Social Power: The Emergence of New Socio-Political Forces

Abstract

Even when one looks at the history of mankind as a series of continuous transformations, one cannot cease to wonder at the transformations that have so rapidly taken place in the present century: the destructions caused by the two world wars and the miseries engendered by the economic crises; the unprecedented advance of science and technology, and man’s journey beyond the confines of this planet; the emergence of socialist States on three continents, and the triumph of national liberation movements in Asia, Africa and Latin America. The social system and rationality that dominated the world from the sixteenth century have now been challenged; yet problems for the majority of the human population have remained unresolved. Political victories have, in turn, laid bare the economic issues and reopened the question of social power. All these factors lead one to search for the location and novation of social power; to try to understand the working of the socio-political forces; to comprehend the role of ideology and of culture and thought; to assess the progress of the powers of the State, especially, in the background of the world system in which they are seen to function.