ABSTRACT
As we enter the twenty-fi rst century, modern differentiated societies are characterised by fundamental social transformations. Particular mention must be given here to the progressive globalisation of economic activities, the transnationalisation of social environments, advancing individualisation and, at the same time, the resurgence of social movements and the increased digitalisation of transport, information, organisation and production technologies. Within social science debates, those processes and developments are accorded different weights and interpretations. Informed by a structural functionalist and systems theoretical orientation, one observes modern industrial societies changing to become post-modern knowledge-based or information societies (Stehr 2001); from a regulation theory or neo-Marxist perspective, one detects a transformation from Fordism to post-Fordism (Jessop 2001); and in the tradition of critical social theory, processes of cosmopolitanisation are diagnosed (Beck 2006). Notwithstanding all their differences in the interpretation of those developments, within the specialised discourses of the social sciences there is a general consensus that the seemingly rigid institutional arrangements of western industrial societies are coming increasingly under pressure such that ongoing processes of diversifi cation are now underway, resulting in an increasing diversity of form, style and mode in relation to living and working arrangements.1
