises. Reflexivity here entails acknowledging that the notions of crisis do not simply and transparently reflect its nature, but may themselves reflect upon the latter. Firstly, I study the productivity of the ways crises appear, and argue that the nature of a crisis is not pregiven. Then I introduce basic notions from the non-classical logic of the dialectical proposed by Deyan Deyanov, or what can be called an organon of the problematique of structures of mediation. Lastly, I apply the proposed theoretical construct in an analysis of the conditions for the appearance of today’s ecological crisis as a necessary, and not contingent, effect of the nature of capitalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Rivista Italiana di Filosofia Politica is the property of Firenze University Press and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The victory of Mauricio Macri in the 2015 Argentine presidential election led to a kind of return of neoliberalism, soon resisted by the people and the political opposition. In this paper I will address the question of how recent regressive neoliberal policies and austerity agenda have been defied and counteracted by progressive forces and the Argentine left-wing movements. To do so, I will periodize this country's recent history and map the positions occupied by the local left in order to argue that neoliberalism has never been entirely hegemonic in Argentina. By doing this, I hope to contribute to the development of a critical theory from (and for) the global South. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Due to the global capitalist crisis, neoliberalism and the logic of commodification of everything have suffered cracks, fissures and holes. There is a return of the interest in Marx, which requires us to think about the role of Marxism in Media and Communication Studies. This paper contributes to this task by discussing some foundations of contemporary Marxist media and communication studies, including a focus on the renewed interest in Dallas Smythe's audience commodity category as part of the digital labour debate. Dallas Smythe reminds us of the importance of engagement with Marx's works for studying the media in capitalism critically. Both Critical Theory and Critical Political Economy of the Media and Communication have been criticized for being one-sided. Such interpretations are mainly based on selective readings. They ignore that in both approaches there has been with different weightings a focus on aspects of media commodification, audiences, ideology and alternatives. Critical Theory and Critical Political Economy are complementary and should be combined in Critical Media and Communication Studies today. Dallas Smythe's notion of the audience commodity has gained new relevance in the debate about corporate Internet services' exploitation of digital labour. The exploitation of digital labour involves processes of coercion, alienation and appropriation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper introduces the overall framework for tripleC's special issue "Marx is Back. The Importance of Marxist Theory and Research for Critical Communication Studies Today". We point out why there is a return of the interest in Marx ("Marx is back") and why Marxian analysis is important for Critical Communication Studies today. We also provide a classification of Marxian dimensions of the critical analysis of media and communication and discuss why commonly held prejudices against what Marx said about society, media, and communication are wrong. The special issue shows the importance of Marxist theory and research for Critical Communication Studies today. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Assuming the 'neoliberalisation' of academic life to be axiomatic, this article delves into the operations of its political economy with the aim of expanding critical vocabularies, analytical categories and research trajectories. In particular, it indicates where an immanent critique of neoliberal academia can be begun. While the capitalist transformations of academic life are justified by ideological claims eulogising 'production', 'competition' and 'marketisation', the neoliberal regime has proven decidedly ineffective at fulfilling these claims. An effective critique of neoliberal reform must, therefore, explore and interrogate the degree to which the practical effects of neoliberal reform diverge from its underpinning theoretical claims, and why this might be so. The principal question here pertains to rent and rent-seeking behaviour in the academic space, as a mode of activity inconsistent with the legitimating tenets of capitalist ideology. To the extent that rent-seeking activities can be identified in neoliberal academia – in distinction to 'value-producing' labour or 'profit-making' entrepreneurialism – a more potent critique of neoliberal reform will be forthcoming and an immanent critique of the neoliberal regime of capitalist accumulation in the academic space put into motion. By positioning the neoliberal regime within a broader shift towards accumulation by 'appropriation' in the world-system, a strategic reason can be identified for the proliferation of rent-seeking behaviours in academic life and beyond. The article argues that these rent-seeking behaviours have materialised in a range of gatekeeping techniques across the academic space, with which many inhabitants of that space have become complicit, resulting in the increasing dispossession of surplus through the practice of tolling realised in those techniques. The article develops a Marxian critique with additional insights from world-system theory, critical social theory and critical geography. Examples of gatekeeping technique considered throughout the article include master degree programmes, journal publication structures, conference fees and Graduate Record Examinations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nancy Fraser is internationally recognized as one of the most prominent critical theorists of our time and is highly regarded for her work on feminism and capitalism. In this interview, she sets out the new conceptions of capitalism, crisis, and critique that she has been developing since her 2014 article "Behind Marx's Hidden Abode." She begins by presenting an original conception of capitalism as an "institutionalized social order," which includes not only its economic features, but also its social, ecological, and political background conditions of possibility. After defining the normative foundations of capitalism and the corresponding boundary struggles to which it gives rise, she then explores the multiple crises it is currently experiencing. Inspired by Marx's tripartite critique, she concludes by proposing a new multi-stranded critique of capitalism, which combines a functionalist critique of capitalism's tendencies to crisis with a normative critique of domination and a political critique of unfreedom. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper's task is to outline some foundations of a critical, Marxist‐humanist theory of communication in the age of digital capitalism. It theorises the role of communication in society, communication and alienation, communication in social struggles, social struggles for democratic communication, the contradictions of digital capitalism, and struggles for digital socialist humanism. Marxist humanism is a counter‐narrative, counter‐theory, and counter‐politics to neoliberalism, new authoritarianism, and postmodernism. A critical theory of communication can should draw on this intellectual tradition. Communication and work stand in a dialectical relationship. Communication mediates, organises and is the process of the production of sociality and therefore of the reproduction of society. Society and communication are in class and capitalist societies shaped by the antagonism between instrumental and co‐operative reason. Authoritarianism and humanism are two basic, antagonistic modes of organisation of society and communication. Instrumental reason creates and universalises alienation. Digital capitalism is a dimension of contemporary society where digital technologies such as the computer, the Internet, the mobile phone, tablets, robots, and AI‐driven ("smart") technologies mediate the accumulation of capital, influence, and reputation. A Marxist‐humanist theory of communication aims to inform struggles for a good, commons‐based, public Internet in a good, commons‐based society that has a vivid, democratic public sphere. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Like Habermas, Polanyi undertakes this project by reviving the original normative impulse behind Marx's theory, and like Habermas, Polanyi does so by returning to Rousseau's theory of freedom (Polanyi, [47]). In this and the next section I argue that Habermas reduces the economy to exchange, whereas Polanyi's categories of redistribution and reciprocal institutions reveal dynamics of democratic interaction with and control over economic activities invisible in Habermas's theory. They sought to model society on the markets for real commodities.[4] For Polanyi, this complete separation between the political and social spheres and the economy - and the subordination of those spheres to the economy - was impossible, a "stark utopia" (Polanyi, 1944/[50], p. 3). In relationship to Habermas's theory, this decommodification of money is perhaps most significant, as, while Habermas analyzes the non-market organization of labor as an important facet of the relationship between system and lifeworld, he fails to develop an analogous account of the non-market politics of money. While Habermas agrees with Polanyi that "money is neither a commodity nor a production factor" (p. 265), the function he assigns to money - facilitating exchange - mirrors the commodity view of money. [Extracted from the article]

This article critiques recent operationalisations of social justice theories in empirical research in comparative political economy from an epistemological entry point. It offers an alternative epistemic framework based on Habermas's system and lifeworld distinction to reconcile normative theory with empirical research before developing a critical theory of social justice based on two principles: Nancy Fraser's parity of participation and Hauke Brunkhorst's notion that functional differentiation in systems cannot generate asymmetric moral standards. These principles are then operationalised for regimes of welfare capitalism before exploring the contemporary German labour market in these terms, drawing on original qualitative research. It demonstrates that parity of participation cannot be achieved when the moral duty to participate is asymmetrically applied. It concludes capitalism is inherently unjust in any variety due to the inequality of wealth and free movement of capital reinforcing the inequality of moral expectations characterising the lived experience of welfare-mediated labour markets. Therefore, accepting this inherent injustice and whether institutions of the welfare state exacerbate or mitigate it should be the central focus of future research on social justice in comparative political economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Textos & Contextos is the property of EDIPUCRS - Editora Universitaria da PUCRS and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Abstract: Frynas and Stephens (Political corporate social responsibility: reviewing theories and setting new agendas. International Journal of Management Reviews, 17, pp. 483–509, 2015) reviewed the literature on political corporate social responsibility (CSR). They described existing trends and suggested an agenda for future research. They attempted to develop ‘a more inclusive pluralist research agenda in political CSR, which can integrate different perspectives on political CSR in order to account for different phenomena, including global governance changes at macro level, instrumental concerns at organizational level or cognitive dimensions at individual level, in both descriptive and normative terms’. This was an ambitious endeavour, given the rapid growth of the literature and the extensive heterogeneity of the field. There is much to like in Frynas and Stephens’ paper, as it spans a broad range of perspectives and links together discrete research topics. In the present review, however, the author focuses on a number of critical aspects in their argument. Frynas and Stephens failed to define core concepts, to reveal their normative stance on CSR and their paradigmatic position, or to address the inherent conflict of values in political CSR. And they were too optimistic about the possibilities and benefits of ‘integration’. The author suspects that their approach, when adopted in practice, will impede rather than promote social welfare. This paper starts with a brief summary of the field and continues by emphasizing critical issues in Frynas and Stephens’ analysis. It concludes with an alternative agenda for research in political CSR. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Within and outside of the discipline of International Relations, Frankfurt School Critical Theory faces a ‘crisis of critique’ that is affecting its ability to generate analyses and political interventions that are relevant to the present world-historical conjuncture. This article seeks to identify the theoretical origins of this predicament by investigating the meta-theoretical architecture of the prevailing Habermasian framework of critique. I contend that the binary ontology and methodology of society that lies at the heart of the Habermasian paradigm has effected an uncoupling of normative critique from substantive social and political analysis and resulted in a severe weakening of both Critical Theory’s ‘explanatory-diagnostic’ and ‘anticipatory-utopian’ capabilities. Thereafter, I discuss the determinate ways in which these issues have manifested in critical theoretical interventions on international politics by exploring both Habermas’s own writings on the post-national constellation and Andrew Linklater’s theory of cosmopolitanism and the sociology of global morals. Both projects, it is argued, rely on a reductive, functionalist analysis of global political dynamics and express a political perspective that lacks a definite critical content. Ultimately, the article contends that a revitalisation of Critical Theory in International Relations must necessarily involve a clarification of its fundamental categories of analysis and a recovery of the orientation towards totalising critique. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is still a relatively open question if and how sustainability fits into a critical theory of society. This paper's aim is to makes a contribution to the critical social theory foundations of sustainability and to reflect on the links between capitalism, class and sustainability. Sustainability has not been a very popular concept in sociological theory. One of the reasons may be that sociology has a strongly critical tradition focusing on the analysis and critique of power structures in modern society. It is therefore often sceptical of ideas coming from the policy world that are susceptible to having an administrative character. The article argues that, although sustainability has a strongly ideological character, a critical theory of society should not simply discard this notion, but aim to sublate it. Some foundations of a way to integrate sustainability into a critical theory of society are presented. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A recentRIPEarticle by Jerry Cohen argues that current research on the political economy of money has stagnated because of its overemphasis on the scientific method and domestic variables. We argue that a wide array of scientifically oriented research on the IPE of money considers the system in many different ways. To help build a dialogue, we categorize each of these conceptions of ‘the system’ and give examples of their application from recent research on the IPE of money. Our hope is that this typology will help scholars of different approaches recognize the similarities and differences in their research, beyond simply whether the research is scientific or heterodox. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Transparency is an important concept in International Relations. The possibility of realizing transparency in practice operates as a central analytical axis defining distinct positions on core theoretical problems within the field, from the security dilemma to the function of international institutions and beyond. As a political practice, the pursuit of transparent governance is a dominant feature of global politics, promoted by a wide range of actors across a vast range of issue areas, from nuclear proliferation, to internet governance, to the politics of foreign aid. Yet, despite its importance, precisely what transparency means or how the concept is understood is frequently ill-defined by academics and policymakers alike. As a result, the epistemological and ontological underpinnings of approaches to transparency in International Relations often sit in tension with their wider theoretical commitments. This article will examine the three primary understandings of transparency used in International Relations in order to unpack these commitments. It finds that while transparency is often explicitly conceptualized as a property of information, particularly within rationalist scholarship, this understanding rests upon an unarticulated set of sociological assumptions. This analysis suggests that conceptualizing ‘transparency as information’ without a wider sociology of knowledge production is highly problematic, potentially obscuring our ability to recognize transparent practices in global governance. Understanding transparency as dialogue, as a social practice rooted in shared cognitive capacities and epistemic frameworks, provides a firmer analytical ground from which to examine transparency in International Relations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay argues for a paradigm shift in the study of the Internet and digital/social media. Big data analytics is the dominant paradigm. It receives large amounts of funding, is administrative and a form of digital positivism. Critical social media research is an alternative approach that combines critical social media theory, critical digital methods and critical-realist social media research ethics. Strengthening the second approach is a material question of power in academia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Critical disability studies has been accused of preoccupation with cultural, lingual and discursive matters, and in doing so failing to adequately engage with the often-harsh material reality of disability. This has contributed to a circumstance in which disability studies has produced a lack of material focused directly upon economic processes. Concurrently, disabled people have encountered a momentous economic recession that has threatened their basic economic and human rights. This article seeks to address what is evidently a gap in the burgeoning critical disability and disability studies literature. That is, a gap largely uninhabited by attempts to apply a critical disability studies perspective to macro-economic processes. The article focuses predominantly on two facets of critical disability studies as identified by Goodley: the self and other, and intersectionality. The article concludes that critical disability studies has much to offer through the production of new understandings of economic processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article addresses Richard Westra, Ian Bruff and Matthias Ebenau's responses to my prior review essay on their edited volumes. In my initial survey, I concluded that both volumes reinvigorate the radical potential of contemporary Comparative Capitalisms (CC) literatures, but warned against the tendency in critical research to trace capitalism solely at its worst. I posited that this pessimism undermines the volumes' pedagogical potential and threatens to bring us to intellectual cul-de-sacs. The authors respond in different ways to this critical engagement: Westra provides a guideline to trace such an intellectual pessimism in the (neo-)Marxist political economy and points to the so-called 'Uno approach' as an alternative direction that opens our intellectual horizons to social change in (post-)capitalism. In contrast, Bruff and Ebenau regard my review as less monochromatic than other discussions of their research project but nevertheless assertively retort to my critique. This reply seeks to engage the aforementioned scholars in a discussion, while reconsidering the alleged pessimism of critical CC research as informed optimism. Such informed optimism must be found in a critical research that (i) is based on a deeper reflexive theoretical discussion rather than a one-sided deconstruction of mainstreamscholarship; and (ii) derives from a holistic approach broadened by a human-centred perspective, which also exposes us to actually existing alternatives within as well as to (post-)capitalism. Given that such approaches are currently only implicit, the many ongoing crises of contemporary capitalism represent a critical juncture not only for mainstream, but also for critical CC research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Due to the global capitalist crisis, neoliberalism and the logic of commodification of everything have suffered cracks, fissures and holes. There is a return of the interest in Marx, which requires us to think about the role of Marxism in Media and Communication Studies. This paper contributes to this task by discussing some foundations of contemporary Marxist media and communication studies, including a focus on the renewed interest in Dallas Smythe’s audience commodity category as part of the digital labour debate. Dallas Smythe reminds us of the importance of engagement with Marx’s works for studying the media in capitalism critically. Both Critical Theory and Critical Political Economy of the Media and Communication have been criticized for being one-sided. Such interpretations are mainly based on selective readings. They ignore that in both approaches there has been with different weightings a focus on aspects of media commodification, audiences, ideology and alternatives. Critical Theory and Critical Political Economy are complementary and should be combined in Critical Media and Communication Studies today. Dallas Smythe’s notion of the audience commodity has gained new relevance in the debate about corporate Internet services’ exploitation of digital labour. The exploitation of digital labour involves processes of coercion, alienation and appropriation.

Copyright of Annals for Istrian & Mediterranean Studies / Annales: Series Historia et Sociologia is the property of Historical Society of Southern Primorska of Koper and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Revista Telos is the property of Revista Telos and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Building upon critical education policy studies of crisis, disaster, and reform, this essay develops a theory of recovery that further elaborates the nature and operation of 'crisis politics' in neoliberal education reform. Recovery is an integral process in capital accumulation, exploiting material, and subjective vulnerability in order to bridge crisis to crisis. Capitalizing on crises, neoliberal reformers position privatization as the mechanism of recovery. Rather than acknowledge their complicity in creating crises, neoliberals externalize the demands of recovery onto schools, teachers, and students. This essay calls for critical educators, social justice advocates, and communities subjected to crises to refuse the neoliberal terms of recovery and to affirm the collective potential to break the cycle of crisis and recovery so intrinsic to capitalist accumulation. Although this essay emphasizes the dialectic of crisis and recovery in United States education policy, this lens is relevant across a variety of national and transnational contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers information on issues and assumptions about the state of capitalism. It provides a critical analysis and reconstruction of the attempt of philosopher Jürgen Bahermas in articulating a cosmopolitan democratic alternative to the Frankfurt School's Critical Theory with its roots in the critique of political economy as well as the consequences of his eventual abandonment of such critique. Information about post-Marxist liberal and radical theory is provided.

The article provides information regarding the concept of capitalism and critical theory. It examines the crisis of capitalism as distinct object of critique as well as explores the analytical equipment at critical theory's disposal. It presents a recommendation for recasting critical theory through redefining the normative content of emancipation as well as bringing the critique of political economy back into critical social theory.

The task of this paper is to point out the relevance of Karl Marx for Internet Studies. Marxian concepts that have been reflected implicitly or explicitly in Internet Studies include: (1) dialectics; (2) capitalism; (3) commodity/commodification; (4) surplus value, exploitation, alienation, class; (5) globalization; (6) ideology/ideology critique; (7) art and aesthetics; (8) class struggle; (9) commons; (10) public sphere; (11) communism. The paper provides a literature overview for showing that, and how, Marxian concepts have been used in Internet Studies. Internet Studies to a certain extent analyse the Internet, economy and society in Marxist-inspired studies terms, yet do not acknowledge the connection to Marx and thus seem superficial in their various approaches discussing capitalism, exploitation and domination. We argue that it is time to actively remember that Marx is the founding figure of Critical Studies and that Marxian analyses are crucial for understanding the contemporary role of the Internet and the media in society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An essay is presented which examines professor Axel Honneth and critical theorist Nancy Fraser's stand on the inconsistencies of neoliberalism. The author argues that the constraints of neoliberalism bring into focus the structural challenge of immanent critique within Critical Theory's second and third generations. He also maintains that normative ambivalence within neoliberalism calls for a shift in the way that critical and justificatory practices are understood within the Frankfurt School.

This essay presents the appropriation of second-generation Frankfurtian thought by Paulo Arantes and Roberto Schwarz, two Brazilian contemporary authors, as a response to national problems whose understanding demands a contextualisation within the general picture of the development of capitalism, as well as a perspective of radical critique of bourgeois society. This approach develops from the first receptions of Critical Theory in Brazil in the early 1960s and late 1970s, when military dictatorship and so-called ‘democratic reopening’ forced the Left either to accept the alliance with the national bourgeoisie prescribed by Soviet policy or to revise the categories of orthodox Marxism so as to insist on a radical critique of capitalism. In both moments, leftist intellectuals who chose the second path turned to the Frankfurt School's critique of bourgeois modernization for inspiration. The Marxian notion of the Primitive Accumulation of Capital was also explored in order to emphasize the seamless continuity between colonial violence, in the beginning of Brazilian history, and the country's late entrance in world capitalism. Schwarz's and Arantes's generation perceived that continuity, not as something accidental and exceptional, but as an example of what, in bourgeois civilization, was the rule, and therefore Brazilian modernisation appeared not as a still-unfinished process, but as a necessarily precarious and complete event: the country's miserable integration within international division of labour. On the other hand, certain specificities of that integration, insofar as they appear as more than a Brazilian accident, can be expanded so as to contribute to a diagnosis of capitalism as a whole. Schwarz develops this problematic through an interpretation of the literary work of Machado de Assis. In it, the Brazilian elite of the 1800s – at once pro-slavery and liberal, and thus exemplifying the compatibility between European lumières and colonial brutality – functions as a key to understanding the limitations of the promises of bourgeois civilisation. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper explores the political-economic basis and ideological effects of talk about neoliberalism with respect to media and communication studies. In response to the supposed ascendancy of the neoliberal order since the 1980s, many media and communication scholars have redirected their critical attentions from capitalism to neoliberalism. This paper tries to clarify the significance of the relatively new emphasis on neoliberalism in the discourse of media and communication studies, with particular reference to the 2011 phone hacking scandal at The News of the World. Questioning whether the discursive substitution of 'neoliberalism' for 'capitalism' offers any advances in critical purchase or explanatory power to critics of capitalist society and its media, the paper proposes that critics substitute a Marxist class analysis in place of the neoliberalism-versus-democracy framework that currently dominates in the field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents reflections on the conference "Critique, Democracy and Philosophy in 21st Century Information Society. Towards Critical Theories of the Information Society" that took place at Uppsala University from May 2nd-4th, 2012. About 160 participants attended the conference. It featured 15 plenary talks in seven sessions, 15 paper presentation sessions organised in 5 slots that each had 3 parallel sessions. The conference was financially supported by the Swedish Research Council and organised by Uppsala University's Department of Informatics and Media, the ICTs and Society Network (http://www.icts-and-society.net), the European Sociological Association's Research Network 18: Sociology of Communications and Media Research (http://www.europeansociology.org/research-networks/rn18-sociology-of-communications-and-media-research.html), tripleC -- Open Access Journal for a Global Sustainable Information Society (http://www.triplec.at), the Unified Theory of Information Research Group (UTI), Aarhus University's Department of Information and Media Studies, the Vienna University of Technology's Institute for Design & Assessment of Technology, and Jönköping University's School of Education and Communication. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The notion of critique, as in the idea of a critical theory of society, is in urgent need of clarification both theoretically and methodologically. At least five major uses of the term can be found within sociological theory, the positions associated with the critical theory of the Frankfurt School from Adorno to Habermas and Honneth, Bourdieu's critical sociology, critical realism, Foucault's genealogical critique, and various notions of critical practice, most notably the work of Boltanski and Thévenot. It is possible to detect a movement from the Hegelian-Marxist approach towards interpretative conceptions of critique, leading to a pluralisation of critique and a shift from macro to micro analysis. A theoretical clarification of the notion of critique in these approaches offers a basis fora new and more rigorous methodological application of critique in social research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the significance of the concept of agency for the project of critical theory as defined by Robert Cox. Even if numerous scholars recognize the importance of agency, very few have managed to set up an agenda that uses this notion in productive ways. I argue that this failure largely stems from the desire to present power as a structural phenomenon. If we see power as embedded in the very structure of society, it becomes difficult to see how social forces can escape the inherent tendencies imposed by structures. For this reason, the issue of social change has continued to elude critical theory making it difficult to open up space for an approach based on agency. Against structural conceptions of power, I present an agent-based conception of power which can serve to contextualize international relations in different terms. By presenting power in terms of practice, I argue, one can better overcome the reifying gaze of positivism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article deals with the category of alternative media from a theoretical perspective. It aims to develop a definition and to distinguish different dimensions of alternative media. The article is a contribution to theoretical foundations of alternative media studies. The notion of alternative media as critical media is introduced. Critical media product content shows the suppressed possibilities of existence, antagonisms of reality, and potentials for change. It questions domination, expresses the standpoints of the oppressed and dominated groups and individuals and argues for the advancement of a co-operative society. Critical media product form aims at advancing imagination; it is dialectical because it involves dynamics, non-identity, rupture, and the unexpected. The category of critical media is connected to Negt and Kluge's notion of the counter-public sphere. Critical media can be seen as the communicative dimension of the counter-public sphere. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presents information on a study which proposed a sociolinguistic method with which to critically engage the hyperbole of the Information Age. Social contours of the emerging knowledge economy; Historical trajectory of value and its relationship with commodity forms; Conclusions.

The article discusses "critical Theory". The problem of the application of critical theory to the practical world is a rather complex one which basically concerns the question of the normative foundations of the social sciences or more specifically, the reestablishment of a relation between the social sciences and practical philosophy. Since the normative foundations of critical theory do not guarantee the truth and objectivity of social scientific statements or propositions, immanent procedures and concrete analyses are and will remain a basic requirement of critical theoretical social scientific practice.

This paper describes the nature of critical theory, its historical development, its connections to sociology and Marxism, and the central debates over its core ideas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Explores the notion of Marxism and critical theory. Contributions of Marxism to the political economy; Connection between Marxism and critical theory; Characterization of critical theory by critical theorists; Factors contributing to the development of Marxist concerns; Implications of the expansion of the domain of political reflection for the emergence of the dimensions of life to critical social analysis and active intervention.