Books by Nico Stehr

Social surveillance and regulation of knowledge will be an important issue in the future. This work predicts that such concerns will create a new political field, namely, knowledge policy, which will entail regulating dissemination of the anticipated results of rapidly increasing knowledge.

Shows how new technologies and society's response to them have created a 'knowledge politics' with wide-ranging ramifactions.

The link between liberty and knowledge is neither static nor simple. Until recently the mutual support between knowledge, science, democracy and emancipation was presupposed. Recently, however, the close relationship between democracy and knowledge has been viewed with skepticism. The growing societal reliance on specialized knowledge often appears to actually undermine democracy. Is it that we do not know enough, but that we know too much? What are the implications for the freedom of societies and their citizens? Does knowledge help or heed them in unraveling the complexity of new challenges? This book systematically explores the shifting dynamics of knowledge production and the implications for the conditions and practices of freedom. It considers the growth of knowledge about knowledge and the impact of an evolving media. It argues for a revised understanding of the societal role of knowledge and presents the concept of 'knowledge societies' as a major resource for liberty.

The relationship of knowledge and liberties in modern societies presents a multitude of issues that deserve to be explored more systematically. This work explores the relationship between knowledge and democracy, Do they support each other, do they mutually depend on each other, or are they perhaps even in conflict with each other?

Divided into four parts, the book deals with the context of the moralization of the markets; the major social institutions; and present case studies that examine European and American attitudes and behavior towards tobacco and GMO. This volume will interest sociologists, economists, social scientists, and the general consumer.

In this analysis of the central role that knowledge plays in our life, Nico Stehr examines the premises of existing social theory and explores the knowledge relations in advanced societies. The planned result is a significant synthesis of social theory.

A new theory of markets, taking into account the increased knowledge, affluence and access to information of modern consumers.