Sociology of Transnational Guilds

Abstract

This article seeks to discuss the emergence of transnational groups coming from the core of state bureaucracies and what has sometimes been called the “deep” or “right hand” of the state. In doing so, the article aims to explore the groups’ degree of autonomy in terms of elaboration of politics and their place within the different fields of power that irrigate the international. Are these groups exchanging information transnationally or not? Do they form a group, an elite of professionals, a guild, which has its own agenda and priorities? Have they a sense of solidarity provided by the sharing of a certain kind of know-how that enters into tension with the loyalty to a national agenda? And, if this exchange of information exists, as evidenced by the Snowden leaks, does it concur or not with the establishment of specific national security priorities? This article seeks to discuss the emergence of transnational groups based on a form of solidarity related to their daily work, their “artisanal craft,” or their “specific knowledge,” which often transcends differences in terms of national cultures. It will help to understand the complexity of forms of boundary-making in what has been called a “fracturing” world; the fracturing world being, here, a world full of transversal lines, of complex dynamics, yet not a disaggregated nor a broken world (Basaran et al. 2016). Certainly, for some researchers, it may appear so from the moment the image of state unity in decision-making is shaken; they fear the consequences of their empirical investigations and try to preserve the myth of nation-states alongside a level of rationality called the international society of states. However, if one pursues a more sociological and anthropological approach, the central element is then to understand how actors’ logic of practices in their everyday lives creates solidarity at …