Amidst rising tensions affecting democracy, capitalism and planetary life, this book discusses the multiple crises, processes and conflicts reconfiguring modernity. Tracking the political, social and ecological dynamics at play, it offers a critical perspective on the forces that may redefine the futures of political modernity.

It asks whether a transition is unfolding and whether a new phase of modernity is emerging, or whether it is only an inflexion that we are witnessing, with the pre-pandemic imaginary and institutions retaining their strength, apart from small adaptions. Drawing on a range of cutting-edge contributions emerging from a conference at the Social Sciences Institute of University of Lisbon, it tackles issues of democracy, statehood, empire, coloniality, authoritarianism, the Anthropocene, the social bond, and climate change, to offer a systematic analysis and conceptualization of ongoing changes. It offers a global perspective on the debate. Empirical and theoretical threads are brought together by the idea that we are transitioning to a world somehow yet unknown but whose contours we can already fathom.

An innovative, empirically based, and path-breaking analytical contribution, it will appeal to specialists, researchers and postgraduate students of sociology, social theory, and political theory.