Theorizing modern society as a dynamic process / edited by Harry F. Dahms, Lawrence Hazelrigg.

Includes bibliographical references.

Introduction: Theorizing historical processes in modern societies / Harry F. Dahms and Lawrence Hazelrigg -- Toward bridging analytics and dialectics: nonergodic processes and turning points in dynamic models of social change with illustrations from labor movement history / Larry W. Isaac and Paul F. Lipold -- Adorno, advocate of the nonidentical: An introduction / Albrecht Wellmer -- Developments of analytical logic and dialectical logic with regard to the study of process dynamics / Lawrence Hazelrigg -- Communication, language, and the emergence of social orders / John Hamilton Bradford -- Culture, theory, and critique: Marx, Durkheim, and human science / Michael E. Brown and Jeffrey A. Halley -- Sociality-normativity-morality: The explanatory strategy of Günter Dux's historico-genetic theory / Heinz-Jürgen Niedenzu -- Politics disembodied and deterritorialized: The internet as human rights resource / Benjamin Gregg -- Civil society and the state in the neoliberal era: Dynamics of friends and enemies / Jon Shefner and Harry F. Dahms -- The social construction of the European society / Georg Vobruba.

While it was evident to the classics of social theory that modern societies are highly dynamic forms of social organization, and that this dynamic nature must be reflected explicitly and confronted directly in modes of analysis across the social sciences, over the course of the twentieth century, the acknowledgement of this fact has been weakening. As the social sciences became increasingly concerned with issues of professionalization and standards of validity inspired by more established disciplines, especially the natural sciences and economics, the focus on dynamic processes gave way to efforts to illuminate structural (id est, static) features of modern social life. In recent decades, however, this preoccupation with structure has begun to give way to more process-oriented research orientations. In part, this renewed interest in dynamics rather than statics is reflective of the growing influence of Continental European traditions, especially in Germany and France. In this follow-up volume to "Theorizing the Dynamics of Social Processes (vol. 27)", the emphasis is placed on recent trends in Continental European social theory, and on the importance of political analyses to theorizing modern societies.