Social Change, Development and Dependency

Part 1 Concepts of social change: opposing influences in sociology - historical materialism and structural-functionism; development and its denial - modernization theory versus dependency theory; social interaction and the reproduction of institutions through time and space - the theory of structuration and the concept of inter-societal systems. Part 2 The rise of Western civilization: the development of European institutions as Western culture; Western societies as a state system - the development of the nation-state; colonial episodes - the implanting of Western institutions around the world. Part 3 The definition of three "Worlds" after the Second World War: post-war reconstruction and new global organizations - the confirmation of an inter-societal system; the formation of the Soviet Union and the Second World - state socialism as an alternative pathway of development; the identification of the Third World and the recognition of dependency. Part 4 The world towards the end of the 20th century: contemporary Western development - liberal democratic capitalism through crises but re-arffirmed; development in the East - Japan and the newly industrializing countries of East Asia; the resurgence of Islamism - an alternative to Western capitalism or state socialism?.