Multiple crisis, new responses: A new phase of modernity

This article examines the contemporary predicament of modernity. It outlines its former three phases, as they until recently followed one another, and a fourth phase, currently emerging, is conceptualized. This article provides a critical review of the literature about the former phases. It then turns to ongoing transformations in politics, with re-oligarchization and autocratic inroads, the return of great power rivalries and warfare; in the economy, through strong state intervention; due to the unprecedented challenge of climate change; in social policy, with its focus on the ‘poor’ and ‘social investment’; as to identities, with both the individuals and collectivities increasingly characterized by defensiveness and a rejection of the ‘other’. The crisis of liberalism, especially neoliberalism, underpins contemporary impasses, challenges and responses, further exacerbated by the climate change emergency. The transition to a new phase of modernity looks rather chaotic and its outlook gloomy, yet emancipatory possibilities must not be discarded right away.