[FR] A new paradigm for understanding today’s world by Alain Touraine

The subtitle of Alain Touraine’s book accurately reflects the ambitions of this work, but also its limitations. The sociologist states from the outset that his aim is to take stock of the evolution of our European societies, because the analytical framework he used in the past, which focused on social movements and their oppositions, is no longer valid. Placing his argument in a long historical context, he posits that after an initial phase where ‘everything was political’ during the advent of parliamentary democracies in the 19th century, and a second period where ‘everything was social and economic,’ with the relationship to work as the pivot of identities, we are now entering a new paradigm where the cultural dimension is becoming essential.