First published in 1989, this Routledge Revival is a major collection of essays on the competing traditions of social and political theory. The contributions, by international scholars, reflect the re-examination of the boundaries between the ‘political’ and the ‘social’, the ‘public’ and ‘private’, and ‘state’ and ‘society’. The reissue will be of great value to students in both sociology and political science.

Bringing new arguments to bear on the debate about the place of political theory in social science, the contributors discuss such issues as the different languages used by sociologists to describe the state; Marxist and socialist theory; class analysis; the welfare state; feminist political theory; and the impact of post-modernity on contemporary social thought.

Contents

1. Introduction: Politics and Social Theory Peter Lassman 2. Vocabularies of the State R.N. Berki 3. Marxism, Democracy and the Public Sphere Christopher Pierson 4. Class Analysis as Social Theory Barry Hindess 5. States, Populations and Productivity: Towards a Political Theory of Welfare States Goran Therborn 6. Foucault: Power and Politics J. F. Bird 7. Women, Welfare and the Politics of Need Interpretation Nancy Fraser 8. Socialism as a Sociological Problem Irving Velody 9. Postmodernity and Contemporary Social Thought Wayne Hudson