Beck, Ulrich & Lau, Christoph - Second Modernity As A Research Agenda (2005)

The British Journal of Sociology 2005 Volume 56 Issue 4
Beck (Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich) and Lau (Department of Philosophy and Social Sciences, University of
Augsburg (Corresponding author email: u.beck@uni-muenchen.de)
London School of Economics and Political Science 2005 ISSN 0007-1315 print/1468-4446 online.
Published by Blackwell Publishing Ltd, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden,
MA 02148, USA on behalf of the LSE. DOI: 10.1111/j.1468-4446.2005.00082.x
Second modernity as a research agenda:
theoretical and empirical explorations
in the meta-change of modern society
Ulrich Beck and Christoph Lau
Abstract
In this article we are reformulating the theory of reexive modernization as an
empirical research programme and summarize some of the most recent ndings
which have been produced by a research consortium in Munich (integrating four
universities, funded by the German Research Society (DFG)). On this basis we
reject the idea that Western societies at the beginning of the twenty-rst century
move from the modern to the post-modern. We argue that there has been no clear
break with the basic principles of modernity but rather a transformation of basic
institutions of modernity such as the nation-state and the nuclear family. We would
suggest, therefore, that what we are witnessing is a second modernity. Finally,
we reform the theory of reexive modernization in reaction to three uttered
objections.
Keywords: Reexive modernization, postmodernity, individualization, globaliza-
tion, boundary transcendence, decision-making
All around the world, society is undergoing radical change radical in the
sense that it poses a challenge to Enlightenment-based modernity and opens
up a space in which people choose new and unexpected forms of the social
and the political. Sociological debates since the 1990s have sought to grasp
and conceptualize this reconguration. Some authors, who lay great stress on
the openness of the human project amid new contingencies, complexities and
uncertainties, operate with the term post-modernity (Bauman, Lyotard,
Harvey, Haraway). However, we reject the idea that so far this is a move from
the modern to the postmodern. On theoretical as well as on empirical grounds
our conclusion is that all Western societies are still modern societies: there
has been no movement beyond the realm of the modern to its opposite,
because there has been no clear break with the basic principles of modernity
but rather a transformation of basic institutions of modernity (for example,
the nation-state and the nuclear family). We would suggest, therefore, that
what we are witnessing is a second modernity.
We use the term rst modernity to describe the modernity based on nation-
state societies, where social relations, networks and communities are essen-
tially understood in a territorial sense. The collective patterns of life, progress
and controllability, full employment and exploitation of nature that were
typical of this rst modernity have now been undermined by certain inter-
linked processes: globalization, individualization, the gender revolution,
underemployment and global risks (such as the ecological crisis, the crash of
global nancial markets and the threat of transnational terrorist attacks). The
real theoretical and political challenge of second modernity is the fact that
society must respond to all these challenges simultaneously.
When these processes are considered more carefully, the thing they all have
in common emerges more clearly: they are all unforeseen consequences, not
of the crisis but of the victory of the rst, simple, linear, industrial moderniza-
tion based on the nation-state (the focus of classical sociology). This is what
we mean when we speak of reexive modernization: radicalized moderniza-
tion consumes the foundations of rst modernity and transforms its institu-
tions and its frame of reference, often in a way that is neither desired nor
anticipated. Or, in terms of systems theory: the unforeseen consequences of
functional differentiation can no longer be controlled by further functional
differentiation. In fact, the very idea of controllability, certainty or security
so fundamental to rst modernity collapses.
The aim of this article is to elaborate some of the major basic assumptions
and empirical implications of this theory of the self-transforming modern
society and to scrutinize them from an empirical standpoint. This will be done
in six sections. In the rst section we shall offer a more precise account of the
basic theoretical assumptions of the theory before outlining our programme
of empirical research in the second. In the third section we shall demonstrate
some of the distinctions between rst and second modernity. Having recon-
structed the main features of rst modernity in the fourth section, we shall
then elaborate the manifestations of the new, second modernity, in order, in
the sixth and nal section, to reform the theory of reexive modernization
accordingly.
1. Basic theoretical assumptions
These basic assumptions include, rst, the claim that there is a break between
rst and second, or reexive, modernity. The term rst modernity, far from
526 Ulrich Beck and Christoph Lau
London School of Economics and Political Science 2005
constituting a denial of the different phases and developmental thrusts of
modernization since the early modern era, instead encapsulates the claim that
the transition to second modernity marks the end point of a specic logic of
development, a logic which, from the middle of the ninetheenth century
onwards, became more and more established in Europe and North America
and culminated in the nation-state order of industrial society in the 1960s. This
high modernity of industrial society was as we have mentioned charac-
terized by a conguration of institutions that mutually conrmed and sup-
ported one another, such as the nation-state, the Fordist company, the nuclear
family, the system of industrial relations, the welfare state and unquestioned
science. The foundation of this institutional structure was a logic of order and
action that is only now plainly coming into view, as it comes to an end. This
logic drew a strict boundary between categories of human beings, things and
activities and made distinctions between modes of activity and ways of life,
something which made it possible to assign areas of authority and responsi-
bility unambiguously. This logic of non-ambiguity and strict differentiation is
increasingly coming up against its own limitations at the present time. It is
increasingly resistant to rational justication and, in some spheres, is com-
pletely ineffectual.
The logic of institutional action that held sway during rst modernity
worked according to the either/or principle either us or them, the organi-
zation or the market, family or not family, work or leisure, facts or values, war
or peace. In the circumstances of reexive modernity, by contrast, the either/or
principle seems increasingly to be eclipsed or indeed replaced by the
both/and principle. Instead of there being either knowledge or not knowl-
edge, nature or society, the organization or the market, there is instead both
knowledge and not knowledge, nature and society, organization and the
market, war and peace. As the boundaries and distinctions between categories
become blurred, the institutions of rst modernity that are based on them and
depend on them for their existence, begin to encounter problems with regard
to decision making. How are decisions to be made if, for example, it is no
longer clear whether climate change is a man-made or a natural phenome-
non? How do authorities deal with migrants who belong to several societies
and cultures at the same time? Where are the boundaries of patchwork
families to be drawn? What is apparent here is that as categorical boundaries
become less clear and their rationalization more difcult, so it becomes
increasingly necessary to decide on one or several new ways of drawing bound-
aries. In doing so, however, it is no longer possible to fall back on the tried
and tested, usually scientic resources of rationalization, as these themselves
have become ambiguous and uncertain. The pluralism of the newly discovered
solutions is clearly a result of these kinds of pragmatic negotiation processes,
in the course of which complex, plural demarcations come to take the place
of unambiguous dualities, standard forms and distinctions.
Second modernity as a research agenda 527
How do these structural changes come about? The second basic assumption
in the theory of reexive modernization is that it is the process of modern-
ization itself that calls the institutional order of rst modernity into question,
steals its clarity and forces it to make decisions. In other words, the crises of
second modernity are triggered by processes of enforced modernization,
which then take hold of modernizations own foundations. The protective
zones generated by rst modernity to shield it against the dynamic of mod-
ernization are currently losing their unquestioned taken-for-grantedness. They
are experienced as being contingent and open to inuence, and are increas-
ingly being forced to provide rationales for their existence. This also applies
to the very legitimatory sources of modernity themselves and to science in
particular. The latter may be producing more and more knowledge, but it is
also producing an ever greater lack of knowledge, uncertainty and insufcient
clarity. The rationalization process ultimately encompasses the model of hege-
monic scientic rationality as well, which in many spheres is only of limited
use for the task of making solid, unambiguous decisions.
At a recent conference, Jrgen Habermas addressed himself in detail to the
theory and empirical investigation of reexive modernization, in the process
outlining a proposal for how they may be lent greater precision and developed
further. He distinguished between two variants, namely that of a radical and
that of an internal discontinuity between rst and second modernity. Social
change can only be considered radical when the application of modern prin-
ciples undermines these principles themselves (Habermas 2005).
1
In contrast
to this, Habermas like us argues for the recognition of a certain internal
discontinuity, which makes it perfectly possible to describe the new empirical
situation of reexive modernization by (using the distinction offered by Beck
himself) as a transformation of basic institutions in which the basic principles
of modernity continue to operate successfully. Habermas concludes from this
that these principles should now be formulated in turn at a sufciently abstract
level within sociology and social theory. He makes the following proposal:
Modern societies are characterized by the accelerated mobilization of social
change that is moving not only towards exhausting all quasi-natural reserves
of an unreected, lived ethos and of customary practices, but also towards
internalizing all natural resources in other words, the ecological environment
and the organic substrate of socialized individuals (including the generative
mechanism whereby parental sets of chromosomes randomly combine); that
is to say, it is incorporating such resources completely into the cycle of the self-
reproduction of society. This dynamic of change has been placed on a self-
regulating, permanent footing in the rst place by the interlinking of the
capitalist economy with institutionalized science and the development of pro-
ductive forces. From a sociological point of view, the distinctive feature of
modern societies is the way in which the cumulative intermeshing of the
rationalization of the life world with the functional differentiation of social
subsystems is stabilized. In this context I shall purposely leave the mechanisms
of growing systemic complexity to one side and concentrate solely on princi-
ples. These nd expression in the reorientation of modes of life
towards a self-critical appropriation of traditions
towards the generation of egalitarian forms of solidarity and
towards the acquisition of expertise in the independent shaping of ones
life. (Habermas 2005: 1ff.)
Habermas then sets out in detail these principles of reexivity, egalitarianism
and subjectivity, which are located at a different level than social structures.
They need to be related to the observer perspective of the social scientist and
kept free of essentialist connotations. We shall not be pursuing these theoreti-
cal perspectives in this essay, but turn instead to their empirical implications.
2. Programme of empirical research
The meta-change of modern societies, which has only been roughly outlined
here, occurs in different ways in nearly every social sphere. The theory of
reexive modernization, translated into a programme of empirical research,
makes it possible to compare different phenomena of the structural tran-
scending of boundaries and to investigate whether they reveal any similar pat-
terns or trends. This empirical investigation has been carried out since 1999 in
a research consortium funded by the German Research Society (DFG),
2
involving four universities located in the Munich/Augsburg area. About
sixteen empirical research projects are distributed across three elds of
inquiry: a) knowledge, science and technology, b) individuals, life
situations/lifestyles, work, and c) economics, politics and history. The results of
these different endeavours have revealed remarkably consistent patterns of
meta-change across very heterogeneous spheres of action and systems. For
example, in the sphere of science and technology it has become clear that the
elimination of boundaries from institutionalized naturesociety distinctions
and the elimination of the difference between scientic and non-scientic
knowledge is leading to situations marked by crisis. Science is itself develop-
ing into a source of uncertainty, lack of knowledge and categorical ambiguity
(Bschen and Wehling 2004). This means that those institutions that are still
under obligation to make decisions have necessarily to make them in a prag-
matic way, using political procedures and normative criteria (Bschen and
Schulz-Schaeffer 2003).
The projects located within this eld of inquiry address such different issues
as the recognition of experiential knowledge and tacit knowledge in profes-
sional and technological contexts (Bhle, Pfeiffer and Sevsay-Tegethoff 2004),
the problems that attend science assessment (Bschen and Wehling 2004), the
legal consequences of biomedicine (May 2005) and the philosophical elucida-
tion of ethical dilemmas (Sellmaier 2005).
The second eld of inquiry (individuals, groups, work) has brought to light
the different manifestations of a social structure in the process of becoming
more uid and individualized (Beck and Beck-Gernsheim 2001). Under con-
ditions of reexive modernization, research subjects are no longer able to take
pre-given standard biographies, or the model of lifelong normal work, or the
pattern of the stable nuclear family as their point of orientation. At the same
time, however, rather than the various processes of increasing exibility and
boundary transcendence leading to an anomic breakdown of groups and com-
munities, individuals themselves are nding ways of linking conventional and
new patterns of family ties and of locating themselves in communities of
choice and working relationships. Here, too, it is a matter of new forms of
boundary management, in which people set boundaries in a exible and prag-
matic way with regard to the family, friendship networks, working hours and
individualization within couple relationships; this is a task they have to attend
to over and over again (Keupp, Ahbe and Gmr 2002; Bon, Kesselring and
Vogl 2005; Wimbauer 2003).
The third empirical eld dealt with in the research consortium (economics,
politics and history) is concerned with processes of boundary transcendence
related to corporations and nation-states and their consequences. Here, too, it
has been found that the boundaries of transnational political regimes, for
example, which can be understood as a political reaction to processes of dena-
tionalization, are precarious and contingent. Different criteria of inclusion
compete with one another in this and have to be resolved (Beck and Grande
2004). However, globalization and denationalization not only lead to nation-
state politics playing a reduced role, they also lead to a change in the struc-
ture of conicts within nation-states (Grande and Kriesi 2004). Other research
projects refer to the transnationalization of historical memory (Levy and
Sznaider 2002; Beck, Levy and Sznaider 2004) and to the emergence of a
world risk society (Beck 1999). Last but not least, the transcendence of
boundaries around national spaces makes it clear that society in second
modernity can no longer be conceptualized using the concepts and categories
of the nation-state, but that a new perspective of methodological cosmopoli-
tanism must be developed for this task (Beck 2004).
It is not only the nation-state but also the Fordist company that is affected
by changes in its standard form. Processes of internal marketization in par-
ticular constitute an important factor here, whereby the insulation of the
market economy from the production economy is increasingly being done
away with (Kratzer 2003). This has consequences not only with regard to indi-
viduals ever more arduous attempts at separating work from life, but also for
the system of industrial relations, which is under threat due to the declining
role of the trade unions (Heidling et al. 2004). A post-Fordist transitional
regime of economics and work is becoming apparent in which four features
come together: (1) the limited feasibility of establishing the boundless
company, the virtual workforce, exible people; (2) abrupt change in
models of rationality; (3) institutionalized links between globalization, indi-
vidualization and informatization; and (4) a change in legitimation towards
cultural neoliberalism (Kratzer et al. 2004).
The cross-section these empirical studies draw through Western societies in
transition to second modernity brings a surprisingly uniform picture to light:
the institutions that are initially forced to cling to the old order are nding it
hard to deal with the new uid and hybrid forms, pluralizations and ambigu-
ities that now exist. They encounter severe difculties when it comes to taking
action and making decisions, and they increasingly face problems in terms
of attributing responsibility whether it be in world politics or in couple
relationships.
We can initially identify (and empirically demonstrate) two varieties of insti-
tutional response to this challenge. On the one hand, institutions and individ-
uals can try despite knowing better, as it were to afrm the old either/or
logic in a pro-active way. One might call this the fundamentalism of nation-
state-centred modernity. This can be demonstrated just as much in the USAs
global politics of peace-through-war as it can in the barely less explosive issue
in family politics of who does the washing up. What they can also do, however,
is develop complex reexive solutions that do greater justice to the new uncer-
tainties and ambiguities that permeate macro and micro spheres alike. This
applies both to new models of partnership as well as to attempts at reforming
and strengthening international law, the UN and other international institu-
tions. What this is ultimately about is conicting ideas over values and
approaches within the project of modernity, in the face of modernitys self-
generated transformation and endangerment.
The one common factor shared by these different modes of response to the
institutional crisis facing the foundations of modernity is an acceptance of
the need to make decisions and draw new and different boundaries. In other
words, the breakdown of the either/or logic of rst modernity cannot be
accepted in silence, because ultimately it paralyses institutional action and
decision-making. In addition to the breaching of boundaries in intellectual and
practical spheres, in national and international politics, law, science, work
and the economy, the dening feature of the present era is a recognition of
the imperative to decide. However, decisions can no longer be taken based on
the old system of categorization or on the old (usually scientic) certainties.
They require new rationales and procedures that no longer depend on certain
knowledge or unambiguous, standardized notions of order. The demands of
decision-making and of legitimation are interlinked; each reinforces the other
even as it calls the other into question. The aim of this essay is to explore the
way in which this occurs.
3. Structural break: the continuity of basic principles and discontinuity
of basic institutions
None the less, the transition from rst to second modernity by no means sig-
nies a complete break in the process of modernization. Unlike postmoder-
nity, second modernity maintains that there is an overlapping of continuity and
discontinuity that needs to be dened both theoretically and empirically. In
order to do this, it is helpful to interpret and rene the distinction between
rst and second modernity by using the distinction between basic principles
and basic institutions. Second modernity shares certain basic principles or
lasting imperatives with rst modernity (such as the principle according to
which decisions can and must be backed up by rational reasons), which, when
fullled to the optimum extent, constitute the dynamic element of modern-
ization. By basic institutions we mean the institutional responses to the fun-
damental imperatives of these basic principles in particular historical contexts,
each response being associated with a particular phase of modernity. Thus, for
example, a distinction needs to be made between the basic principle of state-
hood and the basic institution of the nation-state, which is subject to change.
While institutional responses, once found, possess a considerable degree of
inertia, they are none the less rendered null and void by the ongoing impera-
tives of modernization, which remove the foundations of their rationales
and decision-making. It can therefore be expected that the continuity of
modernity will be guaranteed by the basic principles, while the transition to
reexive modernity will be brought about by the discontinuous transforma-
tion of basic institutions.
An example may serve to illustrate this link between continuity and dis-
continuity. One necessary prerequisite for institutional action in both eras is
the distinction that can be drawn in principle between the domain of natural
causes and phenomena where issues of responsibility are absent and the
domain of societal decision-making and responsibility. Whereas in rst
modernity it was clearly the task of science to provide a rationale for this
naturesociety difference, this same boundary turns into plural boundaries in
second modernity, and the rationale for it likewise. Thus, basic principles are
cognitivenormative problems and minimum requirements of the project of
modernity, which represent its driving force and thereby keep its develop-
mental dynamic going. Some of these principles have already been mentioned,
such as the capacity to provide a rationale for statements, structures and deci-
sions and the principle of statehood. Others include the principle of individ-
ual reproduction through gainful employment, the principle of egalitarianism,
the principle of functional inclusion and the demarcation of nature from
society.
These basic principles of modernity do not lose any of their normative valid-
ity; on the contrary, their claim to validity becomes greater in the course of
reexive modernization. It is this dynamic of expansion above all which plays
an important role in the categorical transformation of each specic institu-
tional response. This transformation does not occur continuously, but rather
in ts and starts. In the Western industrial societies of the postwar period
and not least due to the inuence of the Cold War institutional solutions
(basic institutions) had become condensed into an arrangement whose struc-
ture seemed to many modernization theorists of the time to be the virtually
unsurpassable nal stage of social development. It is this formation of mutu-
ally complementary basic institutions a society based on gainful employ-
ment, the nation-state, the nuclear family and a gender-specic division of
labour, Fordist production, scientic rationality based on control that we
describe here as rst modernity and whose self-transformation, in its many
and varied aspects, forms the centre of our research interest.
Due to the close link between institutions that depend on one another to
exist, it can be assumed that processes of change and transformation in par-
ticular parts of the structure will trigger problems in other parts (the side-
effects of side-effects), exposing the entire structure of society to the pressure
of change. Thus, for example, new technologically induced risks generate prob-
lems for politics: in many cases where it is no longer sufcient to prevent risks
in the national context alone, global solutions are needed. The continuous
advance of radicalized individualization, to name another example, leads not
only to the erosion of the nuclear family as a standard way of life, but also
exerts an impact on the increasing exibility of conditions of work and on
structures of social co-existence. In other words, these kind of awkward insti-
tutional matches and links serve to stabilize the social structure. However,
because of the interdependency that exists between its elements, they also
make it susceptible to the imperative to adapt, as well as to unintended con-
sequences involving change.
4. Reconstructing rst modernity
In order to recognize and make sufcient sense of the phenomena of meta-
change, we need rst to reconstruct the basic institutions and categories of rst
modernity. This is necessary, if only to stop us falling into the trap of thinking
that the phenomena of the new are more novel than they really are by over-
stylizing and simplifying the old. Reconstructing the basic institutions of rst
modernity and going further than the simplistic and simplifying statements
of the sociological textbooks is a demanding task that can really only be done
by carrying out detailed analyses of specic domains of social activity.
None the less, a few general conclusions can be drawn on the basis of our
empirical ndings that offer a more differentiated view of the standard image
of modernity (the one that has been inuenced above all by the classical
sociologists and by structural functionalism). This image is determined above
all by continuing functional differentiation and the increasing inclusion of
members of society in the functional subsystems (Schimank 1996). Funda-
mental structural change at this level, it is claimed, refers to a reduction in dif-
ferentiation through the erosion of boundaries between autonomous
subsystems. However, hardly any empirical evidence of such a process exists.
Rather, it is forced functional differentiation that leads to problems in other
function systems, albeit at a lower structural level, one that has thus far been
paid too little attention in sociological theory.
The institutional order of rst modernity, function systems apart, is charac-
terized by a complex pattern of boundary demarcations, standard forms and
distinctions. It distinguished between different forms of community, activities
and modes of knowledge according to the either/or principle, thus separat-
ing them permanently and unambiguously. The world of rst modernity
is ordered by a system of dichotomies and dualisms that allocates members
of society their place in a categorical order; this order contains only those
ambivalences and ambiguities which (according to the prevailing viewpoint)
can be overcome in principle time and again through procedures by which
order is re-established. This ordering system separates different kinds of ratio-
nales, spheres of action and categories from one another and makes it possi-
ble to allocate responsibilities, tasks, obligations in respect of providing
rationales, and legal claims unambiguously in spatial, temporal, practical and
social terms. In rst modernity it always seemed possible to decide what was
scientic knowledge and what was not, which phenomena were of human and
which of natural origin, who belonged to the territorial state society and who
didnt, where the boundaries of companies were to be drawn and where those
between the private and public sphere, where national relations stop and
international relations begin.
These distinctions are not systemic boundaries, but rather dichotomies that
have functions related directly to action. We use the metaphor of the bound-
ary because it enables us to look at very different kinds of empirical phe-
nomena (such as the boundaries between spheres of inuence), at categorical
distinctions and the difference between different types of knowledge from a
common point of view. It is only through looking in this generalized way at
the heterogeneous dichotomies and basic distinctions of the national society
based on the industrial welfare state (and its corresponding national sociol-
ogy) that it becomes possible to establish which functions are fullled by this
institutional logic. Perhaps the most important of these is the allocation of, or
exemption from, responsibility. In the one sphere, that where action is taken
directly, all the consequences of an action are attributed to the actor and there-
fore demand a rationale; this applies, for example, to risk, to company orga-
nizations and to the public sphere. The other domain is exempt from the
obligation to provide rationales and is self-legitimating, as in the case, for
example, of danger, the market, the private sphere. Perhaps the most impor-
tant distinction of this kind is the naturesociety difference, which in its
many different sub-forms (healthy/sick, life/death, genetically modied/non-
modied, anthropogenic/non-anthropogenic) exempts actors from every kind
of responsibility and from having to give reasons for their actions. Only
through the demarcation of each different sphere of responsibility and by
bracketing off any residue of reality for which no rationale can be given can
modernitys potential for rationalization fully unfold. It is obvious that if these
boundaries become blurred or are even dismantled, the outcome will be insti-
tutional crises regarding responsibility and decision-making, as we are cur-
rently observing in the debate over stem cells, for example, and in the debate
over how far international law still provides a basis for decisions about war
and peace.
Another important function of institutional boundary-drawing in rst
modernity, referred to especially by Foucault and Bauman, is its impact on
standardization and normalization. According to this ordering logic, certain
forms of social life (nuclear family), knowledge (scientic knowledge), work
(paid work, regular work), statehood (nation-state, welfare state), subjectivity
(criminal responsibility) are marked out as standard forms ahead of all other
forms and are recognized both in law and in society. Standardization and nor-
malization rely on clear distinctions between the standard form and forms that
deviate from the standard. The dissolution or pluralization of these bound-
aries is hard to reconcile with the institutional logic of rst modernity, as the
latter relies on clear criteria (e.g. criminally responsible/not criminally respon-
sible) in order to reach decisions.
However, anyone taking a closer look at this simple, stylized picture of rst
modernity will be almost bound to raise the standard objection that, even
before, the world was never ordered as unambiguously as is claimed. And
indeed we did come across a number of cases in the course of our research
not least because we were keeping a sharper lookout for phenomena display-
ing plurality and ambiguity where there were deviations from the either/or
structures of rst modernity outlined here. By exploring the plurality of insti-
tutional solutions in the present, it is possible to gain a more differentiated
view of the past, one that avoids the over-stylizations and simplications of
conventional theories of modernization and of textbook accounts.
An important development in our basic assumptions about rst modernity
emerges out of this. Alongside the dominant standard and normal forms, there
are always other forms of the organization of work, knowledge and modes of
social co-existence. Even in rst modernity, it was not always possible to make
clear, categorical distinctions or to maintain boundary divisions. However,
unlike the phenomena of meta-change that we have examined, such ambigu-
ities and deviations from the normal model were not recognized. This is exactly
why social recognition of plurality and ambiguity seems to us to be essential
for the transition to second modernity especially when this recognition
occurs in institutionalized form.
This argument can be illustrated by considering the pluralization of the
family (cf. Beck and Beck-Gernsheim 2003). As family historians, above all,
have convincingly demonstrated, the chaos of family life with regard to chil-
dren and lines of kinship is not a feature that distinguishes second modernity
from earlier social epochs; rather, this chaos runs right through history. During
feudal times in Europe, for example, the pluralization of forms of family life
was apparent wherever one looked, with numerous step-families (not least on
account of short life expectancies), countless illegitimate children, and so on.
In spite of this, it is possible to identify at least one striking feature that dis-
tinguishes the chaos of pre-modern family life from that of second modernity.
Previously, plurality was marginalized, whereas today it is institutionally nor-
malized and recognized both in society as well as in law. Evidence of this
institutionalized recognition has been accumulating internationally in all
aspects of the legal system since the second half of the twentieth century, and
especially in divorce law, family law, inheritance law, basic childrens rights, and
so on. None the less, legal recognition of this unbridled plurality of family
forms also compels individuals to confront a host of everyday decisions, such
as who gets to inherit (beyond the inheritance to which a person is legally enti-
tled)? Who is (not) invited to which family celebrations? Which set of grand-
parents should a person take care of in their old age their biological
grandparents, whom they havent seen since they were ve years old, or their
grandparents by marriage (what an embarrassing term!), with whom they
have shared all the major public holidays and to whom they feel emotionally
close? If in-vitro fertilization also becomes established in the future, if it is
legally recognized and normalized (in Germany it is still limited to married
and cohabiting couples, though this is less and less the case internationally),
the boundaries of the family will implode, while the difculties and dilemmas
involved in making decisions will do just the opposite. Who, in cases of con-
ict, is the mother who should be given custody of a child: the mother who
has donated the eggs, the mother who has carried the baby to term, or the
mother who raises the child? and so on and so forth. This is just one
example of how the recognition and thus the enabling of plurality brings about
an exponential increase in the number and difculty of decisions that need to
be made.
3
As we have said, contrary to the either/or logic of institutional structures,
factual disruptions of this categorical order occurred time and again, and
often continually, in rst modernity. None the less, the consensus was that these
were indeed deviations and disruptions that had to be overcome and indeed
seemed capable of being eliminated, at least in principle; this would occur by
establishing and perfecting the basic institutions of modernity. This standard
position of rst modernity can already be found in the work of the positivists
an intellectual movement of the early nineteenth century, founded in France
by Henri Saint-Simon and Auguste Comte. The positivists believed that the
driving force behind historical change was the growth of scientic knowledge,
and that the way to open up new sources of wealth and to establish a new kind
of civilization based on rationality and humanity was simply to acquire more
and better knowledge. A similar, if ambiguous, type of argument runs through
the work of classical sociologists such as Weber and Parsons. Weber, for
example, spoke of an endless demystication of the world that was irre-
versible and would lead, not necessarily to better conditions, but certainly to
more rational, predictable conditions. Parsons, on the other hand, wrote in a
posthumously published essay that the capacity of human beings to cope with
uncertainty and ambiguity was systematically increasing during the course of
evolution and that in modern societies in particular it was becoming increas-
ing possible to make uncertainty disappear, that is, to transform uncertainty
into certainty, ambiguity into clarity and chaos into planning (cf. Parsons 1980:
145).
The non-recognition of ambiguity, dissent and plurality is matched by a spe-
cic way of dealing with all that deviates from the norm or is ambiguous. A
whole set of strategies for re-establishing categorical order are in evidence
here, ranging from the purging (cf. Bauman 1991; Latour 1993) of mlange
phenomena and uncertainties through to non-consideration or exclusion of
the Other. Even if these strategies failed to meet with immediate success in
every instance and if the deviant and the excluded continued to exist in real
life, none the less the creation of clarity and certainty remained as normative
ideals closely linked with notions of scientic-technological rationality (uni-
versalism) on the one hand, and with culturally homogenous nationality
(nationalism) on the other over long periods of time (and in many spheres
even today).
4
The following strategies can be identied as examples of this.
Marginalization
The strategy of marginalization does not involve denying that phenomena
which deviate from the norm exist empirically. But they are ultimately inter-
preted as residual and remainder forms, which sooner or later have to give
way to their corresponding normality types. For example, in spite of the con-
tinued existence and partial expansion of the trades, the model of the large
industrial factory and the system of industrial relations was established as the
normal model for regulating labour. Similarly, the regulatory models of the
nation-state (and of international relations), class conict (labour and capital),
normal forms of work, the nuclear family and the normal biography inuenced
all those political formations of community and conict and the ways of life
and modes of activity that deviated from them. By virtue of being institu-
tionally sidelined and dened as out-dated and deviant, as belonging to a
different era, these phenomena began to be no longer (capable of being) per-
ceived as such, and as a rule were emptied of normative value and institu-
tionally ignored. Thus, for example, the phenomena of globalization have
existed in every age (intercontinental trading routes, conquests, colonialism,
slavery, imperial multi-ethnicity). Evidence also exists to show that as a result
of slavery and migration forms of transnationalization existed early on and
continued to do so throughout the entire national era. But in the uncontested
dominance of the national perspective, these remain under the shadow of pre-
determined irrelevance unseen, unresearched. This has enormous conse-
quences for empirical social research. Normalizing categories of observation,
for example, can make it difcult, at the very least, to perceive deviant non-
normal phenomena, as in the case of the statistical analysis of mass data in
the social sciences.
However, there is also evidence of strategies of marginalization in rst
modernity with regard to the scientization of social practices. Non-scientic
knowledge, such as that gained through experience, was, and is, frequently seen
as being marginal and inferior to scientic knowledge, even if in actual fact it
continues to provide an important basis for professional practice.
Temporal deferment
Possibly at least as important as the strategy of marginalization of the deviant
is the strategy of deferral of certainty to a future time. Even if it is not yet
possible to achieve clear boundary denitions in the present, such as those
between life and death, or to establish complete and consensual scientic jus-
tications for certain practices, such as the work of a doctor, these are none
the less possible in principle so the assumption goes and will follow at some
point in the future, thanks to scientic progress. Asserting that a problem will
be solved in the future provides a legitimate basis for provisionally accepting
the existence of contradictory categorical denitions and boundary demarca-
tions in the present. The strategy of temporal deferment is bound up with the
notion that the natural sciences are capable in principle of fathoming the
worlds mysteries, although they have so far done so only inadequately,
and that this makes all non-scientic experiential sources (tacit knowledge,
intuitive and experience-based knowledge, local contextual knowledge)
obsolete and enables the best possible solutions to be found to existing
problems.
What is also postponed in this approach is action to remedy the distortions
of the scientistic worldview caused by regularly recurring scientic disputes
and disagreement among experts. Lack of unanimity among scientists
regarding, say, the human or natural causes of disasters and environmental
degradation is regarded as something that can be overcome by applying
better methods and measuring procedures, rather than being put down to the
ineluctable normativity of political-scientic discourse or the complexity of the
subject concerned.
While in many spheres today it is becoming apparent that uncertainty and
insecurity are being either compounded or even generated by scientic-
technological developments, the actual uncertainties and insecurities of rst
modernity were interpreted as transitional phenomena in a process of scien-
tization and rationalization, at the end of which we could expect to achieve
total security and cognitive certainty. Many subscribed to the view that given
enough time and money, everything can be done securely and safely a maxim
that continues to carry weight in research focused on this theme, even if only
a minority of people still go along with it as far as technological and social
issues are concerned.
Ontologization
Another strategy aimed at establishing an unquestionable rationalization for
basic institutions and categories consists in grounding them in natural facts
and anthropological truisms. If social distinctions and ways of forming human
communities are derived from natural distinctions and necessities, they are
exempted from any further obligation to provide grounds for their existence
and are considered as non-contingent anthropological inevitabilities. Thus,
repeated attempts have been made to naturalize family forms, the sexual divi-
sion of labour, educational differences, racial distinctions and demands for
ethnic homogenization and thereby put them beyond all doubt.
Since such ontologizations of basic structures and foundational categories
contravenes a basic principle of modernity namely that all structural deci-
sions should be open to critique and subject to rationalization they have
never really been successful over the long term, only for certain periods of
time. However, the absolute monopoly on truth enjoyed by the (natural) sci-
ences during rst modernity regularly provides both the incentive and oppor-
tunity to derive normative statements from human nature and thus to lend
them special validity. In a certain sense, the distinction between nature and
society and therefore also between facts and values and science and politics
itself constitutes a differentiation that has been grounded ontologically
(Latour 1995). While such differentiation may meet the constitutive necessi-
ties of every society, it certainly need not be institutionalized to this degree of
clarity and precision (cf. Lau and Keller 2001).
Monopolization
A further opportunity to counteract the pluralization of structures and the
blurring of boundary demarcations exists in the domain of state activity. Both
the states monopoly on violence and legal regulation make it possible to
achieve a degree of standardization and to enable particular forms of social
co-existence, political representation and rationalization to claim monopoly
status. This applies to the nation-state itself, for example, and to its territorial
demarcation over against other states, which in turn gives rise to a range
of further categorical, institutional distinctions (native/foreigner, war/peace,
police/military etc.).
The formal clarity with which different areas of responsibility are isolated
from one another and entitlements and processes of attribution legally insti-
tutionalized is considerable, thereby creating certainty when it comes to
making decisions. However, what this does presuppose is that the foundations
of institutional boundary-drawing are not undermined in actual fact and that
the reasons given for them are acknowledged and accepted. It is precisely
these preconditions that are called into question in some spheres by various
developments (globalization, the growth in scientic uncertainty, individual-
ization, the increasing exibility of labour) and are forcing the state to for-
mulate appropriate responses, thereby calling into question the entire
either/or structure of the social architecture.
5. Manifestations of the new
The strategies of marginalization, temporal deferment, ontologization and
monopolization outlined above were not only signicant for rst modernity in
establishing its claim to rationality, but continue to play a considerable role
even today. In spite of this, however, they are becoming less effective and, in
the face of growing contingencies and the problem of side-effects, there are
justied doubts as to whether the envisaged return to the ideal of clarity can
actually succeed. The blurrings and ambiguities present at both individual and
institutional levels are increasing to such an extent that it is hard to ignore the
possibility that a new structural logic may be emerging beyond the dualities
of rst modernity.
What is questionable, however and this is a key problem with the theory
of reexive modernization is how this new structural logic, given that it does
exist, can be described. This is the point on which we have made what is prob-
ably the most important differentiation in our initial assumptions, based on
the results of our empirical research (cf. Beck, Bon and Lau 2001). In many
cases it has proved to be the case that the old structures (basic institutions)
do not simply crumble away without being replaced, as some of our original
formulations suggested, in order themselves to be replaced according to the
either/or principle. If this were the case, that is, if there were a pure type of
the new, this itself would still be caught up in the problems of non-ambiguity.
In contrast to this, our research to date has shown that the new must itself be
conceived of in terms of the both/and principle. This is because it doesnt
appear in pure form, but rather in many diverse congurations.
This shift in emphasis, based on empirical observation, has a number of sig-
nicant consequences. While we had assumed at rst that old and new basic
institutions existed in a relationship of mutual exclusion, it has since transpired
that the pluralism whose existence we had implied at the time is more diverse
than we had initially supposed. That which has existed up until now is not
simply replaced or dissolved and does not simply appear as a mere residual
leftover; instead, it combines with new elements in different forms, so that
structures that had seemed to be long out-dated become relevant all over
again and may, within a both/and framework, become typical manifestations
of reexive modernity.
As the above named processes of meta-change come into effect, the struc-
tural principle of exclusive distinctions seems no longer to be sustainable in
many cases, apparently giving way to a principle of inclusive differentiation,
that is, plural, ambiguous rules for allocation. This nding has been conrmed
in very different elds in the research presented in this essay. None the less,
the question that remains unanswered and that needs to be urgently addressed
in the course of further research is whether or not the situations brought about
in this way are stable. Are we dealing with transitional phenomena leading to
a new structural order? Or is there indeed a principle concealed behind the
new plural boundaries that deviates fundamentally from the pattern of rst
modernity? In many cases, the results documented here point in the latter
direction. The stability of reexive-modern solutions depends, of course, on
whether they are in a position to solve the institutional problems generated
by the blurring of boundaries. After all, institutions (as well as individuals) still
have to make decisions with regard to classications and boundaries, and they
have mark out their sphere of responsibility in temporal, spatial and practical
terms. If they are unable to do this, they will encounter difculties, particularly
with regard to issues of legitimation, that may create considerable obstacles
to coordinated action in the sphere concerned.
Reexive solutions as we have already mentioned can assume different
forms. In the areas we have examined, it is possible to identify the following
ways of dealing with ambiguity and ambivalence.
Pluralism specic to a particular sphere
In this case, a boundary denition or a standard institutional solution that until
now had claimed to be valid for the entire institutional eld (e.g. medicine),
is replaced by several different ones, albeit these do not apply to the entire
eld, but are instead related to different sub-elds that are separated off from
one another. This enables contradictions to be avoided that would otherwise
arise if different criteria were applied to the same situation in which a deci-
sion had to be made.
At rst sight this solution appears to follow the well-known principle of
(functional) differentiation, the classic principle of rst modernity in which the
different aspects of a problem are allocated to different spheres of action and
are each dealt with according to different criteria (values, codes, logics of
action). Our case studies, however, deviate from this principle, in as much as
they involve fundamental boundary denitions that up until now have been
backed up by the claim of scientic objectivity. If, by appeal to practical, func-
tional necessities and situational constraints, they are replaced with a multi-
plicity of boundary denitions that are simultaneously valid, then these
boundary denitions lose their fundamental naturalistic character. What is
implicitly acknowledged in this is that the denition of specic boundaries
within a boundary space that remains diffuse occurs relatively arbitrarily, that
is, no longer by recourse to unambiguous scientic results, but according to
practical necessities. In principle, then, boundary denitions can be altered
again at any time and remain the object of not only scientic but also politi-
cal dispute.
The example of different denitions of the precise time of death (brain
death, heart failure) illustrates clearly that this is not simply a matter of the
differentiation of various elds of practice within medicine (transplantation),
but one of questioning the right to determine the boundary between life and
death (nature/society) unambiguously and uniformly for the entire medical
eld. While there is indeed evidence that conict has existed within science in
the past as well over the denition of the precise time of death, these were
conducted against the background of a generally accepted assumption that it
was possible in principle to set a clear boundary and that this was to be done
by scientic means.
Plural compromise
This strategy is about combining different principles that fundamentally con-
tradict one another into a single formula based on compromise. Let us take
the example of the ruling on abortion in Germany. This came about as a com-
promise between different positions based on different values and ideological
and political interests. Abortion is generally forbidden, save in exceptional cir-
cumstances. The issue of whether or not these specic circumstances apply is
determined not by experts alone but is also addressed at a practical level by
considering the situation of the mother. Since this involves a conict between
different values, the solution lies not in a distributive compromise based on
quantitative factors, but in the linking of opposing values in a both/and
formula. There is no doubt that this kind of double standard, having once
gained acceptance, has some degree of stability, since any change would
immediately give rise to new conicts. Still, the negotiation and interpretation
of what constitutes exceptional circumstances may be subject to considerable
change, thereby opening up the entire system to debate once again.
These sorts of compromises have been a familiar feature for some time now.
In a certain way all forms of double standards that are put into practice follow
this logic, albeit up until now they have generally been considered to be ille-
gitimate. Legal compromises such as the one outlined above have also been
regarded rather as less-than-ideal solutions. As they and their implied plural-
ism come to be recognized as a legitimate, desirable way of resolving
problems based on conicting values, they acquire a different functional sig-
nicance and become intentional both/and forms.
Hierarchically organized pluralism
In this case, as with the previous one, several options are kept open at the same
time, although one of them is accorded top priority it is considered normal
and is given precedence over the others. The deviant options are ack-
nowledged, however, so they do not have the character of mere remainders
or stopgaps. In many cases, this type of pluralism with regard to different
sorts of decision-making criteria, forms of activity and varieties of knowledge
has always existed. Generally speaking, however, the options that deviated
from the norm were either excluded as illegitimate or else were characterized
as deviations that needed to be overcome. It is only once they come to be
acknowledged as equally valid options or as permanent additions to the
norm that the prospect of a plurality of rationalities, activities and forms of
cooperation is opened up, even if one of them is still declared to be
indispensable.
We found many examples of this both/and form in the elds we studied. It
can be demonstrated, for example, that while normal labour relations still
persist, a large number of other occupational forms have emerged alongside
them that are not merely seen as a deviation but have come to be part of the
normality of working life. A similar situation applies to activities that lie
outside the realm of paid work. These are by no means new, either. What is
new, however, is that while they are (still) seen as different from paid work,
they are none the less considered to approximate to the classic type of work,
so that what emerges is a new heterogeneity and pluralization of understand-
ings of work, akin to Walweis diversity of forms as a way ahead (Walwei and
Hoffman 1998). Thus, the norm is extended and simultaneously accorded less
importance, even as it continues to exist in its traditional form.
A comparable situation applies to the changing way in which non-scientic
knowledge is dealt with: it has long since stopped being marginalized.
However, the greater value accorded to experiential knowledge and intuitive
knowledge by no means signals the end of the scientization of social practice.
Instead, the crucial point is that science is no longer seen as being solely
responsible for generating valid and useful knowledge.
Hierarchically ordered pluralism can also be observed in the area of forms
of social co-existence. For example, the normal family still enjoys the special
protection of German basic law, but family forms that deviate from this norm,
including same-sex partnerships, are also recognized in legal terms as a func-
tional equivalent. A comparable pattern can be observed with regard to
groupings that are increasingly complemented by post-traditional bonds.
Finally, hierarchically organized pluralizations are also manifested in the orga-
nization of work, as well as in the strategies of mobility and security adopted
by individuals. For example, actual biographies are often reconstructed and
perceived as (positively or negatively valued) deviations from what are
implied as being normal biographies: the latter are still seen as being a nor-
mative point of reference, even if this benchmark is subject to frequent chal-
lenge and in some respects contradicts lived realities.
Once plurality is acknowledged in this way, however, a number of problems
arise as a result. For example, which biographical patterns are considered to
be socially unacceptable once the normal biography no longer exists as such?
And where, for example, do the boundaries of recognized non-scientic
knowledge in medicine lie, once it is recognized as being a useful and even
necessary addition to scientic knowledge? Can esoteric knowledge be
included here as well as intuitive and experiential knowledge? What criteria
are available (or can be developed) for assessing the different options? How
does the normative ideal impact on such post-norm issues? For all these
reasons, then, it is likely that hierarchically organized plurality, as a type, will
bring about a certain degree of instability, as it may establish a variety of strate-
gic, inter-professional competitiveness that could lead to change.
Unstructured plurality
The problems alluded to above become more serious once the alternative ver-
sions are genuinely given equal status. This type of both/and solution ts with
postmodern ideas about the fundamental equality of heterogeneous patterns
of organization, forms of social co-existence and norm systems (anything
goes). Selection is ultimately made on the basis of idiosyncratic or ethnocen-
tric criteria.
In the areas we studied we were unable to discover a pure form of this type,
which is usually described in terms of anomie in the sociology of rst moder-
nity.
5
The following may be seen as the main reasons for this. Firstly, in the
context of a completely unstructured plurality of options, it is no longer
possible to make decisions based on a rationale. It is not only institutional
decision-makers who are faced with almost intractable problems because
of this: individuals too are overwhelmed as they ponder a multitude of
possibilities, without any criteria by which to judge them. At least with hier-
archically structured heterogeneity, described above, there is a rst port of
call (which makes this solution much more practicable), a norm which, even
if it has broken down, still provides some orientation for decision-making. Sec-
ondly, and linked to this, the problem of demarcation towards the outside
emerges here in an exaggerated form. The dualisms of nature/society,
work/non-work, knowledge/non-knowledge, market/hierarchy, family/non-
family, national/international, us/them, which structured the different elds of
rst modernity, have now imploded, as it were, and have left behind a disor-
dered multitude of different forms. This diversity without criteria not only pre-
vents unambiguous decisions from being made, it also makes it hard to dene
what doesnt belong. For example, with the levelling off of the difference
between paid work and other activities and the establishment of an extended
concept of work, all manner of forms of activity can be captured by the
concept of work (grief work, reproductive work, relationship work etc.); and
once the concept of rst modernitys normal family has been watered down,
it becomes possible to introduce an astonishingly wide range of different kinds
of relationship into the debate within the category of family.
The intermeshing of alternatives
In the case of this phenomenon, those forms of knowledge, social co-existence
and organization etc. that had previously been excluded or marginalized are
blended together with previously dominant forms in a combination of old and
new, norm and deviation. Both variants are still recognizable as such, only now
they are no longer alternatives to be chosen between, but individual elements
of a single solution. Unlike the plural compromise type outlined above, here
it is more a case of a relationship of reciprocal complementarity rather than
one in which contradictory elements are reconciled. This principle can be illus-
trated using the example of the integration of non-scientic with scientic
knowledge. In some of the cases we studied, experiential knowledge is no
longer regarded as a subordinate form of knowledge, but is instead acknowl-
edged as being irreplaceable and indispensable albeit only if it can be objec-
tied, that is, if it is compatible with scientic procedures and forms of
representation. Thus, the integration of such knowledge occurs selectively,
according to scientic criteria. Concurrently with this, new boundaries are
drawn to exclude that variety of experiential knowledge that cannot be objec-
tied using scientic methods.
The combination of both forms of knowledge leaves neither unchanged:
experience-based knowledge is linked back to the principles of scientic
methodology, while scientic procedures have to open themselves up to the
special logic of subjective experience. Clearly it is also possible to conceive
of other forms of such a hybridizing combination of alternatives that had
previously been separated strictly from one another. For example, some
company operations display a range of different combinations between hier-
archical control and market-based elements. Or again, certain elements of the
old nation-state are just as much integrated into the new transnational polit-
ical regimes as are new actors from civil society and new political arenas. In
this instance, too, the old basic institutions such as nation-states can no longer
be the same if they are combined with other institutional forms to create new
institutional arrangements. Just how complex the structure of these inter-
meshing forms can be is apparent in this example. The integration of two dif-
ferent institutional patterns cannot be achieved all at once, but must instead
be seen as a longer term process in which many different mutual adaptations
need to take place and where failure is always a possibility.
Boundary dissolution and synthesis
The complete elimination of boundaries and distinctions and the synthesis of
two institutional variants that had previously been rigorously differentiated
represent a very far-reaching response to ambiguity and contradictoriness. In
the case of synthesis, something that is genuinely new emerges from different
forms of knowledge, social co-existence and activity, and this new thing cannot
be explained purely on the basis of the elements brought together.
The gure of total boundary dissolution has been introduced into the debate
by writers such as Bruno Latour and Donna Harraway not only to describe
mlange phenomena, but also as a normative proposal. According to Latour
(1995), it is not until quasi-objects, which eliminate the distinction between
subject and object, have been recognized that it becomes possible to regulate
and monitor them. A range of counter-arguments can be brought to bear
against this ontological monism, both in its descriptive and its normative form
(cf. Lau and Keller 2001). For our purpose here, one sociological objection is
of particular signicance: the total dissolution of categorical basic distinctions,
such as the difference between nature and society in their different respective
manifestations, is not possible for the simple reason that it would no longer
be possible to attribute responsibility. People would have to be made respon-
sible for every phenomenon in the world or for none at all. In other words,
even if one shares the position of ontological monism, the division of the world
into spheres of human responsibility would still remain a societal necessity.
The need to draw boundaries however ctitious they may be in order to
make any decisions at all, is Latours sociological blind spot.
6
On the other hand, we share the view put forward by Latour and others that
the process by which boundaries become unclear constitutes the empirical
starting point for a transformation of the very nature of modernity. In the elds
we have examined, it is relatively rare to nd a total dissolution of boundaries,
that is, of distinctions posited ctitiously and decisionistically. Such a scenario
occurs when due to new technologies scientic procedures are fundamen-
tally no longer capable of conrming where a given boundary lies. In this case,
it is not that experts disagree, but rather that consensus exists on the fact that
no differences can be detected using measuring techniques. This already seems
to be the case in many instances of doping in professional sport, and can be
expected to become the norm once gene-based doping techniques have been
introduced, which is an entirely plausible prospect. Our assumption is that
when a boundary such as this dissolves, it causes considerable institutional
turmoil and calls for an appropriate response. In the case of professional sport,
for example, allowing participants to take performance-enhancing drugs could
lead to an entirely new understanding of sporting competition. Similar phe-
nomena could occur in certain spheres of genetically modied food (absence
of proof) or once stem cell therapy has been approved.
In the sphere of social demarcations, it is unlikely that boundaries will dis-
solve completely, since distinctions in this sphere have always had the status
of social constructions. However, a range of phenomena here can be inter-
preted as a kind of synthesis, involving the emergence of a qualitatively new
form within the boundary zones of classically modern distinctions. This may
be the case, for example, in the sphere of transnational political regimes or in
the boundary zone between market and company (organizational networks)
(Mayntz 1992). This is where new forms of co-operation arise, which work
according to their own logic of action and come to decisions in a way that is
different from their predecessor alternatives.
However, it is not only the real features of such syntheses that are decisive,
but rather the question as to whether they are actually recognized as new phe-
nomena. This is because it is only then if they are recognized as such that
institutions, as well as other actors, can respond to the new pattern of order;
only then is it possible to create a demarcation over against other forms.
Sequentialization
This refers to a pendulum-style shifting of boundaries. First one and then
another boundary denition is given preference over successive periods of
time. In explanations of human intelligence, for example, biological factors will
be given priority in some phases, while in others the circumstances of social-
ization will be given more credence as an explanation. Such shifts that occur
on the basis of fashion cannot strictly be characterized as reexive-modern
except, that is, when they are consciously chosen as such, as in different
phases of a persons biography. Thus, in contrast to notions of maturation
which dominated rst modernity, we observe normal biographical phases (with
their corresponding orientation towards security) being repeatedly inter-
rupted by phases dedicated to quite a different way of living, considered to be
no less legitimate.
This sequentialization seems not in every case, but at least in some to
point to a new, reexive pattern. The situation is quite different in the case of
theories of intelligence, however, which manifest uctuations that depend on
the prevailing intellectual climate; these uctuations are only possible because
the (naturesociety) demarcation is relatively unimportant for making
concrete decisions in the education system and can therefore remain latent.
This is doubtless also the case with cyclical shifts in emphasis in other elds
of culture. It would be worth examining whether other pendulum swings,
such as the cyclical change between hard and soft management models,
can be viewed as a sequential both/and pattern in the sense of reexive
modernization.
Reexive decisionism
One way of dealing with ambiguity, lack of clarity and eroding boundaries is
to maintain the old boundary demarcation in the full knowledge that it can
no longer be rationalized using scientic arguments and maintain the same
claim to non-ambiguity as before. This re-establishment of taboos around
boundary change can be presented as a normative move, by drawing attention
to the resulting unforeseeable and untenable consequences of boundaries
shifts or dissolutions (the slippery slope argument). Some suggest, for
example, that the existing boundary which denes the point at which life
begins should be upheld, despite disagreement amongst experts, because the
next, more liberal boundary denition is much more difcult to maintain. Such
positions can be referred to as being reexively decisionistic unlike ideo-
logical or religious grounds when there can be no more recourse to the
naturalness or factuality of the distinction, only to the functional properties
of the boundaries per se.
The desire to hold on to the nation-state, the family, class or a normal biog-
raphy may also spring from such a motivation. One need only recall the
debates taking place over the future of the nation-state, to name just one
example. Even in Europe, people are still holding on to the ction of a nation-
state that continues to exist unchanged or one that will possibly be reactivated
in the future, despite the absence of a national currency and despite the
nations reduced legal and economic powers. The reason given is that only the
nation-state can guarantee basic rights, democracy and social security.
Whether the insistance on particular boundary taboos will succeed in the long
term is hard to predict, as it depends on the interests that would be adversely
or positively affected by a boundary shift, and on their potential to assert
themselves strategically.
The varieties of both/and outlined here are generalizations arrived at
inductively from empirical studies. They indicate the full range of destabiliz-
ing impacts affecting what were once clear rules of classication in national
societies based on the industrialized welfare state, while some also represent
a response to this destabilization. However, the great complexity of these insti-
tutional responses needs and indeed ought to be explored further in the
future. The struggles and debates over new boundaries, new reexive rules of
categorization and new forms of social co-existence need to be understood as
a eld involving strategies whose results are uncertain global political strate-
gies, interest-based strategies, scientic/academic strategies and, in some
instances, individual strategies. In order to make an overall assessment of the
meta-transformation of modernity, it will be particularly important to look
into the problems that result from the erosion of basic institutions and rules
of categorization, and their impact on those spheres not directly affected. What
are the impacts of a politics of boundary construction on forms of post-
national memory and forgiveness? To what extent does economic globaliza-
tion work its way through to new structures of inequality and new polarized
interests within and between national societies? How will these be dealt with
politically? Can we really assume as talk of a world risk society suggests
that global risks will inevitably bring about a shared global situation? If not,
how might their unequal distribution, the way they are perceived in society
and their dynamic for political conict be differentiated?
For example, what effects does the pluralization of natural demarcations in
the sphere of medicine have on the family, individual subject constitution and
the legal system? Or again, what effect does the pluralization of forms of work
have on individual career patterns and the system of industrial relations? And
what does this, along with the transition towards communities of choice, mean
for forms of social co-existence and for peoples strategies in terms of personal
security?
Questions such as these can be formulated in relation to every sphere,
although it can be assumed and this is hinted at in the results themselves
that problems of attribution and ambiguity in an institutional eld will lead to
destabilization in other elds which had so far been dependent on the supply
of standard forms of the social and clear categorical distinctions. These kinds
of interlinked uncertainties over boundaries (side-effects of side-effects) are
also present within those institutional elds in which several previously
compatible basic differences had been established. If this global, overarching
context of ambiguity between different domains could be proven empirically,
then reexive modernization would no longer merely be the sum total of
many individual developments, but would indeed represent a coherent trans-
formation, in the social theoretical sense, of the very nature of modern
society.
6. Wasnt and isnt all modernization reexive? What is new about
the theory of reexive modernization?
The argument presented above is intended to demonstrate that, in the rst
instance, reexive modernization is another word for intellectual curiosity
about the nature of reality, a curiosity that seeks to reinvigorate and refocus
traditional sociological sensibilities in relation to historic breaks and transfor-
mations, enabling them to operate with appropriate categories and methods.
In order to do this, it needs to reach beyond the rigid concepts of construc-
tivism and weave in between the immovable categories that circumscribe the
same old forms of change. Thus, the kind of research programme we envisage
is one which will stimulate and satisfy researchers hunger for reality by throw-
ing open the windows and doors of social and systems theories that are obliv-
ious to experience and that make the sociological gaze into an inward-looking
one. The foregoing argument provides a basis for articulating and reformu-
lating the theory of reexive modernization more precisely in response to
three objections (cf. Keller 2003; Urry 2003; Latour 2003; Mnch 2002):
(1) What is currently being passed off as new under the rubric of meta-
change is already the key topic of classic sociological thought. The found-
ing gures of sociology always addressed the ambiguities associated with
the development of modern society as a central theme. Every classical soci-
ologist, in his own way, analyses at least one key principle of modernization
that drives the latter forwards and creates cohesion; at the same time,
however, there is another principle closely linked to this one, which threat-
ens the social order, or breaks it up, or calls it into question. Alexis de
Toqueville, for example, recognizes and underlines the liberating power of
the idea of equality, but simultaneously warns that it may dilute and dissolve
the intermediary institutions that facilitate equality and freedom. Emile
Durkheim, the theoretician and empiricist who early on uncovered the con-
nection between functional differentiation and individualization, sees in this
same connection the source of anomies that threaten the process of
modernization to its very foundations. Max Weber famously described the
victory of modernization as a triumph of bureaucratic organization, yet also
saw this as the greatest threat to freedom and individuality. Georg Simmel,
perhaps the most second modern classical sociologist, pointed to the way
in which social circles are at once individualized and globalized by the
expansion of market relations; and when this happens according to Simmel
the elements of expansion and the element of threat to individuality
become intermeshed. Finally, it was Michel Foucault who demonstrated how
discourses and institutions of emancipation complete and perfect power.
Thus the key concepts used by the theory of reexive modernization to
explain itself ambiguity, side-effect, crisis etc. are put to very diverse and
fruitful use at every turn: nothing new there, then, in the world of sociologi-
cal thought!
(2) But even if one were to concede that certain ideas of classical sociology
become radicalized in the theory of reexive modernization, the issue of
uid structures has been developed and thought through in terms of social
theory in the various strands of postmodernism, becoming an extensive
topic of empirical social research internationally. In this respect, the dis-
tinction between postmodernity and second modernity amounts to a seman-
tic sleight of hand, based not so much on any serious pursuit of knowledge
but rather on a neurotic desire to make ones mark.
(3) The proposed distinction between rst and second modernity is ulti-
mately based on a two-fold error, in which differences are over-emphasized
and commonalities underestimated. In order to disguise this fact, a simpli-
ed image of rst modernity is created in order to serve as a contrast to
second modernity. The absence of ambiguity, crisis and side-effects, which
are said to characterize second modernity, is alleged to be characteristic of
this image. And yet this clearly contradicts historical reality and research.
The above mentioned three objections may sound plausible at rst sight, yet
they are partly based on misunderstandings and can easily be responded to by
reformulating the theory of reexive modernization:
(1) The culture-critical fears imagined by the classical sociologists have
become todays reality. After 100 years of radical modernization, the different
dimensions of risk have not only come to pass, they are changing and threat-
ening the very foundations of modernization as we know it or, to be more
precise, the basic institutions of rst modernity: the core ideas of the nation-
state, the nuclear family, class conict, international relations, the welfare state,
nation-state democracy and scientic knowledge. The way the theory of reex-
ive modernization describes the present and prospective future of social
reality differs quite clearly from the descriptions offered by the classical soci-
ologists. While the latter see breakdowns, crises and ambiguities as occasional
instances of intensication, the theory of reexive modernization attributes
these basic difculties to the functioning of the system. Whereas the sociolo-
gies and sociologists of the rst modernity see potential complications of the
modernization process as exceptions and relegate them to the periphery, the
crisis addressed by the theory of reexive modernization has systemic origins;
it is a crisis in perpetuity, and as such is no longer a crisis, because it invali-
dates the very concept of crisis: after all, it is the triumphs of rst modernity
that bring about meta-change.
This change in change, this transformation of the frame of reference of
social change, also changes the meaning of the different theoretical com-
ponents of reexive modernization risk society, forced individualization,
multi-dimensional globalization. What the early sociologists and large parts of
current sociology understood as decay, anomie and crisis within the frame
of reference of rst modernity is the dominant normality in the theoretical
perspective of reexive modernization, a normality that is recognized, prac-
tised and institutionalized as such and which changes its meaning in this
process. What appears as decay and de-structuration in the unquestioningly
accepted frame of reference of rst modernity (and in this respect is brack-
eted off and marginalized), is conceptualized and analysed as a moment of
potential re-structuration and re-conceptualization in the theoretical perspec-
tive of reexive modernization.
The theory of second modernity opens the way for a productive critique of
the theories of rst modernity, indeed it necessitates such critique. The critique
goes as follows. The sociology of rst modernity is based on a system of
dualisms and boundary demarcations that are self-stabilizing and self-repro-
ducing; in other words, the decision has already been made analytically that
these dualisms and boundary demarcations are exempted a priori, as it were,
from the dynamic of self-demystication entailed by processes of moderniza-
tion. The social structure objectivism of rst modernity that constrains and
denies contingency marginalizes the same within given categories. This is
demonstrated especially clearly in the systems theory of Niklas Luhmann
(1997). This is based much like the political theory of Carl Schmitt on a
theoretically decisionistic and therefore quasi-ontological binarism.
7
It per-
fects the either/or logic of the social and therefore makes one blind to the very
delicate but identiable, special forms of both/and realities that can be
observed (more or less constantly) in the dynamic of reexive modernization
at every level of the social and political sphere. The contrast could hardly be
more radical: the universalistic perspective maintains that politics lacks con-
tingency, while the cosmopolitan perspective expects the unexpected the
globalization of the contingency of both/and. The theory of reexive mod-
ernization represents a rejection of totalizing concepts of society and of the
self-referential formation and reproduction of systems (or rather, the forma-
tion of relevant concepts and theories). Ultimately this theoretical contradic-
tion has to be decided on historical and empirical grounds. Strangely and
also typically enough, Luhmanns abstract worlds resist exactly this kind of
empirical reference (not to mention the wicked word control).
Luhmanns systems theory brackets off an important empirical level of
society, namely, that of the institutional order beneath functional sub-systems.
It is precisely on this level that the decisive processes of transformation take
place from the perspective of the theory of reexive modernization. These
cannot be seen or even empirically researched by systems theory, for which
hardly anything of social relevance exists between functional subsystems and
organizations. It is not surprising, therefore, that systems theory has consider-
able difculty in describing a variety of fundamental transformation within
modernity that leaves the principle of functional differentiation untouched
and yet still changes the institutional logic of modern societies in a funda-
mental way.
(2) The theorists and theories of postmodernity are highly astute in uncover-
ing and describing the processes by which structures become uid and
unbounded; however, they fail to recognize the compulsion that arises out of
this, namely to have to make decisions none the less and to x ever more uid
boundaries for oneself, without the benet of foundations and without the
reassurance provided by roles and routines. This decit provides the starting
point for the theory of reexive modernization. The question posed theoreti-
cally and empirically at this point is, how do boundaries become uid, how do
they duplicate themselves? How do they lose their character of pre-givenness
and become capable of being chosen, of being shifted, and by whom? When
this occurs, boundaries also lose their collective and objective character and
are transformed into plural boundary demarcations which, as boundary con-
structions, are transparent and therefore give rise to a whole range of bound-
ary conicts. What does sovereignty mean, for example, in a post-national
world where, in the face of global risks, even national security problems can
no longer be solved nationally? Postmodernity (which, it must be said, is linked
very closely and systematically with the departure from modernity) puts
forward the diagnosis even if it is not always expressed in these terms that
boundaries and distinctions in general are done away with. Sociologically
speaking, this is plain nonsense, because it conceals precisely the relationship
that occupies the centre of the theory of reexive modernization: the more
boundaries are eliminated and the more distinctions are unmade, the more
demarcation and delimitation occurs. It does so, however, in a less nal,
more helpless, more provisional, and morally and legally more plural form;
internal boundaries simultaneously become more exible and open up the
logic of both/and.
Thus, the postmodern imagination, which has its origins in the critique of
knowledge and science, is incapable of uncovering and thinking through the
sociological consequences of its diagnosis for social institutions and actors. By
losing their pre-given boundaries and the legitimate boundary constructions
derived from these, institutions ranging from the smallest to the largest from
the private household through to global politics enter a state of acute
turmoil. This turmoil can be handled in at least two ways: either an attempt is
made to renew the domination of the old boundaries, be it in decisionistic or
fundamentalist manner; or else institutions embark on a learning process, in
the course of which reexive procedures are developed and implemented for
dealing with uncertainty and insecurity and ambiguity. Just what will emerge
from this process is an open question (hopefully!), although the issue will be
decided not least on the extent to which both/and logic is discovered and con-
ceived of in terms of expansion and not in terms of a loss of practical options.
(3) It is indeed the case that the conceptual scheme, or conceptual metaphor,
of the new era brings with it a temptation to over-exaggerate the degree of
internal coherence present within each era, as well as the contrast between
eras. This is a tendency we have now corrected. The both/and metaphor is the
vehicle for this, as it enables us following the lessons of historical research
to understand historical change more precisely. For example, it makes no sense
and leads to an endless series of misunderstandings to construct a false oppo-
sition between the national and the transnational. The transnational must
indeed be understood as integral to the redenition of the national, although
even this entails an epistemological break in sociological terms and in
research practice. Transnational studies need to overcome the reied stand-
point of methodological nationalism, according to which social relations that
extend beyond the formal legal borders of nation-states are somehow extra-
social or sociologically irrelevant. Transnational studies that remove the dis-
tinction between national and international and simultaneously conceptualize
and research the national and the transnational on the basis of the both/and
principle, have to break with the basic assumption that the nation-state society
actually forms a totality and that relations between different nation-states and
national societies are ruled out analytically when it comes to researching
what is actually real the class structure and political dynamics of national
societies.
In this sense, transnationality also stands in contradiction to Wallersteins
world systems theory and to the global sociology of John W. Meyer and his
research group. Transnational research should neither be confused with a
variety of global theory and research that retains the national-international
antinomy and projects it onto the global level (Wallerstein 1990), nor with a
theory of distribution of global norms (Meyer 2000) that ultimately univer-
salize the one best American way. To elucidate this point, let us take the
emergence of transnational ways of life mediated through the mass media as
an example (Robins and Aksoy 2001, 2003). These new forms make it per-
fectly clear that the national context has not been eliminated. However, the
foundations and boundary demarcations of mass media industries and cultures
have simultaneously undergone dramatic change, giving rise to all kinds of
transnational connections, transformations and confrontations. As a conse-
quence, cultural ties, loyalties and identities come to transcend national bound-
aries and to circumvent nation-state control. Individuals and groups who
choose transnational TV channels and consume transnational programmes
live both here and there. How, though, can sociologists conceptualize Turkish
and German speaking transmigrants who, while they may live in Berlin, are
living out their expectations, ambitions and cultural disruptions elsewhere as
well, namely in transnational networks? In methodological nationalism,
German-Turkish both/and ways of life and identities are located and analysed
within one or the other national frame of reference and thereby robbed of
their both/and character. Thus, they are described in terms of being
uprooted, un-integrated, lacking a homeland, living between two cultures
all of which are attributes of lack and negativity that presuppose the mono-
national unitary perspective. What this fails to recognize is difference, in-
cluding the challenges and the richness involved in being positioned
transnationally. The national perspective, in line with its strategy of marginal-
ization, suggests that this is the exception. But it is precisely this which is
empirically dubious, since what we are dealing with are different forms of inter-
nal transnationalization of zones of action and experience, in which the excep-
tion is increasingly becoming the rule. But even the set of concepts in which
these both/and ways of life are captured and researched today diaspora cul-
tures, hybridity, creolization are conceived as exceptions to the rule; they
presuppose the norm of the territorially limited either/or society and identity.
This is one decisive reason why issues such as the advancing transnationaliza-
tion of attitudes, networks, ways of acting and ways of seeing the world are
absent in the research elds of large parts of sociology.
(Date accepted: July 2005)
forms of meta-change outlined above)
for the recognition of reexive-pluralistic
solutions.
5. It is obvious that postmodern ambiva-
lence is most likely to be found in art or in
other intellectual spheres, as these are
exempted from decision making.
6. During discussions with Bruno Latour
at a workshop held in autumn 2000, there
was a marked rapprochement between his
and our position (cf. Latour 2003).
7. In Carl Schmitts work this coding is
introduced somewhat coincidentally, in an
experimental way: We assume that in the
realm of morality the ultimate distinctions
are good and bad; in that of aesthetics, beau-
tiful and ugly; in that of economics, useful
and harmful or, for example, worthwhile and
not worthwhile (Schmitt 1963: 26).
Notes
1. On this, see below.
2. German Research Programme (SFB
536) Reexive Modernization, nanced by
the German Research Society (DFG) with
an annual sum of approximately 2.4 million
Euro until 2009 inclusive; for more informa-
tion see Beck and Bon 2001, Beck and Lau
2004.
3. This feature of the acknowledgement
of plurality thus points to different levels
and processes of acknowledgement, thus
immediately raising the question: how and
by whom does such acknowledgement
occur? And how can we test this empirically
and operationally, beyond the criteria set
out here?
4. The failure of these institutionalized
strategies of normalization, their cognitive
analysis and delegitimation, can be held
responsible in large part (alongside the
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