Steffen Mau

In recent decades, the rise of world markets and the technological revolutions in transportation and communication have brought what was once distant and inaccessible within easy reach of the individual. The territorial and social closure that characterized nation-states is fading, and this is reflected not only in new forms of governance and economic globalization, but also in individual mobility and transnational transactions, affiliations and networks. Social Transnationalism explores new forms of cross-border interactions and mobility which have expanded across physical space by looking at the individual level. It asks whether we are dealing with unbridled movements and cross-border interactions which transform the lifeworlds of individuals fundamentally. Furthermore, it investigates whether, and to what degree, increases in the volume of transnational interactions weaken the individual citizen's bond to the nation-state as such, and to what extent citizens' national identities are being replaced or complemented by cosmopolitan ones

This book investigates why people are willing to support an institutional arrangement that realises large-scale redistribution of wealth between social groups of society. Steffen Mau introduces the concept of 'the moral economy' to show that acceptance of welfare exchanges rests on moral assumptions and ideas of social justice people adhere to. Analysing both the institution of welfare and the public attitudes towards such schemes, the book demonstrates that people are neither selfish nor altruistic; rather they tend to reason reciprocally.