Luc Boltanski and His Critics: An Afterword, in The Spirit of Luc Boltanski: Essays on the ‘Pragmatic Sociology of Critique’

Luc Boltanski und Laurent Thévenot: Über die Rechtfertigung

Abstract: Uber die Rechtfertigung (UR) ist in vielerlei Hinsicht ein ungewohnliches soziologisches Werk. Es bringt klassische Moralphilosophie mit Alltagskoordination in Zusammenhang, konstatiert eine Gemeinwohlorientierung im Disput, und macht sich fur die Kritikfahigkeit der Akteure stark.

Recognition gaps and economies of worth in police encounters

Abstract: This paper examines what arrested individuals expect from the police, and the moral grammars they rely on to evaluate police behavior. Drawing on interviews with recently arrested suspects in the Cleveland city jail, we analyze the moral grammars, or common worlds, that residents invoke to reflect on interactions with law enforcement. We find that respondents care about two different moral dimensions in policing. At one level, they want police to treat them with civility and politeness, and to respect their rights—thereby treating them equally with other residents in the city. Yet at a second level, they want police to show care and empathy for their local situation, and to recognize that policing the neighborhoods in which they live is different than policing other parts of the city. As a result, we find that residents who are arrested by the police deploy two orders of worth: a civic order, grounded in fairness, legal rules, equality, and civic belonging in the polity; and a domestic order, based on a politics of community and difference, emphasizing empathy, local knowledge, and personal experience. We demonstrate how individuals assess and test the moral promise of institutions to offer moral recognition, redress, and repair.

Albert O. Hirschman: Abwanderung und Widerspruch

Abstract: Albert O. Hirschman gehort zu den Wissenschaftlern, die sich auf erfrischende Weise nicht von disziplinaren Grenzen aufhalten lassen. Als studierter Okonom, Widerstandskampfer im faschistischen Europa und Praktiker der Entwicklungspolitik hat er in seiner spateren akademischen Laufbahn die disziplinaren Grenzen zwischen Okonomie, Politikwissenschaft und Soziologie beflissentlich ubertreten.

Justice in reality: overcoming moral relativism in Luc Boltanski’s pragmatic sociology of critique

Abstract: In recent years, the pragmatic sociology of critique developed by French sociologist Luc Boltanski in cooperation with such authors as Laurent Thevenot and Eve Chiapello has received increasing att...

A proposal for theoretical and empirical extension of the sociology of anti-doping

Abstract: The purpose of the paper is to highlight the interest of using diverse sociological approaches and models for studying anti-doping (developed outside the epistemic community of researchers working on doping) and to point out the sociological interest of the doping issue for social sciences. First, we will present a model developed by pragmatic sociologists for describing social issues in society that could assist researchers in describing the complex reality of the anti-doping issue. The model proposes to examine the ways in which axiology, devices and realities are articulated in anti-doping related criticism and the existing circulation between the six social logics described in it. Its use could allow researchers to apprehend local and global transformations in the system and the articulations between these two levels. Second, we will resume the most relevant results of a research that analysed the prevention activity using an approach of work sociologists. A part of this research sought to identify the meaning that people working in prevention gave to their activity. The received answers were manifold; five ways of “doing prevention” were identified, to which institutions were committed differently. The described panorama showed a dispute where the debate as such was not tabled and nobody seemed able to definitively close the dispute, not even the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA). Finally, an ongoing research will be presented. It focuses on the procedures-based management implemented by WADA and aims to compare its development with the implementation of similar management systems by other institutions. The research could allow us identifying possible related risks, for example, the loss of the pleasure of working, the emergence of fear or the increasing work pressure. We hope the paper will encourage other social researchers to renew the usual theoretical approaches.