Social transformation, development, and European social sciences

Abstract

The paper starts from the impression that European social scientists in the mainstream of all disciplines remain surprisingly unimpressed by the present global crisis. The general thesis is that mainstream Western social science is still not willing, and may in fact be unable, to understand the explosive character of the transformations happening, and even less of the societal content of the sustainability problématique. To challenge this apathy, three examples are used to illustrate what happens outside the ivory tower, and their interlinkages are discussed: the gradual destruction of tropical rainforests, the ‘Asian’ financial and economic meltdown, and socio‐economic polarization and anomia in the transformation societies of the former socialist block. It then goes into sustainable development, marches on to discuss briefly western social sciences and their major flaws, and finally draws some conclusions about where European social sciences should be directed.