Theorising the transition: Longue durée and current conjuncture in centre-periphery relations in Britain, France and Spain

Abstract

Contemporary social theorists argue that we are at a moment of profound cultural and historical transition. This is conceived variously as a shift from modernity to reflexive modernity, from modernity to post- modernity, from the Westphalian system of nation-states to a global order, from the ‘Modern Age’ to the ‘Global Age’. The substantive arguments include the claim that the nation-state is in crisis as power is devolved upwards to international bodies and downwards to regions, that borders are dissolving and ‘societies’ are turning into multiple, spatially-extensive, open-ended networks, that social structures are ‘liquifying’ and cultures fragmenting. Is contemporary change really so far-reaching? Not everyone is so convinced.