Reflexive Modernization

Bibliographic Data

ID23613284
AuthorsKyung‐sup Chang (Seoul National University, corresponding author)
Year2017
Pages1-3
Publication date2017-12-04
Open AccessYes
TypeCHAPTER
VenueWiley Blackwell Encyclopedia of Social Theory (SOURCE_BOOK)
PublisherWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1002/9781118430873.est0835
OpenAlexW4241447590
ISBN9781118430873
LanguageEN
Citations received2
References cited16

Reflexivity is a defining characteristic of modern society (and people) which produces a built‐in dynamic of cognitively and politically bounded social change. Reflexive modernization – a theory of late modern social change led by Ulrich Beck in association with Anthony Giddens, Scott Lash, and so on – is a form of social change driven by judgments and actions which are supposedly scientific or rational, but in practice comprised of reflexes , and therefore destined to engender a risk‐ridden state of affairs in society. Late modern individuals, groups, and organizations do not self‐consciously (and cannot) choose to be reflexive, instead of being reflective. They (are forced to) choose compulsively among the floods of choices presented to them in the name of rationality. On the other hand, there have been abrupt realignments and enlargements of boundaries of human existence and institutional operation that simultaneously cause drastic amplification of the already proliferated pool of knowledge and its social coordinates and heavily intensify ontological indeterminacies and uncertainties as to people and society.

Economics · Epistemology · Modernization theory · Political economy · Political science · Positive economics · Rationality · Reflexivity · Risk society · Social science · Sociology · State (computer science) · Critical Realism in Sociology · Critical Theory and Philosophy · Law · Mathematics · Philosophy · Social and Cultural Dynamics

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