The article reviews the “Varieties of Capitalism” (VoC) approach and its large impact on the field of comparative political economy. It situates the approach within the field, and stresses its specificities. The article argues that VoC's firm-centeredness, parsimony, and reliance on conceptual tools borrowed from economics, fit better than other approaches to a Zeitgeist formed in the context of the demise of Western capitalism's alternatives, and the globalization-induced shift of societies’ center of gravity away from politics towards firms and markets. The article then revisits major debates that have followed the publication of the seminal Hall-Soskice book. The debates have revealed that VoC's greatest strengths, in the end, turn out to be obstacles when it comes to analyzing problems of contemporary capitalism.

The article discusses three liberal arguments about freedom of movement: immigration as a remedy for global injustice in the distribution of opportunities, freedom of movement as an integral aspect of individual autonomy, and immigration control as implied in democratic self-determination and citizenship. The article shows how these apparently irreconcilable stances can be reconstructed as partially overlapping once we realize that liberal citizenship provides not only reasons for closure but entails a bundle of mobility rights and is open for access by migrant stakeholders.

This article studies Durkheim's views on altruism and selfishness and, therefore, on modern individualism. In contrast to Comte and Spencer, Durkheim used these concepts in his empirical work on suicide and then as intellectual tools for explaining his view on the professional and political organization required in a modern democracy. Finaly, the article examines how Durkheim's views were modified by the Durkheimian, notably with Marcel Mauss’ emphasis on interested/desinterested behaviors in gift-giving processes which are the empirical and symbolical roots of social solidarity.

Into the ironic narrative of his Souvenirs, Tocqueville weaves a schematic saved-by-danger vs. destroyed-by-success scheme to illuminate the conditions under which revolutionary movements are crushed or prevail. Emergencies focus distracted minds on a single aim-in-view and moderate competitive emotions, encouraging talented members of a privileged group to pool their resources cooperatively. Contrariwise, less salient dangers creep up on privileged groups, taking them unawares, especially if they have become inured to danger by a seemingly unchallenging environment.

Social cohesion is frequently mentioned in political discourse. However this concept remains vague and ill-defined. We intend to propose a typology of social cohesion patterns and examine under which conditions this concept might be used. Firstly, we sketch a brief history of its introduction in the political debate. Then we sort out three different meanings of this concept, in order to analyze which representations it is associated with.

This article demonstrates that among violent Islamists engineers with a degree, individuals with an engineering education are three to four times more frequent than we would expect given the share of engineers among university students in Islamic countries. We then test a number of hypotheses to account for this phenomenon. We argue that a combination of two factors – engineers’ relative deprivation in the Islamic world and mindset – is the most plausible explanation.

In this article, I review my recent book Protestant Modernity. Weber, Secularisation and Protestantism, which reconstructs Weber's theory of secularisation and argues that this is formulated within a liberal Protestant framework. I argue that this theory is a part of his Protestant account of modernity. I also sketch some of the major issues involved in developing a Catholic account of modernity and provide some worked through examples of the sociological implications of this change of confessional presuppositions.

A major thinker and inspiring teacher, Karl Polanyi's contributions have long been influential in a variety of disciplines, notably economic sociology and economic history. Two of his innovations, substantivist economic anthropology and the “double movement thesis,” are recognized as seminal. All of the works for which he is known, however, were written late in life, when in exile, and very little is known of his Hungarian writings, virtually none of which had, until now, been translated. Despite his fame, the biographical literature on Polanyi remains modest: some studies provide invaluable insights, yet all are brief. This article attempts to make some headway in remedying these lacunae. It sketches the contours of that extraordinary historical-geographical conjuncture in which he was formed, and explores his intellectual and political engagements in the Galilei Circle and the Radical Bourgeois Party. It seeks in particular to elucidate the complex roles played by questions of nation, ethnicity and class in the life of the young Karl Polanyi.

The article analyzes in a comparative framework the Jewish historical experience as a distinct – the first monotheistic – Axial civilization and the major characteristics thereof. Special emphasis is given to the multivalence of the major components of the cultural orientations, collective consciousness and institutional premises as they bear on its long historical continuity and their major carriers, including heterodoxies. The article points out some of the major differences of the modern Jewish historical experience as compared with medieval history.

The present article addresses the question of secularism in Greece. It discusses the prevalent modernist and civilisationist explanations of the recent crisis in state-church relations in Greece. Based on the idea that there is neither a single route to, nor a single pattern of, modernity and secularism, the article argues that the entanglement between state and church in modern Greece does not necessarily indicate either incomplete modernity or incomplete secularism. The paper emphasises both the structural weakness of the Orthodox Church in the modern Greek state and the secularisation of the church's ideology as core dimensions of the particular pattern of secularism in this country. The recent crisis is interpreted as a result of the twofold challenge of democratisation and globalisation that this historically grown pattern of secularism is facing over the last decades. Further, the article seeks to demonstrate that the nationalist stance of the Church of Greece should not be seen as persistent blind traditionalism and anti-modernism.

The growth in the numbers and influence of ultra-Orthodoxy – the haredim – since the Second World War has changed Judaism worldwide, even though it remains a minority culture. Growth has occurred through the maximization of family size and through the movement of t'shuva (“return”), and it has benefited from state and private subsidies to the institutions of Torah learning (yeshivot and schooling generally), which have become one of the twin pillars of ultra-Orthodoxy. The other pillar is the shidduch, the system of concerted marriage which ensures that more or less everyone gets married, and strengthens the educational institutions which inculcate among prospective brides a preference for a learned husband engaged in full-time study, and for a life devoted to sustaining him.

The Uniform Civil Code which, as written in the 1950 Constitution of the Indian Union, should be enacted, still does not (and will probably never) exist. This paper examines the tactics used by the opponents in the Constituent and Legislative Assembly (1946-1951) who succeeded to wreck a proposed “modernisation” of the Hindu Personnal Law, which could have been a first step towards that Uniform Code. In a very clever way, they never claimed to defend the dharma treatises which had codified and legitimated a Brahmanical Social Order for centuries, but only wanted to maintain the multiplicity and diversity of customs and usages of the Hindu people.