Showing papers in "Archives Europeennes De Sociologie in 2011"

Thick Concepts and the Moral Brain

Abstract: Drawing on Williams’ distinction between thin and thick ethical concepts, I argue that current moral neuroscience and psychology unwarrantedly restrict their researches to thin morality only. Experiments typically investigate subjects’ judgments about rightness, appropriateness, or permissibility, that is, thin concepts. The nature and workings of thick concepts – e.g., dignity, integrity, humanness, cruelty, pettiness, exploitation, or fanaticism – have not been empirically investigated; hence, they are absent from recent theories about morality. This may seem like a minor oversight, which some additional research can redress. I argue that the fix is not that simple: thick concepts challenge one of the theoretical backbones of much moral psychology and neuroscience; they challenge the conception of a hardwired and universal moral capacity in a way that thin concepts do not. In the conclusion I argue that the burgeoning science of morality should include both thin and thick, and that it should include the contributions of psychologists and neuroscientists as well as those of anthropologists, historians, and sociologists.

Kritische Gesellschaftstheorie or Kritische Gesellschaftspraxis ? Robin Celikates, Kritik als soziale Praxis. Gesellschaftliche Selbstverständigung und kritische Theorie (Frankfurt am Main, Campus Verlag, 2009).

Abstract: Robin Celikates’s recent book, entitled Kritik als soziale Praxis. Gesellschaftliche Selbstverstandigung und kritische Theorie (Criticism as Social Practice: Social Self-Understanding and Critical Theory), published by Campus Verlag in 2009, is undoubtedly one of the most significant contributions made to the field of critical theory over the past few years. If there is one major problem with this volume, it is the fact that it has still not been translated into, let alone published in, English. Given the conceptual precision, methodological rigour, intellectual originality, and thought-provoking argument of this study, one can only hope the volume will soon be available in English, so that its timely relevance and scholarly quality can be appreciated by a wider international readership in general and by Anglophone researchers working in the humanities and social sciences in particular. It is not often that one reads a book from cover to cover and has the pleasant experience of noticing that every single paragraph, and indeed every single sentence, is carefully crafted, meticulously organized, and thoroughly researched. One must congratulate the author for putting together a long-needed treasure of a book which makes a convincing case for the view that the very possibility of critical theory depends on its capacity to ground itself in the normative potentials and everyday disputes of society, rather than in the abstract concepts and sterile epistemic frameworks of armchair philosophy. In order to illustrate the complexity of Celikates’s ambitious endeavour, this review article shall provide a succinct overview of the main arguments and contributions, as well as of several noteworthy shortcomings and limitations, of Kritik als soziale Praxis.

Transborder Membership Politics in Germany and Korea

Abstract: This paper examines changing German and Korean policies towards transborder coethnics (Germans in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, and Koreans in Japan and China) during the high Cold War and post-Cold War eras. The paper contributes to the emerging literature on transborder forms of membership and belonging by highlighting and explaining the selective, variable, contingent, contested, and revocable nature of states’ embrace of transborder coethnics. The explanation highlights the relationship of transborder populations to predecessor polities; changing geopolitical contexts and domestic political conjunctures; the constitutive, group-making – and group-unmaking – power of state categorization practices; and the enduring institutional legacies and unintended consequences of such practices.

Limits to Financialization

Abstract: In the discussion on the causes of the financial crisis three main lines of argument can be distinguished: The „regulatory failure“ argument, the theory of the cyclical instability of financial markets, and analyses of „financialization“. From a sociological point of view, the latter analyses deserve particular interest, as they consider the crisis in the context of the larger structural changes of mature capitalist societies that have developed since the last decades of the 20th century. The paper first provides an overview of the financialization literature, focussing of the interplay between the changes on the macro-, meso- and micro levels of society that led to the present dominance of the financial services sector over the economy. Moreover, the historical analyses of Arrighi and Silver are considered. The second part of the paper offers a theoretical reconceptualization of the empirical findings in the framework of a multilevel model of capitalist dynamics. The model shows how a prosperous capitalist economy like the Western one in the second half of the 20th century can be transformed into a financialized economy due to its own internal dynamics. From a sociological perspective, financialization can thus be understood as a hegemonial regime of financial investors over entrepreneurs.

A Moving Target: Democracy

Abstract: Achieving consensus on a definition of “democracy” has proven elusive. Institutions that have been taken to be essential to democracy have changed radically since the word “democrat” began to be widely used toward the end of the eighteenth century. Democratic ideas and democratic practice engender conflict that transforms institutions rather than just reproduces them. Its transformative character rests on a half-dozen key attributes of democracy: it is an actor’s concept, as well as an analyst’s; it can arouse strong feelings; it combines not always compatible ideas; it empowers dissent; it involves a dynamic mixture of inclusion and exclusion; and the democratic histories of national states have been intertwined with global domination. Two processes combine to generate much social dynamism. First, democracy’s stirring inclusionary claims have been contradicted by a complex structure of exclusions, including distinctions in rights of full participation among citizens, distinctions in rights between citizens and non-citizens, and distinctions in resources among legally equal citizens. And second, democratic practice has been fertile soil for the development of social movements. Taken together, democracy is an invitation for movements to try to shift the boundaries of inclusion and exclusion, and in so doing to expand or constrict democracy itself.

Rethinking Tradition: From Ontological Reality to Assigned Temporal Meaning

Abstract: The article seeks to revitalize the concept of tradition and re-claim its usefulness for contemporary sociological thought and research. Instead of ontological entity, tradition is defined here as an assigned temporal meaning, i.e., a symbolic activity in which various social groups attribute traditional qualities to certain sectors of life that are understood as binding together different times. The article analyzes two incompatible approaches with which tradition was hitherto conceptualized in sociology: (1) tradition as the anti-modern, and (2) tradition as synonymous with “culture.” The analysis introduces a few middle-ground options that support the theory of tradition as assigned meaning.

Administering Secularization: Religious Education in New South Wales since 1960

Abstract: This paper examines the development of religious education policy in the government schools of New South Wales (Australia) since 1960. The New South Wales religious education curriculum features three components: (1) teacher-led “general religious education” (gre); (2) right-of-entry denominational instruction provided by visiting clergy (“special religious education”, or sre); and (3) occasional additional devotional exercises such as hymns and prayers. Between 1960 and 1980, this system underwent a partial secularization. gre was transformed from a straightforward course in Christianity built around government-produced Scripture readers to a flexible curricular component built around the academic study of multiple religions. At the same time, sre was strengthened and had its position in the curriculum secured; and devotional exercises were allowed to continue only in those settings where they formed an “appropriate” match with the community. I find that “secularizing” reforms were most consistently driven by teachers and administrators with practical motives: avoiding controversy, improving working conditions, and facilitating class management. This finding both challenges and complements recent works that interpret secularization as a political process driven by politicians and professionals primarily interested in enhancing their power or prestige at the expense of religious actors.

Interest-Seeking as Sense-Making: Ideas and Business Interests in the New Deal

Abstract: This article addresses the question of how ideas and interests can be linked in policy analysis. The juxtaposition of the two concepts is criticized from a sociological point of view. Instead, ideas are a substantial element of interest formation. Cognitive and normative worldviews shape the transformation of objective socio-economic positions into subjective, situational action orientations. Interests can be traced back to the interplay between structural positions, situational problems and their idea-based interpretation.It is then shown how these conceptual arguments can bring forward a prominent debate in welfare state analysis: the role of business in the emergence of the American welfare state in the New Deal. While struggling with the question whether the supportive role of some business leaders in the Social Security Act of 1935 reveals substantial interest changes or strategical adaption, both sides of the debate suffer from an objectivist concept of interest. This one-sided concept of interest comes at the cost of leaving open the question of why business interests changed in the direction of unemployment insurance and not in the direction of other feasible institutional options such as price regulation or public works. These options would also have provided a solution to the problem American employers were facing. Analysis of social reform discourses between 1911 and 1935 shows that the partial reorientation of business people cannot be sufficiently explained without taking into account the growing legitimacy of liberal- corporatist ideas among employers in the 1920s.

Revocation of Citizenship in the United States

Abstract: Rogers Brubaker in his 1992 path-breaking study proposes a theory of citizenship as a coherent world view: the French liberal model identifies citizenship as a community based on territoriality; the German ethno-nationalist model bases citizenship on blood-line. Rogers Smith challenged Brubaker and, based on a 1997 study of United States immigration laws, claims that the American concept of citizenship is a non-coherent mix of various principles: liberal, ethno-nationalist and republican at the same time. Both authors inspired a great deal of research, but all studies so far have attempted to adjudicate between the two competing theories by looking at inclusionary practices, at the various ways citizenship is granted in various countries, and their results are inconclusive. This paper reports findings for a study which looked at exclusion. The data on United States laws and legislative debates about the states’ rights to revoke, and citizens’ privilege to renounce, citizenship lends support to Rogers Smith’s arguments regarding inclusion and citizenship, while underlining war as an independent sociological source for the genesis, persistence and dispersion of these bundles or equilibria.

Having or Doing Intellectual Property Rights? Transgenic Seed on the Edge between Refeudalisation and Napsterisation

Abstract: In contrast to neoliberal rhetoric, the commercialisation of knowledge has proved to be an intricate endeavour that implies unexpected effects. Taking Monsanto’s transgenic canola and its propertisation regime as an example, we will shed some light on the counterintuitive phenomenon that strong intellectual property rights are in heavy contrast to the liberal utopia of full commodification, i.e. universal competition and ideal type market relationships. We will find that Monsanto, in order to avoid Napsterisation, has established and still maintains a rather repressive commercialisation regime that maximises property control by strongly reducing the exchangeability of seed and crops. It can therefore be interpreted as a new form of landlord dominion which contradicts the modernist idea of concordance between market liberalisation and individual emancipation.

From Selling Tea to Selling Japaneseness: Symbolic Power and the Nationalization of Cultural Practices

Abstract: This article investigates how institutions of cultural production become invested in the national meanings of their products and employ these associations for their own reproduction and expansion. The case I take is of the tea ceremony in Japan, from its pre-modern origins, through its capture by the organizational form of the iemoto system, and to its contemporary projection as a quintessence of Japaneseness. The ritual offers a particularly vivid illustration of the ways in which symbolic power can not only be periodized, first through its accumulation and then its routine exercise, but can also be successively articulated, at first with the state and then with the nation.

Symbol, Handlung, Erfahrung

Abstract: Abstract Ever since Durkheim, the relationship between ritual and sociability has been a primary theme of theoretical reflection in sociology. The article highlights a number of aspects relating to that theme and explores the question of whether ritual change – posited by the author as an historical evidence – can be adequately understood in this way, notably in terms of its societal implications. In the second half, the author presents a detailed analysis of a number of issues that emerge when ritualisation is considered as a continuous historical process. The prerequisites and mechanisms of ritualisation are at the core of this reflection, in particular in exploring how routine action, ritual experience and symbolic auto-declaration can be deployed in the context of the creation of social ties. Résumé Depuis Durkheim, la relation entre rituel et sociabilité constitue le thème essentiel de la réflexion théorique en sociologie. L’article porte un éclairage sur quelques réflexions relatives à cette thématique et s’intéresse à la question, si le changement rituel – présenté par l’auteur comme une évidence historique – peut ainsi être compris de façon adéquate, notamment au niveau de ses implications sociétales. Dans la seconde partie, la contribution analyse plus précisément quelques problématiques qui apparaissent dès que la ritualisation est comprise comme un processus historique se renouvelant sans cesse. Les préalables et mécanismes de la ritualisation sont au cœur de la réflexion, plus particulièrement pour déterminer comment l’action routinière, l’expérience rituelle et l’autodéclaration symbolique peuvent se déployer dans le contexte de la création de lien social. Zusammenfassung Das Verhältnis von Ritual und Sozialität ist seit Durkheim Gegenstand soziologischer Theoriebildung. Der Aufsatz beleuchtet ausgewählte Entwürfe in diesem Feld und läßt sich dabei von der Frage leiten, inwieweit der – vom Verfasser als historische Gegebenheit vorausgesetzte – Ritualwandel mit ihnen adäquat erfaßt und in seinen gesellschaftlichen Implikationen verstanden werden kann. In einem zweiten Teil isoliert der Beitrag einige Problemfelder, die sich auftun, wenn man Ritualisierung als historischen Prozeß begreift, der sich laufend neu ereignet. Das Augenmerk liegt dabei auf den Voraussetzungen und Mechanismen der Ritualisierung, im besonderen auf der Frage, wie routiniertes Handeln, rituelle Erfahrung und symbolische Selbstaussage im Zusammenspiel soziale Bindungswirkung entfalten können.

boudon’s sketch for an autobiography Raymond Boudon, La sociologie comme science, (Paris, La Découverte, 2010).

Abstract: “It is only in my short book published at La Découverte on Sociology as a Science that I had the feeling to be able to express in a clear and neat way the ideas that I started to elaborate forty years ago”.

Pretention and Confusion in European Studies Daniel Gaxie, Nicolas Hubé, Marine de Lassalle, Jay Rowell (dir.), L’Europe des Européens. Enquête comparative sur les perceptions de l’Europe (Paris, Economica, 2011., English edition, Perceptions of Europe. A Comparative Sociology of European Attitudes, Essex, ECPR Press, 2011).

Abstract: L’ E U R O P E D E S E U R O P É E N S, Enquête comparative sur les perceptions de l’Europe edited by Daniel Gaxie, Nicolas Hub e, Marine de Lassalle and Jay Rowell reports the results of the Concorde research project whose purpose was to ‘‘understand and explain the attitudes of various categories of citizens to Europe’’ by means of qualitative methods. The project was initially focused on France and Germany, where respectively 332 and 132 interviews were conducted, and was extended by conducting interviews in Poland (n5100), Italy (n560) and the Czech Republic (n544). The investigation of the differences between these countries is however limited; the main objective of the authors is rather to reveal general relations between attitudes and positions in the social space. The book contains numerous contributions, mainly co-signed, by 15 authors. The first part of the book is dedicated to methodological issues, the second describes attitudes towards Europe, and the third deals with ‘‘resources’’ and ‘‘instruments’’ (categories, knowledge, and reasoning) used by interviewees when they make an assessment or express an opinion about Europe. Finally, the last part shows how Europe is conceived of by specific groups such as farmers or lower classes. The authors claim to be swimming against the tide by using qualitative methods instead of quantitative ones. This may explain why they are so prone to open fire on quantitative opinion studies throughout the entire book. Thus, almost all the chapters provide a criticism of Eurobarometer (EB), a (mainly) quantitative programme in opinion research sponsored by the European Commission. In the first part, called ‘‘Methods’’, the first two chapters (out of three) are respectively dedicated to criticism of quantitative European Studies and of the EB. The third one itself, though conceived of as a presentation of qualitative methods, emphasizes the limitations of quantitative

Quand les migrants se choisissent : qualification sociale et sélection des postulants à la migration au Maroc

Abstract: Our study explores the various forms of social regulation imposed on candidates for emigration in a Moroccan town. This system of judgments, based on a preliminary qualification/disqualification of the candidates at the outset, gives preference to long-term migration by according such emigrants high social prestige in their home country. Thus, to counter the stereotype of a miserable, isolated, and passive migrant, we offer the image of a strategic migrant, who has been “qualified” by local social authorities and who is aligned with a project of collective mobility.