| Almost 40 people took part in the CSCW seminar with Georgi Derluguian, Professor of Sociology at Northwestern University, Chicago. |
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| Many spontaneous and shocking crises in the world system - from the riots in the suburbs of Paris to the uprisings in Andijan, Uzbekistan and Nalchik, Russia, to the angry protests agaist 'blasphemous' cartoons - are triggered by deeper tensions and accumulating disbalances. Theories and conceptual schemes typically invoked for explaining these events - from the much-abused 'clash of civilizations' to the hopeful 'post-communist transition' - are at best misleading and all too often useless. |
There is a need for 'New Political Thinking' - a cliche invented by Mikhail Gorbachev some 20 years ago - that would combine macro-sociology and political micro-analysis. This thinking is in the making. |
