Building Better Societies: Promoting Social Justice in a World Falling Apart

From Environmental Decline To Growing Economic Inequality, Things Are Getting Worse For The Majority Of The Human Race And Will Continue To Worsen Until Determined Action Is Taken. Starting From This Vantage Point, Building Better Societies Looks To Social Scientists To Identify What Is Needed To Solve The Problems That Are Leading To A Collapse Of Civil Society. This Is The First Book To Collect The Ideas Of Those Whose Research On Social Conditions Is At The Forefront Of Our Biggest Societal Problems. Challenging Fellow Social Scientists To Cast Aside Their Commitment To The Established Order And Its Ideological Support Systems, Building Better Societies Argues That Social Researchers Must, As Objectively As Possible, Use Their Skills To Look Ahead, Identify The Likely Outcomes Of Various Forms Of Intervention, And Move To The Forefront Of Informed Political Debate. Bringing Together Expert Contributors Researching The Many Aspects Of Our Social Condition, This Book Channels The Energy Of Social Scientists Into A More Normative And Engaged Voice; It Asks Them What Mechanisms, Interventions, And Evidence We Might Draw On As We Make A Better World.--provided By Publisher. Who Would Not Be For Society? -- The Social Question And The Urgency Of Care -- Better Politics: Narratives Of Indignation And The Possibility Of A Prosocial Politics -- Valuing And Strengthening Community -- Confronting The Roots Of Violent Behaviour -- In Defence Of The Public City -- Artfully Thinking The Prosocial -- Re-visioning Exclusion In Local Communities -- Putting 'the Social' Back Into Social Policy -- Progress Through Protest -- Cities, Crises And The Future -- Policy Steps Towards A Better Social Future -- The (in)visibility Of Riches, Urban Life And Exclusion -- The Uses Of Catastrophism -- Thinking Prosocially. Edited By Rowland Atkinson, Lisa Mckenzie And Simon Winlow. Includes Bibliographical References And Index.