Research: Social action and expectations: the idea of "future" in the contemporary political debate
In 2017 Eugenia Gaia Esposito first obtained with honours the Bachelor Degree in Political Science and International Relations from the Faculty of Political Science. In 2020 she also graduated with honours in International Relations at same University: she obtained the Master Degree in History of Contemporary Political Thought with a dissertation project entitled "Democracy and Social Complexity". She is currently a PhD student in Political Studies at the Department of Political Science of Sapienza University of Rome.
Abstract:
Social action and expectations: the idea of “future” in the contemporary political debate
This project was born from the urgency to analyze the categorical changes which characterize the highly differentiated and complex societies and which influence the idea of future. In particular, I would like to focus on the influence existing between expectations and social action, that is the grounds of social change.
In order to achieve this purpose, my intention is to trace Koselleck’s studies on the subject of temporality and redefine those oriented to Luhmann’s theory of Social Systems. The former ones would allow me to frame the relationship between past, present and future through the metahistorical categories of experience and expectation. Luhmann’s theory, instead, emerges as a source of analitical instruments to draw from, in order to observe the dynamics which nowdays characterize the complex systems and are integrated into the relation between the “space of experience” and the “horizon of expectation”.
Key words: social change, expectations, future