Introduction: Organizing hope: narratives for a better future

Daniel J. Ericsson (1, 2) , Monika Kostera (3, 4)

1 SSE - Stockholm School of Economics
2 Linnaeus University
3 UJ - Uniwersytet Jagielloński w Krakowie = Jagiellonian University
4 Södertörn University College

According to thinkers such as Zygmunt Bauman (2017a) and Wolfgang Streeck (2016), the current social world is ruled by a crumbling, morbid system. Old social institutions are failing and no new ones have yet emerged. This state in between ruling institutions has been labeled the interregnum by Bauman (2012), using Antonio Gramsci’s metaphor. “The crisis consists precisely in the fact that the old is dying and the new cannot be born; in this interregnum a great variety of morbid symptoms appear” (Gramsci, 1971, p. 276), Gramsci foretold. Rather than literally denoting an era after the death of one sovereign yet before the enthronement of a new monarch, in today’s late global capitalism an interregnum denotes “times of uncertainty, and while [it is] raising many questions, three of them seem particularly pertinent to address at a time when rulers no longer can rule and the ruled no longer wish to be ruled: institutional disparity, the future of migrants and the endurability of the planet” (Bauman, 2012, p. 51). [...]

Domaines: Sciences de l'Homme et Société; Gestion et management

Daniel J. Ericsson, Monika Kostera. Introduction: Organizing hope: narratives for a better future. Daniel Ericsson; Monika Kostera. Organizing Hope: narratives for a better future, Edward Elgar Publishing, pp.1-13, 2019, 978-1-78897-943-6. ⟨10.4337/9781788979443.00006⟩. ⟨hal-03537121⟩