Showing papers in "Theory and Society in 2006"

Inhabited Institutions: Social Interactions and Organizational Forms in Gouldner’s Patterns of Industrial Bureaucracy

Abstract: Organizational sociologists often treat institutions as macro cultural logics, representations, and schemata, with less consideration for how institutions are ”inhabited“ (Scully and Creed, 1997) by people doing things together. As such, this article uses a symbolic interactionist rereading of Gouldner’s classic study Patterns of Industrial Bureaucracy as a lever to expand the boundaries of institutionalism to encompass a richer understanding of action, interaction, and meaning. Fifty years after its publication, Gouldner’s study still speaks to us, though in ways we (and he) may not have anticipated five decades ago. The rich field observations in Patterns remind us that institutions such as bureaucracy are inhabited by people and their interactions, and the book provides an opportunity for intellectual renewal. Instead of treating contemporary institutionalism and symbolic interaction as antagonistic, we treat them as complementary components of an “inhabited institutions approach” that focuses on local and extra–local embeddedness, local and extra-local meaning, and a skeptical, inquiring attitude. This approach yields a doubly constructed view: On the one hand, institutions provide the raw materials and guidelines for social interactions (“construct interactions”), and on the other hand, the meanings of institutions are constructed and propelled forward by social interactions. Institutions are not inert categories of meaning; rather they are populated with people whose social interactions suffuse institutions with local force and significance.

Northern Theory: The Political Geography of General Social Theory

Abstract: The relationship between geopolitical position and general social theory is examined by a detailed reading of three important texts, Coleman’s Foundations of Social Theory, Bourdieu’s Logic of Practice, and Giddens’s Constitution of Society. Effects of metropolitan position are traced in theoretical strategies, conceptions of time and history, models of agency, ideas of modernity, and other central features of their theorizing. Four textual moves are identified that together constitute the northernness of general social theory: claiming universality, reading from the center, gestures of exclusion, and grand erasure. Some alternative paths for theory, embodying different relations with the global South, are briefly indicated.

Studying social capital in situ: A qualitative approach

Abstract: In recent years, the concept of social capital – broadly defined as co-operative networks based on regular, personal contact and trust – has been widely applied within cross-disciplinary human science research, primarily by economists, political scientists and sociologists. In this article, I argue why and how fieldwork anthropologists should fill a gap in the social capital literature by highlighting how social capital is being built in situ. I suggest that the recent inventions of “bridging” and “bonding” social capital, e.g., inclusive and exclusive types of social capital, are fruitful concepts to apply in an anthropological fieldwork setting. Thus, my case study on the relationship between local people and newcomers in the rural Danish marginal municipality of Ravnsborg seeks to reveal processes of bridging/bonding social capital building. Such a case study at the micro level has general policy implications for a cultural clash between two different groups by demonstrating the complexity of a social capital mix where bonding social capital strongly prevails. This ultimately leads to a “social trap” (Rothstein 2005), implying widespread distrust and serious social and economic costs for a whole population.

Third parties and status position: How the characteristics of status systems matter

Abstract: For organizations, as for individuals, status position governs access to a variety of valued rewards. To uncover the causes of status position, recent research has focused on the relationship between the attributes of individual organizations and their standing in a status hierarchy. Although this research has made valuable contributions to our understanding of both the consequences of status to organizations and the determinants of status, its emphasis on organizational attributes has not addressed how the characteristics of status systems shape the nature and distribution of these positions. Drawing on data from 134 in-depth interviews with law school administrators and faculty, this article investigates how variations in the characteristics of status systems influence status processes. Concentrating on the theoretically underdeveloped role that third parties play in status systems, I examine how a third party change – the emergence and increasing popularity of the U.S. News and World Report’s law school rankings – has had powerful effects on the shape of the status hierarchy of legal education as well as the values that underlie this hierarchy. These changes have, in turn, transformed the landscape of positions that are available to actors, the process by which these positions are allocated among various actors, and the bases upon which this allocation is carried out.

The trouble with experts – and why democracies need them

Abstract: Many democratic thinkers believe that the values of expertise and the values of democracy are incompatible. Since practical realities require democratic governments to depend on experts, theorists focus on how to keep experts on a short leash. In contrast, this essay argues that experts are of greatest value to democracy when they stand up to those in government who hire them or seek their counsel, not when they surrender professional judgment to political masters. Dangers of the “short leash” model are explained. The essay offers proposals on how to think more wisely about the role of expertise in democracy. The role of the politician as a special kind of expert is also discussed.

Metabolism, energy, and entropy in Marx's critique of political economy: Beyond the Podolinsky myth

Abstract: Until recently, most commentators, including ecological Marxists, have assumed that Marx's historical materialism was only marginally ecologically sensitive at best, or even that it was explicitly anti-ecological. However, research over the last decade has demonstrated not only that Marx deemed ecological materialism essential to the critique of political economy and to investigations into socialism, but also that his treatment of the coevolution of nature and society was in many ways the most sophisticated to be put forth by any social theorist prior to the late twentieth century. Still, criticisms continue to be leveled at Marx and Engels for their understanding of thermodynamics and the extent to which their work is said to conflict with the core tenets of ecological economics. In this respect, the rejection by Marx and Engels of the pioneering contributions of the Ukrainian socialist Sergei Podolinsky, one of the founders of energetics, has been frequently offered as the chief ecological case against them. Building on an earlier analysis of Marx's and Engels's response to Podolinsky, this article shows that they relied on an open-system, metabolic-energetic model that adhered to all of the main strictures of ecological economics – but one that also (unlike ecological economics) rooted the violation of solar and other environmental-sustainability conditions in the class relations of capitalist society. The result is to generate a deeper understanding of classical historical materialism's ecological approach to economy and society – providing an ecological-materialist critique that can help uncover the systemic roots of today's “treadmill of production” and global environmental crisis.

Ideas, thinkers, and social networks: The process of grievance construction in the anti-genetic engineering movement

Abstract: Popular commentaries suggest that the movement against genetic engineering in agriculture (anti-GE movement) was born in Europe, rooted in European cultural approaches to food, and sparked by recent food-safety scares such as “mad cow” disease. Yet few realize that the anti-GE movement's origins date back thirty years, that opposition to agricultural biotechnology emerged with the technology itself, and that the movement originated in the United States rather than Europe. We argue here that neither the explosion of the GE food issue in the late 1990s nor the concomitant expansion of the movement can be understood without recognizing the importance of the intellectual work carried out by a “critical community” of activists during the two-decade-long period prior to the 1990s. We show how these early critics forged an oppositional ideology and concrete set of grievances upon which a movement could later be built. Our analysis advances social movement theory by establishing the importance of the intellectual work that activists engage in during the “proto-mobilizational” phase of collective action, and by identifying the cognitive and social processes by which activists develop a critical, analytical framework. Our elaboration of four specific dimensions of idea/ideology formation pushes the literature toward a more complete understanding of the role of ideas and idea-makers in social movements, and suggests a process of grievance construction that is more “organic” than strategic (pace the framing literature).

Social capital or group style? Rescuing Tocqueville’s insights on civic engagement

Abstract: Social capital has become the preeminent concept for studying civic relationships, yet it will not help us assess their meanings, institution-like qualities, or potential for social capacity. Alexis de Tocqueville’s insights on these three features of civic relationships continue to be highly influential, and the popular social capital concept claims a strongly Tocquevillian heritage while systematically missing what a Tocquevillian imagination illuminates. Scenes from volunteer group settings in a midwestern US city show how a concept of group style apprehends the varying meanings, routines, and social capacities of civic ties. Group style also illuminates the process by which civic groups create “bridging” ties beyond the group. Without rejecting the social capital concept entirely, I highlight research questions and findings that social capital would ignore or misapprehend. A concluding discussion draws out implications for democratic theory, and sketches an agenda for future research on civic group style that makes good on Tocquevillian insights while moving beyond Tocqueville’s own limits.

Rooted transnational publics: Integrating foreign ties and civic activism

Abstract: Can civic organizations be both locally rooted and globally connected? Based on a survey of 1,002 of the largest civic organizations in Hungary, we conclude that there is not a forced choice between foreign ties and domestic integration. By studying variation in types of foreign interactions and variation in types of domestic integration, our analysis goes beyond notions of footloose experts versus rooted cosmopolitans. Organizations differ in their rootedness according to whether they have ties to their members and constituents, whether they have ties to other organizations in the civic sector, and whether they associate with actors from outside the civic sector. Similarly, we specify different types of foreign ties. In both domains our emphasis is on the type of action involved in the tie-especially relations of accountability and partnership. By demonstrating a systematic relationship between the patterns of foreign ties and the patterns of domestic integration, we chart three emerging forms of transnational publics.

Seapower and socioeconomic change

Abstract: The present essay examines the concepts of path dependence and change of political and economic regimes. Starting from the debate of the influence of the so called military revolution on the emergence of modern states, the neglected aspect of the influence of seapower on socioeconomic change is presented, using a formal model. It is maintained that the choice of seapower by a state leads to a different regime than the choice of land military power, because sustainable seapower necessitates a wide alliance of interests, which brings with it more democratic regimes, develops new more efficient and complex forms of organizations, requires the acquisition and diffusion of new knowledge and expertise, which brings with it institutional change and economic growth. The essay concludes with a short presentation of the United Provinces' (the Dutch Republic) turn to the sea.

Unfinished Imagined Communities: States, Social Movements, and Nationalism in Latin America

Abstract: This article addresses two shortcomings in the literature on nationalism: the need to theorize transformations of nationalism, and the relative absence of comparative works on Latin America. We propose a state-focused theoretical framework, centered on conflicts between states elites and social movements, for explaining transformations of nationalism. Different configurations of four key factors — the mobilization of excluded elites and subordinate actors, state elites’ political control, the ideological capacities of states, and polarization around ethnoracial cleavages — shape how contrasting trajectories of nationalism unfold over time. A comparative analysis of early– and mid–twentieth century Mexico, Argentina, and Peru illustrates the explanatory power of our theoretical framework.

The making of the global gambling industry: An application and extension of field theory

Abstract: The past two decades have seen a global convergence from gambling prohibition to legalization, but also a divergence regarding how new gambling industries are structured and regulated. This article compares two cases of casino legalization exhibiting different and, given conventional understandings of the two countries, unexpected outcomes. In the United States, ethnic entrepreneurs (Indian tribes) were granted a monopoly on casinos in California; in South Africa, the new ANC government legalized a competitive, corporate casino industry. Through explaining these disparate industry structurings, two arguments are advanced. First, Bourdieu's field theory best describes the interests and strategies of industry “players” as they attempted to shape policy. Second, Bourdieu neglects the independent role of institutions in mediating between field-level dynamics and concrete regulatory outcomes. In California, Tribes converted economic into political capital through a public election. In South Africa, the ANC used a centralized commission to implement corporate gambling over public opposition, in essence converting political into economic capital. By viewing policy domains as “dramaturgical prisms” whose sign–production tools and audiences facilitate certain but not other capital conversion projects, I both explain unexpected regulatory outcomes and synthesize field and political process theories.

Epistemic foundations of cuisine: A socio-cognitive study of the configuration of cuisine in historical perspective

Abstract: This article is a study of the development of modern European cuisine through an examination of the socio-cognitive schemas which shape the way social actors think of and about food. While the historical phase that spans from the late middle ages to modernity has been widely studied (mainly by historians) I advance a new interpretation which focuses on the influence of cognitive patterns on the structure of cuisine — the ways of eating, cooking and serving food. I argue that the shift in the mode of classification helps explain the origin of the modern configuration of cuisine built on the polarity between the sweet and savory tastes. Using the case of cuisine, I propose to see the cultural schemas which define thinking in a socio-historical context as providing the conditions of possibility for transformations in a cultural sphere to occur. This article thus attempts to contribute to our understanding of the relation between cultural practices and cognitive schemas.

Time–space intensification: Karl Polanyi, the double movement, and global informational capitalism

Abstract: This article advances the concept of “time–space intensification” as an alternative to existing notions of time–space distanciation, compression and embedding that attempt to capture the restructuring of time and space in contemporary advanced capitalism. This concept suggests time and space are intensified in the contemporary period – the social experience of time and space becomes more explicit and more crucial to socio-economic actors’ lives, time and space are mobilized more explicitly in individual and corporate action, and the institutionalization of time and space becomes more politicized. Drawing on Polanyi’s concepts of fictitious commodities and the double movement, and developing them through an analysis of work organization and economic development in the Irish software industry, the article argues that the concept of time–space intensification can add significantly to our understanding of key features of the restructuring of the temporal and spatial basis of economic development and work organization.

Before the Professional Project: Success and Failure at Creating an Organizational Representative for English Doctors

Abstract: Theories of the professions do not sufficiently explain how individuals with different and often ill-defined interests can organize themselves into a group coherent enough to undertake a “professional project.” I suggest that concepts from institutional and organizational theory can help fill this gap and apply such concepts to one of the first professional projects, that of English doctors. In the early nineteenth century, two groups sought to become the organizational representative of the incipient profession. The first rapidly organized a sizeable fraction of practitioners and achieved some legislative success, but could not transform its early accomplishments into a position as the doctors' representative. The second had only moderate impact in its early years and was dismissed as politically irrelevant, but eventually united the profession and continues to this day as the British Medical Association. The professions literature, most of which is pitched at a broader level of analysis, does not provide theoretical tools to explain these divergent outcomes. I argue that they can be accounted for by analyzing English medicine as an institutional field. The groups' different structural locations within the field affected their trajectories, and a novel organizational model borrowed from an adjacent field helped the latter group keep doctors mobilized and achieve legitimacy. As a result, an unlikely–looking group of outsiders with limited resources was eventually able to lead a successful professional project, while an initially promising group fell by the wayside.

Contentious mass politics in Southeast Asia: Knowledge accumulation and cycles of growth and exhaustion

Abstract: The study of mass contentious politics in Southeast Asia has accumulated significant knowledge over the last 40 years. This politics is instructive because it presents distinctive problems for analysis whose solutions will be useful to future analysts there and elsewhere. Two areas of knowledge where this literature has made special contributions are peasant resistance and the politics of insurgency and counterinsurgency. In addition, the peculiarities of the scholarship on this topic offer an opportunity to engage two different debates. First, because of the diverse methods employed to tackle this topic, the literature is useful for evaluating claims often made by partisans to methodological debates that only one’s own method can accumulate knowledge while others cannot. Second, given the high geopolitical stake Southeast Asia once held for the United States in its fight against world communism, the scholarship on contentious mass politics in this region provides an appropriate test case for the common argument that postwar American scholarship has been dominated by American “imperial designs.” This article examines the different genres of analysis in the literature and shows how these genres hold different normative and ontological assumptions, conceptualize problems differently, and accumulate knowledge in different modes. A key finding of the essay is that knowledge accumulation by different genres has experienced cycles of growth and exhaustion. The evolution of these genres indicates the often neglected fact that knowledge accumulation consumes exhaustible knowledge resources that need to be replenished. The changing fortunes of the genres with different normative orientations also suggest a loose link between scholarship on this topic and broad ideological shifts in the United States, although “imperial interests” did not always prevail as often claimed.

Bringing the body back into theory and methodology

Abstract: This is a discussion of a book by Kathryn Linn Geurts, Culture and the Senses. Bodily Ways of Knowing in an African Community, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2002; and a book by Judith Farquhar, Appetites. Food and Sex in Post-Socialist China, Durham, NC and London: Duke University Press, 2002.

Curtain rising, baton falling: The politics of musical conducting in contemporary Argentina

Abstract: This article gives an ethnographic account of the several processes under which a charismatic conductor is de-legitimized, exploring the relationship between institutions and charisma in an art world where the authority of the cultural producer is diminished by the management of everyday interaction. The article shows how, in Argentina, the politics of musical conducting are shaped by four institutional worlds. They range from the macro economic cultural policies of the diverse state agencies to the everyday interaction world of orchestra musicians, and include meso-processes and mechanisms like the field of musical conducting. This article explores the structure and ideologies of the four institutional worlds, their interplay, the concrete practices that shaped them, their struggles, and how they overlap in causing the diminishing power of charisma. In undertaking this endeavor, the article systematizes the existing sociological corpus on the orchestral world in order to sketch a more complex and complete picture of hierarchies and interactions.

Contest time: time, territory, and representation in the postmodern electoral crisis

Abstract: Prior generations’ electoral crises (e.g., gerrymandering) have dealt mainly with political maneuverings around geographical shifts. We analyze four recent (1998–2003) American electoral crises: the Clinton impeachment controversy, the 2000 Florida presidential election, the Texas legislators’ flight to Oklahoma and New Mexico, and the California gubernatorial recall. We show that in each case temporal manipulation was at least as important as geographical. We highlight emergent electoral practices surrounding the manipulation of time, which we dub “temporal gerrymandering.” We suggest a theory of postmodern electoral crises, in which the rules of time and space are simultaneously in flux. These crises expose concerns with early American democratic theory, which was based on an understanding of “the people” as geographically and temporally unidimensional. Representative systems, therefore, were designed largely without reference to geographic and temporal complexity.

The instatement of order: state initiatives and hegemony in the modernization of French forest policy

Abstract: Theories of France’s political integration, from Tocqueville to the present day, frequently disregard the political achievements of the nineteenth century state and assert that the infrastructures needed for effective governance were created during the absolutist period. Using the case of forest policy, one of the major policy domains for local and national regimes during the absolutist and nineteenth century periods, this study argues against prior accounts. It shows how the nineteenth century state, led by an elite faction of the bourgeoisie, gained infrastructural power by promoting its preferred policies as the only means of avoiding disorder and chaos. These policies advanced private property as the natural (hegemonic) form of land control. It was this project, rather than the earlier absolutist regime, that led to effective state authority over France’s territory and the achievement of the nation’s political integration. This study of forest policy provides an opportunity to evaluate state efforts to regulate economic and political life, as well as the resistance to these efforts that arose.