Luc Boltanski and Arnaud Esquerre, <i>The Making of Public Space: News, Events and Opinions in the Twenty-first Century</i> The Making of Public Space: News, Events and Opinions in the Twenty-first Century. BoltanskiLucEsquerreArnaud. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press (distributed by John Wiley &amp; Sons), 2024. 304 pp. $69.95 cloth; $26.95 paper; $22.00 e-book.

The article offers a critical analysis of contemporary management discourse, with particular emphasis on publications on job crafting, that is, the reshaping of work. Its aim is to situate the idea of job crafting within a broader cultural and political context and to demonstrate that it fits seamlessly into the ideology of the new management paradigm described by Luc Boltanski and Ève Chiapello in The New Spirit of Capitalism. Job crafting itself is examined primarily through the lens of the (in)effectiveness of this method in addressing burnout and the experience of meaningless work – phenomena that may be interpreted as symptoms of the gradual exhaustion of the new management paradigm, a fact already signalled by the very need to develop job-crafting theory. Following Boltanski and Chiapello, the methodology applied in the article is a discourse analysis of contemporary management, limited to selected publications on job crafting, especially those aimed at practitioners and individuals responsible for work organization in companies. The concepts, phenomena and processes discussed in the text are interpreted through frameworks drawn from contemporary social philosophy. They serve as a point of departure for an in-depth reflection on the status and condition of workers in contemporary capitalism, which – in line with post-operaismo thinkers – are framed primarily in terms of cognitive capitalism and immaterial labour.The author proposes a hypothesis that job crafting may serve as a tool for privatising and depoliticising problems of the world of work. A review of the history of management studies suggests that their primary goal has long been to produce organisational patterns that keep employees’ conduct aligned with the imperative of efficiency, even when management theories officially claim to “humanise” the work environment. A useful interpretive framework for this phenomenon is provided by the theory of the “civilising of objectification,” which presents the development of management studies as a continuous effort to integrate the humanities into the process of subordinating worker subjectivity to the paradigm of productivity and profit maximisation.

This article compares two conceptualizations of “ghosts” emerging from the counterculture of the late 1960s and early 1970s: one found in Luc Boltanski and Ève Chiapello’s The New Spirit of Capitalism, and the other in Mark Fisher’s Acid Communism, situated within the broader context of his work. Particular attention is devoted to how both interpretations are positioned in relation to the assumptions and discursive rules derived from Max Weber’s The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. Following in Weber’s footsteps, Boltanski and Chiapello trace the roots of contemporary work culture. Fisher, by contrast, searches for potential sources of a postcapitalist order grounded in the principle of freedom from work. These concepts attribute significant agency to the historical counterculture – not only in the symbolic realm, but also within political and economic spheres. However, authors take opposing stances on whether the transformation initiated by the counterculture has already taken place, or is still yet to come.

The aim of the article is to consider whether the changes associated with the climate catastrophe are leading to the discrediting of the “spirit of capitalism” and whether there is a contemporary need to introduce the “spirit of anti-capitalism.” The existence of capitalism has been justified since its inception – John Locke did so in the 17th century; Max Weber explained how Protestant ethics were used to this end; and at the turn of the 20th and 21st centuries, similar analyses of this phenomenon were conducted by Luc Boltanski and Ève Chiapello. The article analyses these concepts in the context of the economic theology presented by Giorgio Agamben. The works of Giorgio Agamben and Michel Foucault serve as inspiration for formulating the notions of the “spirit of anti-capitalism” and the corresponding “pro-climate asceticism” in the article.

“The spirit of capitalism” is a concept primarily associated with Max Weber’s famous work on Protestant ethic and the origins of capitalism. However, it was not Weber but Werner Sombart – his longtime friend and later rival – who first introduced the term into the discourse of the social sciences. In Sombart’s usage, the “spirit” has above all a psychological meaning: it denotes a set of dispositions that enable a person to succeed in an economic system oriented towards the systematic and unlimited accumulation of wealth. In this text, I attempt to trace the debate between Weber and Sombart concerning the “spirit of capitalism,” as well as the later vicissitudes of the concept and the ways it was employed by authors such as Daniel Bell, Richard Sennett, and, last but not least, Luc Boltanski and Ève Chiapello.

ABSTRACT This article examines how influencer marketing companies and their algorithmic tools define and measure ‘influence' in Latin America. Drawing on Luc Boltanski and Laurent Thévenot's ‘orders of worth' framework, and based on case studies and interviews with executives from three Chilean companies, the study analyses how these firms deploy digital quantification practices to identify, monitor, and manage influencers. The findings show that agencies seek to calculate influencers' value through opaque indicators, pricing structures, and monitoring systems that remain largely invisible to content creators. Despite the volatility, lack of regulation, and risks that characterise the industry, these companies promise brands greater certainty by offering algorithmic tools that select, control, and evaluate influencers. Far from acting as neutral intermediaries concerned only with brand safety, agencies actively shape influencer practices by setting expectations, defining performance metrics, and enforcing pricing standards-often to the detriment of creators. By tracing how agencies justify and operationalise metrics to assign value to influencer labour, the article highlights how processes of quantification reproduce asymmetrical relations of power. It argues that these dynamics undermine influencers’ agency whilst consolidating the dominance of platforms and intermediaries in the wider influencer economy.

ABSTRACT This article proposes to re-examine the utility of Mikhail Bakhtin’s concepts as contributions to pragmatic sociology/sociology of critique. This article demonstrates how Bakhtin’s thinking complements Luc Boltanski’s sociology of critique in sharing central ideas about the power-laden dynamics of language and the ability of ordinary actors to resist ideological domination. This article demonstrates that Bakhtin emphasised the capacity of dominated actors to challenge social order using strategies such as parody and ridicule, encapsulated in the image of a ‘laughing chorus’ of public crowds. The final section proposes several avenues through which Bakhtinian concepts could be synthesised with pragmatic sociology.

Abstract This paper analyses the potential neoliberal biases found in one of the most influential theories of consciousness in contemporary neuroscience, the Global Neuronal Workspace hypothesis (GNW). Philosopher Catherine Malabou argues that there is a mirroring between managerial discourse and that of contemporary neurobiology. Surprisingly, there is scant linguistic work on the ideological form of neurobiological discourse. In response, I empirically evaluate a specific aspect of Malabou’s claim by using Michael Halliday’s concept of grammatical metaphor to interrogate the particular form of subjectivity implied by the rhetorical and lexicogrammatical construction of the GNW as a concept. This analysis shows that a particular form of grammatical metaphor, dubbed “circumstantial grammatical metaphor” is key to the construction of the GNW and blurs the distinction between the model and the materiality it models. These grammatical metaphors also appear to be involved in the production of broader conceptual metaphors. The results indicate there is evidence for correlations with what Luc Boltanski and Eve Chiapello call “the new spirit of capitalism” helping naturalise a reduced form of subjectivity.

Abstract: The study examines two autofictional narratives — The Seventh Autobiography (2000) and The Eight, or Unfinished Autobiography (2007) by the Czech writer Ota Filip (1930–2018). The texts were written in reaction to a media scandal as well as some traumatic events in the author’s private life. The study attempts to understand the different ways in which the two texts were received, both in the Czech context and when compared to the reactions to the German version, Der siebente Lebenslauf (2001). The cognitive-hermeneutic theory of autobiography and autofiction by Liesbeth Korthals Altes is the basis of my analysis of textual and paratextual clues that allow reading the Autobiographies in different cognitive frames, or in the evaluation framework of “five worlds” as presented by Luc Boltanski and Laurent Thévenot. An intepretation of Filip’s works within the concept of the “Inspired World” is also related to the context of Czech autofiction literature (Ludvík Vaculík, Pavel Kohout, Bohumil Hrabal).

Abstract This paper presents a novel theoretical framework for understanding whistleblowing as a dynamic and recursive sequence of épreuves (tests), drawing on Luc Boltanski’s sociology of critique. Traditionally, whistleblowing research has focused on either the whistleblower’s experience or the organizational response, often treating these aspects in isolation. This study bridges these perspectives by conceptualizing whistleblowing as a co-constructed process in which the actions of whistleblowers and organizations shape and reshape each other. Central to this framework are three types of épreuves —ethical, responsive, and societal—which represent critical junctures in the whistleblowing journey. These tests determine the perceived legitimacy of the organization and their response and fuel the persistence of the whistleblower’s critique. By framing whistleblowing as a recursive process, this paper highlights how each interaction between whistleblower and organization can alter the course of events, leading to varying outcomes. The recursive model captures the complex, iterative nature of whistleblowing and offers insights into why some whistleblowing cases persist or escalate, while others are resolved or silenced. This perspective enriches our understanding of whistleblowing dynamics and provides practical implications for fostering more responsive organizational cultures and managing whistleblowing disclosures effectively.

Abstract Based on an analysis of the situation in France after the uprising of May 13, 1958, this article analyzes the theoretical and empirical class of ambiguous political events. During such events, the holders of political power, faced with an actor who has assumed a political role by transgressing the established order, must take a stance. Since contradictory meanings can be attributed to the challenger’s actions based on the categories of thought constituting that order, the power holders experience an ambiguity: they are unable to say “how things stand with what is,” to use Luc Boltanski’s expression. The challenge, then, is to elucidate both the process through which they can leave their cognitive uncertainty behind and the conditions that would make that possible. This approach sheds light on the transition from one political order to another.

Written in elevated language and drawing on philosophers from Arendt to Wittgenstein, Luc Boltanski and Arnaud Esquerre’s book The Making of Public Spaces sets out a theory of current affairs and politicisation. But does it add to our understanding of politics in the age of the internet? This article reviews the two French authors’ book. Luc Boltanski and Arnaud Esquerre. 2025. The Making of Public Space: News, Events and Opinions in the Twenty-First Century. Cambridge: Polity Press. 294 pages.

The debut volume of Anna Vörös is a unique and solitary voice in contemporary Hungarian literature referring to the representation of refugees. The author is actively practicing psychology and worked as a volunteer in hot zones of the migrant crisis, so she had the chance to learn about different aspects of the crisis from the inside. By collecting experiences, she built out a literary universe with an authentic voice. Her narrative can be defined as close to the triple structure of distant suffering theory by Luc Boltanski. The model of Boltanski features three categories of which the third is the “distantiated spectator”: who instead of playing the role of furious and delivering justice, rather interprets and experiences mediatized suffering in its historical context and process. The cycle of prose featuring the Syrian heroine in its metaphors and symbols avoids the traps of topoi and common places of storytelling based on “contentless pathos” and “colonizing, colonial and postcolonial point of view”. Anna Vörös in a revealing and documentarist tone approaches the arrival experience of masses coming to Europe – this experience may be described by sociological, cultural anthropological, and spatial theories while using various topics and situations. In her model motifs like the moment of spotting the sea or land, crossing them, and winning the battle over physical barriers, are melted into contemporary European refugee literature as well as tendencies in film, fine art, as well as media representations of the topic. The paper is an attempt to discover this question in its complexity.

School subject skills have been increasingly actualized in the past years, believed to make subjects more useable. In social studies didactics, there are problems understanding and operationalizing skills in research, curricula, and teaching. To get a better understanding on this topic, I use Luc Boltanski og Laurent Thévenot’s theory to look at how pupils’ skills are understood and valued. I analyse perspectives in the Nordic research literature, and identify three traditions: Citizenship Education, Bildung, and Literacy, and discuss ten facets. Although skills are sparsely discussed in the literature, I find a variety of skills related to opinions about what an ideal pupil must be able to do which are heterogeneous despite commonalities. While analysing theory, in practice one can imagine that students are presented with several ideal student dispositions and choose approaches that suit them. Different perspectives have limitations and problems that are important to consider, because choice of subject facilities has academic and political implications. The article contributes to a broader understanding of subject-specific skills.

Abstract: Against the backdrop of the current interest in the institutions of literature, the essay deploys Luc Boltanski's social theory of institutional confirmation and critique for a comparative analysis of two key writers in the emergent field of US literature around 1900: Wiliam Dean Howells and Willa Cather. Visiting Howells in the editor's study at Harper's New Monthly Magazine and Cather in the corporate office at McClure's Magazine , the essay traces how each publishing institution not only informs their criticism and correspondence but also seeps into their fiction. Framed by editorial columns and archival materials, Howells's story "The Critical Bookstore" (1913) as well as Cather's early short fiction and her debut novel Alexander's Bridge (1912) can be seen to engage what Boltanski calls the "semantic security" of institutions. Building on sociologically inflected readings of these texts, the essay considers Boltanski's claim that critique is an inherent effect of institutionalization.

Abstract This article explores the meaning of the task of teaching students to formulate critique in relation to the so-called ‘pedagogical paradox’, according to which the educational ideal of individual autonomy is contradicted by the practice of planning and control, which is particularly pronounced in the influential model of ‘constructive alignment’. Taking Kant’s idea of enlightenment and autonomy as a starting point, I introduce Luc Boltanski’s concept of reflexivity and link it to Jon Elster’s discussion of ‘states that are essentially by-products’. In doing so, I advance the view that genuine critique typically emerges from a shift in perspective, from the pragmatic realization of goals according to institutionalized practices to a metapragmatic reflection on those practices. Since teaching is itself an institutionalized practice, personal reflexivity can only be understood as a by-product of teaching, and, contra the logic of models like constructive alignment, it cannot be set as a direct objective. Emerging from the subject itself, rather than from the influence of an educational technique, personal reflexivity should be recognized as an important aspect of the subject’s transition from youth to maturity.

ABSTRACT In light of a growing body of literature on migration and border governance engaging with the legal and institutional production of heterogenous forms of non-knowledge, this article aims to contribute to this scholarship by attending to the role of secrecy through the case of Turkey. This paper turns the spotlight on the migration governance in Turkey by investigating the ways in which secrecy is perceived, contested, and reconfigured by civil society actors. The article argues that the extensive use of secrecy engenders perceptions that vacillate between two opposing imaginaries: the central migration authority as an incompetent entity and as a security agency with an aura of omnipotence. By drawing on and subverting Luc Boltanski’s notion of domination as a reality-stabilising function, we propose that the undecidable nature of the migration governance enables a form of domination hinging on the destabilisation of reality in the eyes of subjects that are paralysed, disarmed, and disabled to cope with the policies in practice.

Abstract In the last three decades of the twentieth century, theory became a “cognitive good” throughout the American academic humanities. The rise and uses of this new high-tech good fit the “new spirit of capitalism,” to quote Luc Boltanski and Eve Chiapello's 2018 book by the same name, a post-1960s “ideology that justifies engagement in capitalism.” A neoliberal ethos and disposition animated theory and possessed theorists, as well as spaces that circulated theory, such as the University of Minnesota's Theory and History of Literature book series, theory journals, and the University of California, Irvine's School of Criticism and Theory. Meanwhile, capitalism incorporated the nature, scope, and social effectiveness of critique by way of theory in American higher education; theorists worked in a university where neoliberal forces saturated and directed professional and intellectual protocols. The academic humanist Left's promotion of theory, for instance, facilitated the formation of the “university” as a theater for culture war conflicts, shifting attention inside and outside the academy away from underlying changes in capitalism.

We argue that the National Agency for the Evaluation of the University System (ANVUR), apart from not improving science, is also an epistemic detriment to the research system. Our aim is not to discuss and criticise its specific actions, rather to shed light on the culture and éthos in which it is rooted and from which its political legitimacy comes from. Our contribution is not intended to be a technical expertise that advances remarks on how ANVUR manages evaluation practices, but a radical critique (in the sense that it aims to get to the root of the matter) of the purposes and very ratio essendi of the governmental philosophy that underlies its institutional mandate. To engage in a discussion of procedures means to depoliticise critique within a technical framework whose rules of engagement and stakes are defined within that “managerial domination” – to borrow a phrase from Luc Boltanski (2009) – which, in our view, is precisely the main problem requiring attention.

ABSTRACT China has become a main host country for international students, but its international programmes for higher education still need improvement. This study aimed to examine the academic challenges that international postgraduates in China face based on Luc Boltanski’s idea of ordinary critique. A qualitative research approach was adopted, and data were collected from 18 international students in two universities in China through semi structured interviews. The ordinary critique of academic difficulties by international postgraduates suggests that Westernized learning content is not sufficiently present in curricula, teachers do not have strong academic recognition from Western journals, the value of diplomas is questioned, and English is not regarded in local institutions as a mark of internationalization.Thus, they equate higher education internationalization with Westernization. These findings are analysed in light of common standards for the internationalization of higher education and offer possible implications for higher education internationalization in the future.