Rethinking Critical Theory: Emancipation in the Age of Global Social Movements

In this broad-ranging text, Ray assesses Critical Theory, particularly that of J[um]urgen Habermas. Developing an analysis of such ideas as the public sphere, communicative action and the colonization of the lifeworld, he examines the insights that Critical Theory can offer global analysis and the challenges to Critical Theory from global social change. In a detailed discussion of post-communist eastern Europe, Islamic revivalism in Iran and the liberation struggle in South Africa, the author argues that modernity is poised between the threat of authoritarian politics of identity on one hand and the promise of opening up new democratic communicative organizations on the other.