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Rethinking Subpolitics

Beyond the `Iron Cage' of Modern Politics?

Mads P. Sørensen

Beck uses the term `subpolitics' to refer to forms of politics outside and beyond the representative institutions of the political system of nation-states. From the perspective of the theory of reflexive modernization, the proliferation of subpolitics indicates a weakening of the `iron cage' of bureaucratic, state-oriented politics. We argue that subpolitics does indeed challenge conventional notions of politics. It mobilizes sources of societal influence that transcend the formal political system. In particular, subpolitics correlates with the command over positive or negative sanctions and the capacity for uncertainty absorption. This can be illustrated in the areas of scientific expertise, corporate decision-making and political consumption. Those cases show that the political system cannot monopolize the means of societal influence. For a political system that regards itself as the centre of society, this must be irritating. For sociology, however, it provides the opportunity to part with such an inappropriate account of the role of politics in modern society.

Key Words: political system • reflexive modernization • subpolitics

Theory, Culture & Society, Vol. 20, No. 2, 79-102 (2003)
DOI: 10.1177/0263276403020002005


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