Conceptualizations of world society represent elementary breaks with traditional thinking styles in sociology. In this research field, nation-state myths have been disenchanted, the local is identified as global and vice versa, and the central concept of sociology—that of society, which has always been manifold and controversial within the discipline—becomes relevant again. World society approaches require the self-reflexive perspective of the constitutive conditions of the discipline of science. They also make essential contributions to the de-nationalization of concepts and to methods of empirical research. Thus conceptuality refers to the stepping out of a national context and the opening out to the global level as a reference framework for analysis. In addition, conceptualizations of world society are an important contribution to the global social responsibility of science. Sociology has, thanks to world society approaches, constructive plans to put forward a global shift of the discipline of science. For sociologists, this project will be a central challenge of the twenty-first century at the construction site of sociology.
Part of the book: Social Responsibility