The introduction of this concept served a double purpose: to reassess sociology as a science of the present (moving beyond the early-20th-century conceptual framework), and to provide a counterbalance to the postmodernist paradigm offering a re-constructive view alongside deconstruction.
The state is starting to lose its importance with the rise of transnational forces (corporations, NGOs), the family is splitting apart with rising divorce rates favoured by the flexibility of work and the women's liberation, losing its supportive function in the process, religion is reduced to a cultural artifact, traditional political action is boycotted because of a lack of identification with the parties' goals.
[4] Ulrich Beck focuses on the dissolution of traditional institutions and the rise of transnational forces, while promoting a new type solidarity in the face of the human made dangers of the risk society, exacerbated by the inherent limits being discovered to all forms of social knowing.
[5] Anthony Giddens proposes a third way of social policies aimed at tackling the new challenges to identity and life choices created by the biographical risks and uncertainties of reflexive modernity.
[7] Ronald Inglehart studies the shift of human values from material to post-material in the Western societies by analysing the World Values Survey databases;[8] and Pippa Norris stresses the importance of cultural globalization over economical globalization,[9] while also talking about the new divisions, such as the digital divide.