Critical Theory of Legal Revolutions Evolutionary Perspectives

This unique work analyzes the crisis in modern society, building on the ideas of the Frankfurt School thinkers. Emphasizing social evolution and learning processes, it argues that crisis is mediated by social class conflicts and collective learning, the results of which are embodied in constitutional and public law.

First, the work outlines a new categorical framework of critical theory in which it is conceived as a theory of crisis. It shows that the Marxist focus on economy and on class struggle is too narrow to deal with the range of social conflicts within modern society, and posits that a crisis of legitimization is at the core of all crises. It then discusses the dialectic of revolutionary and evolutionary developmental processes of modern society and its legal system.

This volume in the Critical Theory and Contemporary Society by a leading scholar in the field provides a new approach to critical theory that will appeal to anyone studying political sociology, political theory, and law.

Hauke Brunkhorst is Professor of Sociology and Head of the Institute of Sociology at the University of Flensburg, Germany. Previously, he was the Theodor Heuss Professor at the New School for Social Research in New York, USA. A political sociologist, he has authored many books, including Adorno and Critical Theory (1999) and Solidarity: From Civic Friendship to a Global Legal Community (2005).

IntroductionI: Return of Crisis:IntroductionDis-Embeddedness and ExpropriationThe HidingThe Price of ElegancePollution and InjusticeSocial Class Conflicts in the Differentiated SocietyConclusionII: The Institutionalization of Freedom and the Co-Evolution of Cosmopolitan and National StatehoodIntroductionAn Evolutionary Universal          The First Cosmopolitan State and the Freedom of Corporation:           Freedom of the Individual Human Being          Co-evolution of Universal and National StatehoodRevolutionary Advances Reluctant Advances revolution, Collective Learning and ‘Progress in the Consciousness of Freedom'III: An Unfinished Legal RevolutionIntroductionA new idea of freedom: Human dignity and mass democracyRevolutionary and Evolutionary Constitutionalization Lost Democracy? There Will Be Blood: Legitimization-Crisis of World SocietyConclusion