The sociology of modernity tends to approach different forms of human existence in temporal terms, specifically, the rupture between traditional community and modern society. These debates have impacted upon IR primarily in the deployment of the contrast between traditional and modern forms of sociopolitical order in order to ascribe and explain the different constitutions of the domestic and international spheres. In fact, the category itself is largely a product of this discipline, and scholars created the discipline in the nineteenth century specifically to come to terms with “society” as a novel form of human existence. However, these debates have influenced IR in two main ways: firstly, via the exploration of continuity and change in the international system secondly, and at a more subterranean level, via some of the “great debates” of the discipline and the development of contending theoretical approaches.ĭebates over modernity have proceeded most influentially in the discipline of sociology. IR is by and large a derivative discipline when it comes to debates over modernity and modernization. Modernization refers to the transitional process of moving from “traditional” or “primitive” communities to modern societies. Modernity refers to a condition of social existence that is radically different to all past forms of human experience. The attempt to correlate and explain the relationship between temporal and geocultural difference presents a foundational challenge to understandings of the condition of modernity and the processes of modernization. Sociological inquiry of modernity and the anthropological/comparative study of modernization have provided two articulations of sociopolitical difference-temporal and geocultural, respectively-that have exerted a strong impact upon approaches to and debates within IR. In its paradoxical search for social content of modern conditions of anomie, alienation, and disenchantment, sociology has relied upon Émile Durkheim, Karl Marx, and Max Weber. These debates revolved around the constitution of the modern subject: how sociopolitical order is formed in the midst of anomie or alienation of the subject what form of knowledge production this subject engages in, and what form of knowledge production is appropriate to understand modern subjectivity and the ethical orientation of the modern subject under conditions where human existence has been rationalized and disenchanted. Debates over modernity have been most prominent in the discipline of sociology, created in the nineteenth century specifically to come to terms with “society” as a novel form of human existence. Modernity is defined as a condition of social existence that is significantly different to all past forms of human experience, while modernization refers to the transitional process of moving from “traditional” or “primitive” communities to modern societies.
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