Luc Boltanski Research Articles

The Didactic Component of the PR-support of the 1961 Monetary Reform in the USSR

The article examines the didactic component of the propaganda campaign that accompanied the 1961 monetary reform in the USSR. In this campaign, the main communication channel was film and book products aimed at a children’s audience, the use of which was supposed to be in the educational process. The complex structure and strategic nature of the PR campaign were caused by the fact that simultaneously with the denomination of money in the USSR, there was a restructuring of the economy and socio-cultural relations. A system based on increased resource exploitation and de-industrialization emerged. Later, modern researchers Luc Boltanski and Arno Esker will designate a similar type of economy as “the economy of enrichment”.

Creativity vs Commercialization: Russian Engineers, Their Inspiration and Innovation Process

Many Russians believe that local engineers are very creative. Historically, however, the numerous inventions created by Russian innovators have rarely ended up as commercialized products. Are Russian engineers indeed creative in comparison to their foreign colleagues? What motivations are associated with this creativity? Is such a shared conception of creativity a barrier to the nation’s development of innovations? I propose to answer these questions using interviews with Russian technopreneurs. For comparison with the Russian case, I will use another set of interviews with technopreneurs collected in three countries—South Korea, Taiwan and Finland—each of which can be characterized by different cultural contexts and level of technological development. I summarize the main findings of a collective research project, which employs Luc Boltanski and Laurent Thévenot’s idea of ‘economies of worth.’ The study demonstrates that the basic mixes of ‘orders of worth’ are varied across the selected countries. In Russia, this mix includes the industrial, the inspired and the market orders; in Taiwan, the market, the industrial and the domestic; in South Korea, the industrial, the domestic and the market; and in Finland, the project-base, the industrial and the market. Focusing on detailed analysis of the worlds of justification among Russian technopreneurs, the article argues that, contrary to the Finnish, South Korean, and Taiwanese cases, creativity and inspiration, together with values of producing technologies for their own sake, are prevailing motivations for Russian engineers. That can explain obstacles in the way of successful commercialization and technological development in the country.

Managing dissonance: Bureaucratic justice and public procurement

AbstractThis article puts forward an analytical framework for understanding administrative justice. It does so by reading a leading approach, Jerry Mashaw's administrative justice models, in conjunction with the pragmatic sociology of Luc Boltanski and Laurent Thévenot, and their orders of worth framework. This provides an enhanced framework, which, while remaining consistent with Mashaw, offers additional insights and is particularly suitable for analyzing decisionmaking environments in the modern contracting state. The article illustrates the workings of the new framework by looking at a controversy under UK and EU law concerning the inclusion of labor objectives in public procurement. The discussion reveals a decisionmaking environment characterized by system dissonance. Actors must navigate different sets of tensions and tradeoffs between competing normative and ethical visions for procurement decisionmaking.

An outline of a pragmatist theory on reflexivity: exploring the pathways of the concept through social theory

Abstract In this article, we propose an understanding of reflexivity based on the effects of degrees of indeterminacy in the most diverse situations and contexts. We conducted an analysis based on a pragmatist sensibility to outline a model of reflexivity, examining how the concept has been thought in social theory. We explore the epistemological reflexivity (Pierre Bourdieu); the tradition that associates reflexivity and personal forms of internal deliberation (Margaret Archer); approaches connecting reflexivity with devices allowing an objective apprehension of the world (Bernard Lahire); and perspectives in which reflexive action is linked to indeterminacy (John Dewey; Luc Boltanski and Laurent Thévenot). We combine routine, experiences of destabilization, catastrophe, and different high levels of reflexivity, seeking to open social theory to new research agendas on reflexive action.

Mysteries, Conspiracies, and Inquiries: Reflections on the Power of Superstition, Suspicion, and Scrutiny

The main purpose of this paper is to provide a critical analysis of Luc Boltanski’s account of the multifaceted relationship between mysteries, conspiracies, and inquiries in modern societies. It is striking that, although this important aspect of Boltanski’s oeuvre has been commented on by several scholars, his principal contributions to this area of investigation have been largely overlooked and received hardly any serious attention by researchers in the humanities and social sciences. This paper is an attempt to fill this noticeable gap in the literature. Thus, rather than covering the entire breadth and depth of Boltanski’s writings, the paper will focus on the valuable insights his work offers into the relationship between mysteries, conspiracies, and inquiries. To this end, the analysis is divided into two parts. The first part comprises an overview of Boltanski’s central theoretical contributions to our understanding of mysteries, conspiracies, and inquiries. The second part offers some critical reflections on important issues arising from Boltanski’s examination of the relationship between mysteries, conspiracies, and inquiries – especially with regard to its limitations and shortcomings.

Boltanski, L. (2019). Mysteries and conspiracies. Translated by A. Zakharevich. St. Petersburg: Izdatelstvo Evropeyskogo universiteta. (In Russ.)

The review deals with Luc Boltanski's Mysteries and Conspiracies [Enigmes et complots]. The following is noted as defects of the reviewed book: detective fiction is associated with anxieties that question the framework of modern reality. Such attribution, it is argued, results from inaccurate comparison of detective fiction to a spy novel. The reviewer identifies contradictions in the definition of detective fiction: on the one hand, it is characterised by the proverbial anxiety. On the other, the writer suggests that unravelling a mystery normalises the ‘integrity of predictable expectations.' In addition, Boltanski confuses detective fiction with police procedural novels as well as the concepts of genre and theme with regard to spy novels (as a result, he dwells on ‘the genre of the spy novel,' even though spy novels are written in a number of genres). The review particularly criticises Boltanski's assessment of A. Conan Doyle's prose.

Ubogacanie: socjologia pragmatyczna o źródłach wartości towarów w kapitalizmie

Niniejszy esej recenzyjny poświęcony książce Luca Boltanskiego i Arnauda Esquerre’a Enrichment opisuje nowatorstwo pragmatycznego strukturalizmu, zwracając uwagę na współistnienie różnych sposobów utowarowienia przedmiotów. Zaproponowana przez francuskich socjologów rama teoretyczno- metodologiczna otwiera nowe możliwości do analizowania kondycji współczesnego kapitalizmu – jak twierdzą Boltanski i Esquerre współcześnie zysk jest często osiągany w procesie „ubogacania” przedmiotów. W eseju powyższe ustalenia zostały umieszczone w szerszym kontekście rozwoju programu socjologii pragmatycznej, wskazano na ich oryginalność i znaczenie dla socjologii w ogóle oraz ich potencjalne słabości i ograniczenia.

Crítica de la crítica a la sociología crítica a partir de Luc Boltanski

espanolEl articulo se inscribe en una discusion acerca del modo en que la sociologia problematiza a la cultura, especificamente, se interroga por el modus operandi para un abordaje critico de la misma. Para ello, se enfoca en la propuesta elaborada por Luc Boltanski, en tanto el hace del cuestionamiento a la “sociologia critica” una instancia central de su estudio de la cultura, sin por ello abandonar la pretension critica. Con vistas a analizar estas cuestiones, se dedica la primera seccion a la caracterizacion de la sociologia pragmatica de la critica de Boltanski. La segunda seccion sostiene que el propone un potente modus operandi para la descripcion sociologica de la normatividad de los actores, pero que no resuelve los problemas que posibilitarian el abordaje critico de dicha normatividad. Punto que se profundiza a partir de la discusion de su investigacion sobre el “espiritu del capitalismo”. Finalmente, las conclusiones plantean un sendero por el cual avanzar hacia esa sociologia critica, con eje en la reproblematizacion de las nociones de ideologia y utopia. EnglishThe article is inserted in a discussion about the way in which sociology problematizes culture, specifically, the paper analyses the modus operandi for a critical approach to the culture. For this, it focuses on the Luc Boltanski’s proposal, because he makes the discussion on the “critical sociology” a central instance of his cultural study without abandoning the critical claim. With the goal of analysing these questions, the first section is dedicated to characterizing Boltanski's pragmatic sociology of critique. The second section argues that he proposes a powerful modus operandi for the sociological description of the actors’ normativity, but that it does not solve the problems that would allow the critical research of that normativity. Topic that is developed through the discussion of his research on the “spirit of capitalism”. Finally, the conclusions propose a path through which to advance towards this critical sociology, centred on the notions of ideology and utopia

CAPITALISMO FLEXÍVEL COMO PROPULSOR DA IDEOLOGIA GERENCIALISTA: UM DIÁLOGO COM LUC BOLTANSKI, ÈVE CHIAPELLO, VINCENT DE GAULEJAC E RICHARD SENNETT

Contemporary society is forged in the diffusion of managerial ideology and in the dissemination of business precepts as a way of organizing life and work. This way, the assumptions of managerialism are interwoven in the social fabric as inherent to living itself. Based on the concepts of Luc Boltanski, Eve Chiapello, Vincent de Gaulejac, and Richard Sennett, this essay aims to unveil how the justifications for the engagement in the current economic system gave rise to an ideological apparatus that naturalizes the adoption and reproduction of managerial discourse. It also addresses how the foundations of the contemporary model of capitalism gave rise to another pattern of Western society and notion of individuality. With the profusion of managerial discourse, there occurs a process of entrepreneurship of the human experience itself, which becomes individualized, meritocratic, and productivist.

Monetizing Amateurs. Artistic Critique, New Online Record Production and Neoliberal Conjuncture

This article examines the “new amateur music economy” as an emerging academic discourse. This represents amateur musicians and producers—with access to new digital production and communication tools—as entrepreneurial, aspiring professionals. The article then connects the discourse with its political, economic, and social context—or the neoliberal conjuncture. From the critical standpoint of conjunctural analysis it takes note of the albeit uneven nature of this neoliberalisation when it comes to the case of “independent micro-labels” in Finland who are seen to be maintaining the artistic critique of capitalism, as outlined by Luc Boltanski and Eve Chiapello. While the latter suggest that this critique has been, for all intents and purposes, assimilated into capitalism; the case of Finnish micro-labels would seem to repudiate the prevailing neoliberal notions of utilitarian music-making in the new amateur music economy discourse. This being said, the article does consider that it might be necessary for them to revise aspects of their critique if they want it to remain relevant in the new digital communication environment.

The Guggenheim Museum Helsinki Plan as a Media Debate

In connection with today’s competition between cities to portray an alluring image of economic and cultural success, the City of Helsinki and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation put forward a plan to establish a Guggenheim museum in Helsinki, Finland. Following the plan’s release, a heated public debate emerged in the media. The present article analyzes this debate as a mediatized conflict and aims to show in what ways the debate on the Guggenheim report affected the decision-making process concerning the Helsinki Guggenheim museum. This debate is analyzed within the framework of current discussions on the culture-led development of cities, by applying a methodological tool inspired by Luc Boltanski’s and Laurent Thévenot’s theory of critical judgement to analyze the various justifications that the different actors used during the debate. Further, the article interprets why the museum plan was rejected in the first deliberation. It was found that the distance between different actors grew so wide that it could not be reconciled, especially with the effect of social media. Because the City did not encourage a discussion and communication with the art world was neglected at first, during the debate it proved impossible to convince the art world of the benefits a Guggenheim might bring to other art institutions or artists. Guggenheim Helsinki was planned for a small capital in northern Europe, and yet it is linked to current European politics affected by nationalistic ideology and the question of preserving local cultures in the face of a globally shared culture. The article ends with a discussion on what can be learned from the failure of the Guggenheim Helsinki.

Multiplicity, hybridity and normativity: disputes about the UN convention against corruption in Germany

In 2014, Germany became the 173rd state to ratify the UN Convention against Corruption (UNCAC) – after more than ten years of disputes in the German parliament. To make sense of the protracted debates about ratifying UNCAC, the article follows the recent introduction of Luc Boltanski’s pragmatic sociology to International Relations (IR). I argue that this approach opens new avenues for researching normativity in hybrid arrangements of multiple, overlapping orders of worth and through ongoing tests of the right evaluation of a situation. I show that the belayed ratification of UNCAC in Germany was the result of the hybridity inherent to norms against corruption. In the debates, members of the German parliament relied on competing normative inventories to translate the term ‘public official’ to the German context and to settle the meaning of corruption. This article contributes to IR norm research by unpacking normative multiplicity and contradictions that undergird international norms and disputes about them.

The critique and its critical moments: The recent pragmatic turn in French sociology

The aim of this article is to present the pragmatic turn in French sociology as outlined in Luc Boltanski and Laurent Thévenot’s book, On Justification. First, the article gives a general introduction to the main focal points of the French sociological field in the 1980s. Then, it presents De la justification, regarded as a landmark in the pragmatic turn of French sociology. Next, the article presents two of its key concepts: cité and proof. Finally, through an overview of the strengths and weaknesses of the model, the article questions some of its limits and challenges, such as integrating pragmatic intuition with issues such as the sociologist’s critical engagement, and the analysis of long-term processes, problems and dispositions.

The complexity of educational elitism: moving beyond misrecognition

Critical, and in particular Bourdieusian, sociology of education is often suspicious about educators when they describe their ideal students. It tends to see these descriptions as euphemisations, so that apparently intellectual assessments are really elitist evaluations about students’ class positions. However, this way of thinking about educators can lead to reductive accounts in which actors are completely blind to the real meaning of their beliefs, which must be unveiled by sociologists. In this article I utilise Luc Boltanski’s pragmatic sociology to offer an alternative model of educators’ accounts, in which there is no real meaning to be unveiled, but rather a complex mix of meanings held in educators’ minds at once. Analysing interview data with those teaching on new liberal arts degrees in English universities, I demonstrate what can be gained by staying with the complexity of participants’ own accounts, rather than mining them for one fundamental truth.

Équilibres et médiations dans la commandite de productions artistiques : intermédiation formelle ou informelle

Background This research aims to study partnerships between commercial brands and the cultural field. More specifically, it focuses on the process of agreement between marketing representatives and artists in the implementation of partnerships through sponsorship and branded content. Inspired mainly by the work done on cities by Luc Boltanski and Laurent Thévenot in On Justification: Economies of Worth, certain research questions can be identified: how do artists and communication or marketing professionals agree to create partnerships? How do these two worlds communicate and what arguments do they have to justify their association? Analysis The selected methodology proposes a survey based on comprehensive interviews in the context of two Quebec case studies: the sponsorship of an interactive work produced as part of a Montreal cultural festival and the production of a television program with branded content. Conclusions and implications The analysis reveals tensions existing between each partner that nevertheless are subject to different types of mediation between companies and artists which we propose to qualify as formal and informal mediation.

Translation Jousts and Translation Genres

The Quais du polar book festival in Lyon is more than a site of commerce. Instead, the category of the polar, which brings together the mystery and roman noir, reveals the potential to destabilize literary hierarchies, foreground translation, and transform the role of place in a globalized genre. Using the insights of Lawrence Venuti, Benoît Tadié and Luc Boltanski, this essay examines how, within the polar category and in the context of the festival, foreignizing translations may upend linguistic and cultural hierarchies and transform genre categories. The communal and local experience of festivals events, its rewriting of southern American authors, and its reframing of the role of readers and translators all reveal the transformative potential of the polar and its cultural reception.

Die Spur des Stoffs. Ermittlungsrausch in Friedrich Glausers Die Fieberkurve

Abstract This article traces some of the fundamental poetological changes that the traditional crime novel undergoes in the work of the Swiss author Friedrich Glauser at the beginning of the 20th century. The rational-analytical, conservative approach of the criminal novel in the 19th century implied – according to Luc Boltanski – the separation of an epistemologically structured, institutionalized order of “reality” and a chaotic, unruly, unformatted “world” – a separation that is questioned, but reestablished in the dramaturgy of crime and its resolution. By shifting the attention from the logical structure of ‘whodunnit’ to the sensual material culture and “atmosphere” that surrounds actions and people, Glauser’s novels blur these epistemological and ontological boundaries. The article shows how in Die Fieberkurve, the second novel of Glauser’s famous Wachtmeister Studer-series, material and sensual substances develop a specific, powerful dynamic that dissipates, complicates, crosslinks, and confuses the objects and acts of investigation as well as its narration. The material spoors, dust, fibers, fingerprints, intoxicants and natural resources like oil and gas – which lead the investigation from Switzerland to North Africa – trigger a new sensual mode of perception and reception that replaces the reassuring criminological ideal of solution by the logic of “dissolution”. The novel thereby demonstrates the poetic impact of the slogan of modernity: matter matters.

Shifting Capitalist Critiques: The Discourse about Unionisation in the Hi-Tech Sector

Drawing on Luc Boltanski's work on capitalist transformations we argue that recent hi-tech unionising features a new model of critique which combines tenets from both the social and the artistic critique. Hi-tech workers – cultured in the ethos and achievements of the artistic critique that protests the inhibition of creativity, and the lack of personal expression and authenticity prevalent in capitalism – seek to resurrect the social critique that protests the inequality, poverty, and egoism that capitalism entails. This creates an interesting dynamic of protest discourse since the social critique partly stands in contradiction to the artistic critique: responding to one entails ignoring the other. The analysis of interviews with leaders of unionisation efforts in global hi-tech firms elucidates the tension between the two clusters of critique and the attempts to overcome it. It also allows us to engage theoretically with Boltanski by highlighting the particular characteristics of the agents voicing the critique.

The Socio-analytical Approach

The debate on precarization in Germany is, on the one hand, based on the French discussion, it is, on the other hand, oriented toward German models of discourse, which leads to different focuses and objectives. Even if in German contexts the poverty situation and unqualified workers are the main topics of discussion, the French debate on precarization with or following Pierre Bourdieu, Robert Castel, and Luc Boltanski and Eve Chiapello focuses on precarization as a restructuring of labor relations. In this respect, a change of vectors is taking place here, which sets different priorities. Differences in the classifications result from the different “theoretical localizations,” which are investigated based on the German-French understanding of sociology and are concretized in relation to the problem of precarization.

Testy rzeczywistości. Narracje o zbrodniach w powieściach Jane Austen

The aim of the article is the consideration of the way in which Jane Austen asks in her novels about the status of reality. The subject of the interest are the narrations about “crime” understood as the events breaching the normal social experience and revealing how fragile the reality is. The significant context of the consideration is the classical detective literature. The author proves that the work of Jane Austen can be characterized by the similar reflection on societies in which the project of social reality is entangled. Referring to the conception of Luc Boltanski, she shows that, in the novels of the British writer, crime is a form of “reality testing”. Austen casts in doubt the frames of reality and reveals the conventional dimension of the social life. Her purpose, however, is not to disclose the social world – she sees the possibility of its integration.