The early essays in this volume proceed on the assumption that a compatibility system can be fashioned that will not only bring religious knowledge claims into harmony with scientific claims but will also show there to be a fundamental similarity of method in religious and scientific thinking. They are not, however, unambiguously successful. Consequently Professor Wiebe sets out in the succeeding essays to seek an understanding of the religion/science relationship that does not assume they must be compatible. That examination, in the final analysis, reveals a fundamental contradiction in the compatibility system building programme which more than suggests that religious belief (knowledge) is beyond legitimation.

Legitimacy is an essential concept in politics. But what is it? This book seeks to answer this question through adopting Weber’s sociological approach to legitimacy. Weber argues that we should not only understand legitimacy from the perspective of the political order, but that we should also look at its subjective meaning. If this approach seems to have fallen into discredit since Weber formulated it almost a century ago, Netelenbos argues that we need to bring back the subjective into political sociology and theory. Political Legitimacy beyond Weber argues that contemporary politics in late-modern society cannot merely be understood in terms of legitimate domination or formal bureaucratic organisation. Politics is also about strategic conflict, coordination and argumentation. Based upon these different conceptualisations of politics and by critically evaluating some of the most leading sociologies, Netelenbos presents four analytical perspectives of political legitimacy. Providing crucial insights into the multiple dimensions of political legitimacy, this will be an essential tool for both empirical and normative research.

Combining case studies with normative theory, this book analyzes the democratic credentials of transnational actors participating in global governance, ranging from corporations and philanthropic foundations to NGOs and social movements. This leads to innovative interpretations of democratic legitimacy in a transnational context.

This volume contributes to the discussion of narratives as a research method by bringing together studies that illuminate the connection between narratives and social and political practices. The scholars from diverse fields and backgrounds offer their perspectives on the theoretical and empirical approaches to using narratives as research method.

Most comparisons of science and religion are really comparisons of science and Christianity, or science and Islam, and so forth. In Scientific Models for Religious Knowledge, the author aims to get outside typical polarized debates between traditional, a priori theism and radical, scientistic naturalism. Instead, a new science and religion compatibility system—between a scientific study of religion and a religious epistemology—is our new, elusive problem. Moreover, we shall look at a comparison and contrast of modern science with the simple deference of the human mind to the actions of culturally postulated superhuman agents. This book pays critical attention to the contributions of scholars in the philosophy of religion, the philosophy of science, and the scientific study of religion. Scientific Models for Religious Knowledge is useful for readers looking to expand their learning in the philosophies of science and religion as these subjects are taught and analyzed in modern research universities.

In Beyond Dogmatism. Studies in Historical Sociology Andrea Borghini offers a general overwiew of the perspective of Historical Sociology through distinguished authors working in this field. Each of the contributing chapters traverses the history of sociological thought in a rich and innovative way. Through the analysis of authors such as Bourdieu, Lukàcs, Chase Dunn, Gramsci, Polanyi, Sombart, Mann and topics such as the Critique of Capitalism, the Fetishism of Commodities, the Sociology of Concepts, and various comparisons between Sociology and Political Science, an enlightening panorama is composed. The end result is to restore the extreme topicality and richness of an approach that is particularly valuable for describing and interpreting the dynamics of our age. Contributors are Ricardo A. Dello Buono, Gerardo Pastore, Domenico Maddaloni, Cory Blad, Enrico Campo, Alfonso Maurizio Iacono, Roberta Iannone, Andrea Borghini, Elena Gremigni, Eleonora Piromalli, Lorenzo Sabetta, Carmelo Lombardo and Alfredo Ferrara .

In this ground-breaking study, John Dryzek argues that democratic theory is now dominated by a deliberative approach. As one of those responsible for this turn, John Dryzek now takes issue with the direction it has taken. Discussing the models of democracy advocated by both friends and critics of the deliberative approach, Dryzek shows that democracy should be critical of established power, transitional in extending beyond national boundaries, and dynamic in its openness to changing constraints upon and opportunities for democratization. - ;The past few years have seen a remarkable ferment in the theory of democracy. Deliberative Democracy and Beyond builds on a critical tour through recent democratic theory by one of the leading political theorists in the field. It examines the deliberative turn in democratic theory, which argues that the essence of democratic legitimacy is to be found in authentic deliberations on the part of those affected by a collective decision. The deliberative turn began as a challenge to established institutions and models of democracy, but it has now been largely assimilated by these same institutions and models. Drawing a distinction between liberal constitutionalist deliberative democracy and discursive democracy, the author criticizes the former and advocates the latter. He argues that a defensible theory of democracy should be critical of established power, pluralistic, reflexive in its questioning orientation to established traditions, transnational in its capacity to extend across state boundaries, ecological, and dynamic in its openness to ever-changing constraints upon and opportunities for democratization. Dryzek's reinvigorated approach enables deliberative democracy to respond more effectively to the criticisms that have been leveled against it. - ;Remarkable book ... Dryzek's discussions are unfailingly lucid, and his critical assessments of the literature remain comprehensive and illuminating ... Readers will find much to ponder in what he has to say. - Ethics;The most remarkable and subtle part of Dryzek's argument is his attempt to construct green theory of democratic communication, which takes account of agency and communication in the non-human natural world ... The argument is a bit like crossing a ravine on a bridge of eggshells, and is conducted with considerable intellectual excitement ... Dryzek's discussion is throughout careful, rigorous, detailed, and in dealing with views from which he distinguishes his own position, scrupulously sympathetic. - Democratizaton;This clear and imaginative presentation of recent attempts to make democracy more inclusive than traditional liberal models bounded by the institutions of the state is highly recommended for collections serving upper-division undergraduates, graduate students, and researchers. - Choice;Dryzek is a sharp and authoritative critic, and this will be an influential work ... even the sceptical will do well to engage closely with Dryzek's provocative vision. - Political Studies

This book aims at exploring the reception of critical posthumanist conversations in the context of Management and Organization Studies. It constitutes an invitation to de-center the human subject and thus an invitation to the ongoing deconstruction of humanism. The project is not to deny humans but to position them in relation to other nonhumans, more-than-humans, the non-living world, and all the “missing masses” from organizational inquiry. What is under critique is humanism’s anthropocentrism, essentialism, exceptionalism, and speciesism in the context of the Anthropocene and the contemporary crisis the world experiences. From climate change to the loss of sense at work, to the new geopolitical crisis, to the unknown effects of the diffusion of AI, all these powerful forces have implications for organizations and organizing. A re-imagination of concepts, theories, and methods is needed in organization studies to cope with the challenge of a more-than-human world.

One of the most notorious differences between the academic production on management carried out in Europe, compared to that in the United States, is the attention that European scholars give to the managerial discourse and rhetorics, especially in their textual or written embodiments. In fact, it is one of the few topics where the usual dominance of American scholarship (Engwall, 1998) does not hold. Discourses in management address basically two issues, most often of analytical intertwined in practice, differentiated here only because requirements. One, is the legitimization, both ideological and political, of management, basically geared at the justification of the differentials of power present in the coordination of collective action aimed at the consecution of economic objectives. As Bendix points out in Work and Authority in Industry, the most pressing challenge for this ideological work stems from the fact that in capitalism the logic of efficiency is hegemonic, and this is not easily conducive to the justification of status differentials. This is why managerial discourses are never open, straightforward, and why they are, in sum, clearly ideological.

This work interrupts the current “consulting students” discourse that positions students as service clients and thus renders more problematic the concept of student voice in ways that it might be sustained as a democratic process. It looks at student voice holistically across realms of classroom practices, higher education, practitioner inquiry and policy formulation. The authors render problematic the “empowerment” rhetoric that is the dominant and insufficient narrative justifying consulting children and young people. They explore the many contradictions and ambiguities associating with recruiting and encouraging them to participate and the varying impacts of different circumstances on the ways in which student voice projects are enacted. They perceive that it is possible for student voice projects to be subverted from both above and below as varying stakeholders with varying purposes struggle to manage and control projects. Importantly, the book reports on research that identifies and highlights conditions for initiating and sustaining student voice and include “beyond school” dimensions that consider young people as “audiences” who can inform community facilities, their development and design as well as undergraduate students in universities. These cases are not reported as celebratory, but rather act as narratives that illuminate the many challenges facing those who chose to work with young people in authentic ways. It both advances methodologies for engaging young people as active agents in the design and interpretation of research that concerns them and offers a critique of those methods that see young people as the objects of research, where the data is mined for purposes that do not recognise that students are the consequential stakeholders with respect to decisions made in their interests.​