This edited collection brings together texts that discuss current major issues in our troubled times through the lens of Norbert Eliass sociology. It sheds light on both the contemporary world and some of Eliass most controversial concepts. Through examination of the current affairs, political and social contemporary changes, the authors in this collection present new and challenging ways of understanding these social processes and figurations. Ultimately, the objective of the book is to embrace and utilise some of the more polemical aspects of Eliass legacy, such as the exploration of decivilizing processes, decivilizing spurts, and dys-civilization. It investigates to what extent Eliass sociological analyses are still applicable in our studies of the developments that mark our troubled times. It does so through both global and local lenses, theoretically and empirically, and above all, by connecting past, present, and possible futures of all human societies.

Florence Delmotte is Research Associate at the Belgian Foundation for Scientific Research (FNRS) and Professor of Political Science at Université Saint-Louis Bruxelles, Belgium. Her research focuses on the relevance of Norbert Elias and processual sociology for thinking through such political issues as citizenship, legitimacy, belonging and national habitus in todays Europe. She is the author of a number of articles in English and French on these topics.  

Barbara Górnicka is Research Fellow in Sociology at University College Dublin, Ireland, where she completed her doctoral degree in 2016. She is a Fellow of the Norbert Elias Foundation and a Co-Editor of the Human Figurations Journal. She is the author of Nakedness, Shame and Embarrassment: A Long-term Sociological Perspective (Springer, 2016).

1. Troubled Times: Editors Introduction.- Part I: Renewing Classical Themes.- 2. The Question of Inequality: Trends of Functional Democratisation and De-democratisation.- 3. Vox Populi Then and Now.- 4. Figurational Sociology of the Rule of Law: A Case of Central and Eastern Europe.- 5. Transformations of Human Rights within Ruptures and Continuity: A Historico-Sociological Approach.- 6. Civilising Digitalisation: In Search of a New balance with Todays Technological Innovations.- 7. Confronting Uncertainties: Process Sociology Converges with the Ecological Risk Society of the Becks.- Part II: Violence and Faces of the War.- 8. The Civilising Process, Decline of Homicide and Mass Murder Societies: Norbert Elias and the History of Violence.- 9. A Throwback to Violence? Outline for a Process-Sociological Approach to Terror and Terrorism.- 10.  Violence and Power: The Kaiowá and Guarani Indigenous Peoples.- 11. Analysing European Defence with Eliass Historical Sociology (19902020).- Part III: EstablishedOutsiders Relations and Habitus Issues.- 12. Weaving Eliass Thought with Indigenous Perspectives and Lives: Proposal for a Research Agenda.- 13. A Question of Function: Unequal Power Ratios and Asylum Seekers in Ireland.- 14. Thoughts on Describing Established and Outsider Figurations in Inner Mongolia- 15. Generational Figuration and We-Group Formation in the Palestinian West Bank since the 1970s.- 16. The Israeli National Habitus and Historiography: The Importance of Generations and State Building.- 17. The Established and The Outsiders: An Incomplete Study?.- Part IV: Conclusive Reflections.- 18. Some Political Implications of Sociology from an Eliasian Point of View.