Contested Individualization Debates about Contemporary Personhood

"This book addresses one of the most discussed topics in behavioral sciences since the early 1980s. The range of topics dealt with is impressive, and the author exhibits a creative linking of contemporary debates on individualization to the neo-liberal model of social governance, welfare state reform, and globalization." - Hermann Strasser, Professor of Sociology, University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany

"If one wants to analyze the present and the future of modernity one has to understand the process of 'institutionalized individualization' and its consequences, which means: no beds are left to re-embed. Individualization, therefore, undercuts and transforms basic institutions like family life, gender relations, social class, party systems, religion etc. This book is a must-read - it clarifies the concept of individualization and its operational meanings, it represents the controversies and, by all this, demonstrates the necessity to use the concept of individualization in order to understand the fundamental changes of our time." - Ulrich Beck, Professor for Sociology, University of Munich and London School of Economics and Political Sciences