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From the start individualization theory is the investigation of the paradigm shift in social inequality. Furthermore it shows, how the transnationalization of social inequalities bursts the framework of institutional responses - nation state (parties), trade unions, welfare state systems and the national sociologies of social classes. In this essay I shall try to conceptually elucidate the 'cosmopolitan perspective' on relations of social inequality in three cases: (1) the inequality of global risk; (2) the Europe-wide dynamic of inequality; and (3) transnational inequalities, which emerge from the capacities and resources to transcend borders. Before that I take up Will Atkinson's question: 'What exactly constitutes individualization and to what extent has it really displaced class?' (Atkinson 2007: Abstract).
Ulrich Beck (2007) studied this question.