ArgumentThe article takes as its starting point the relationship of academic economists and the wider society. First, various bodies of literature that deal empirically with this matter are discussed: epistemologically, they range from a bold structuralism via a form of symbolic interactionism to a form of radical constructivism. A Bourdieusian approach is recommended to complement these perspectives with a comprehensive perspective that is sensible to the cultural differences between social groups. Starting from the established notions of field, capital and habitus, (...) the article then attempts to go the initial steps towards formulating a theory of the specificity of academic economics, taking Germany as its example. For that it uses and compares in-depth interviews of recognized and non-recognized German economics students. It shows the thorough interweaving of specific normative and positive dispositions into a conviction of objectivity and disinterestedness. This exploratory empirical induction furthers follow-up questions, the empirical answering of which may help to gain a more complete understanding of the actions and thoughts of economists in their specific contexts. (shrink)

ABSTRACTOscar Larsson’s essay condemns discursive institutionalism for the “sin” of subjectivism. In reality, however, discursive institutionalism emphasizes the intersubjective nature of ideas through its theorization of agents’ “background ideational abilities” and “foreground discursive abilities.” It also avoids relativism by means of Wittgenstein’s distinction between experiences of everyday life and pictures of the world. Contrary to Larsson, what truly separates post-structuralism from discursive institutionalism is the respective approaches’ theorization of the relationship of power to ideas, with discursive institutionalists mainly focused on (...) persuasive power through ideas, while post-structuralists focus on the structural power in ideas or on coercive power over ideas. (shrink)

The American conservative movement is a force of anti-reflexivity insofar as it attacks two key elements of reflexive modernization: the environmental movement and environmental impact science. Learning from its mistakes in overtly attacking environmental regulations in the early 1980s, this counter-movement has subsequently exercised a more subtle form of power characterized by non-decision-making. We examine the conservative movement’s efforts to undermine climate science and policy in the USA over the last two decades by using this second dimension of power. The (...) conservative movement has employed four non-decision-making techniques to challenge the legitimacy of climate science and prevent progress in policy-making. We argue that reflexive modernization scholars should focus more attention on similar forces of anti-reflexivity that continue to shape the overall direction of our social, political and economic order, and the life chances of many citizens. Indeed, better understanding of the forces and effectiveness of anti-reflexivity may very well be crucial for societal resilience and adaptation, especially in the face of global environmental problems like climate change. (shrink)

Politics, Philosophy & Economics, Volume 21, Issue 3, Page 313-344, August 2022. This paper discusses why and how public attitudes should matter in regulating asylum and refugee protection in rich democracies, with a focus on Europe. Taking a realistic approach, I argue that public views constitute a soft feasibility constraint on effective and sustainable policies towards asylum seekers and refugees, and that a failure to take seriously and understand the attitudes of the host country’s population can have a very damaging (...) effect on refugee protection and migrants’ rights in practice. Bringing together insights from political philosophy, the politics of asylum, and research on public attitudes, I develop my argument by discussing why ‘what the people think’ should matter in asylum and refugee polices; how public views can and should matter given the well-known challenges with measuring attitudes and policy preferences; and what the prevailing public views might mean for the reform of asylum and refugee policies in Europe. (shrink)

This paper explores legislative provision and pre-school education policy in England over the course of the twentieth century. The paper argues that there has been a significant ideational shift over this period, from a policy focus on nursery education for poor children to universal early childhood education. Not only have ideas changed but provision and funding have changed. Although there have been major revisions to legislative provision, there are elements of continuity as regards the institutions delivering early childhood education, particularly (...) maintained nursery schools and nursery classes, but with layering of private-for-profit and not-for-profit institutions to ‘fill the gap’ in provision. At the same time, the central state has taken increasing control of publicly funded early childhood education through legislative provision. (shrink)

Scholars have argued that transnational networks of right-wing economists and activists caused the worldwide embrace of neoliberalism. Using the case of an Italian think tank, CESES, associated with these networks, the author shows that the origins of neoliberalism were not in hegemony but in liminality. At CESES, the Italian and American right sought to convert Italians to free market values by showing them how Soviet socialism worked. However, CESES was created in liminal spaces that opened up within and between Soviet (...) socialism and Western capitalism after the death of Joseph Stalin in 1953. Scholars from East and West at CESES developed new knowledge about actually existing socialism, which, due to the shifting context of the Cold War, seemed to provoke left-wing sympathies among the scholars and the students involved. CESES in fact required left-wing scholars, who had necessary skills and a fascination with a common project of democratic or market socialism, to create this new knowledge. The new knowledge that developed out of an East–West dialogue not only helped right-wing transnational networks to reorient their hegemonic projects, but also helped those on the left to understand actually existing socialism and what socialism might become. This knowledge could not be obtained without this dialogue and had to travel through liminal spaces. (shrink)

Organizational ethics and institutional theories are extended by recovering Weberian and Pre-Weberian theorizing that emphasized the joining of ethics and institutional theories. Understanding how ethics and institutional systems influence each other can advance our understanding of the nature and causes of structural organizational ethics issues and help guide potential reforms. We consider the interplay of these elements during the recession of 2008–2009, highlighting how structural ethics problems may have to be addressed at the institutional levels and not solely the individual (...) or organizational levels. (shrink)

The present article asks what lessons the empirical case of institutional change in post-Soviet Russia yields for the recent research on ideas and institutions. Its main point is that in post-Soviet Russia a clash between imported foreground ideas and deep domestic background ideas led to an ideational division among the elite of the country that became a main obstacle to the provision of coherent economic reforms. This story stands in some contrast to much of the newer literature on ideas and (...) institutions, which tends to see critical junctures as leading from one equilibrium to another. I argue that tensions between imported foreground ideas and deep domestic backgrounds are likely to occur in other cases of far-reaching processes of institutional change based on Western ideas but taking place beyond the realm of Western, industrialized countries. Therefore, I argue, some general lessons on the interplay between ideas and institutions might be drawn from this case study. (shrink)

Between 1909 and 1941, the Russell Sage Foundation (RSF) was actively involved in crafting and lobbying for policy solutions to the pervasive problem of predatory lending. Using a rich assortment of archival records, I build upon political learning theory by demonstrating how institutional conditions and political pressures – in addition to new knowledge gained through scientific study and practical experience – all contributed to the emergence and development of RSF experts’ policy ideas over the course of this 30-year period. In (...) light of these findings, I suggest that policy ideas and political interests are mutually constitutive, and that the notion that ideas must be shown to operate independent of interests in order to “prove” that they matter in policymaking is misguided. Furthermore, I discuss the implications of the remarkable success of RSF’s policy proposals for current understandings of institutional change. In particular, I argue that the passage of RSF’s controversial Uniform Small Loan Law in 34 states suggests that political actors’ collective agency can produce significant policy reforms in a context of normal policymaking without the intervention of major destabilizing events. (shrink)

Innovative theories and policy proposals originating in the economics profession have diffused globally over the past several decades, but these models and policy programs transform as they spread. Existing models of change based on the concept of “paradigm shifts” capture the transformation of the economics profession at a high level of abstraction, but analysis of more concrete policy changes and associated ideas requires developing theory at a lower level of abstraction. I propose a field theoretic model of change based on (...) the concept of cycles of polarization and settlement. According to this model, settlements are characterized by multiple cross-cutting axes of competition and debate in a professional field. Moments of contention emerge when field entrepreneurs successfully build professional movements, resulting in polarization. However, contention is episodic and followed by the emergence of “centripetal forces” which lead a gradual return to the center. I develop this model by examining the case of monetary economics and policy in Latin America, a critical case for studies of the policy influence of economic ideas and experts. (shrink)

In this multiple-case study, I analyze the perceived importance of seven categories of institutional entrepreneurs (DiMaggio, Institutional patterns and organizations, Ballinger, Cambridge, MA, 1988 ) for the corporate social responsibility discourse of three multinational companies. With this study, I aim to significantly advance the empirical analysis of the CSR discourse for a better understanding of facts and fiction in the process of institutionalization of CSR in MNCs. I conducted 42 semi-structured face-to-face and phone interviews in two rounds with 30 corporate (...) managers from three multinational companies. The data has been analyzed using qualitative (multiple coding) and quantitative (ANOVA, χ 2 analysis) techniques. The findings indicate that one company is driven by civil society’s influence on consumer’s perception, the second company by direct attacks by civil society, agenda setting organizations and legislators, and the third by the pressure of large customers and legislators. The results suggest that the coping behaviors of MNCs at both extremes of the spectrum of perceived responsible behavior aim at (1) improving the business case for CSR and (2) increasing legitimacy in society, resulting in converging CSR perceptions, and fostering an institutionalization of CSR. (shrink)

The priorities of French policy regarding genetically modified (GM) food shifted in the late 1990s from aggressive promotion to strict regulation based on precaution and separation of GM food. This paradigmatic policy change coincided with a rapid shift in the dominant meanings of GM food in larger French public discourses. Using data from media coverage, organizational documents, and in-depth interviews, the study examines the relationship between policy developments and GM food’s symbolic transformation. I argue that the interpretive dimension interacted with (...) and co-evolved incrementally with formal policy developments, and that it cannot be understood as epiphenomenal to political processes, or as preceding and propelling a policy change. I identify three mechanisms of symbolic transformation: (1) multiplication of meanings; (2) association with other salient issues; and (3) coupling with national identity (boundary work). Conversely, this symbolic transformation influenced the terms of political debates and viable strategies, influencing policy developments. The study also demonstrates how certain longstanding elements of French political culture shaped, and were changed or reproduced through, these processes. (shrink)

This article examines regulation’s understanding of technology in American financial markets as means for rethinking the contours and institutional limits of governance in the age of financialization. The article identifies how the Securities and Exchange Commission perceived markets and their conceptual relation to technology throughout much of the long twentieth century by distilling the “ontologies” expressed by the agency’s leadership. Despite the fact that SEC’s commissioners recognized technologies as playing a central role in the market’s current and future operations, these (...) were never effectively brought under regulatory scrutiny even when such action fell under the commission's jurisdictional remit. Rather than regulating technologies as constitutive of markets, the governance of the material devices of finance was discursively kept at arm's-length by presenting them as intractable objects that were external to financial innovation. Triangulating across several techniques of computational text analysis, this article shows how this interpretation of technology mirrored distinct shifts in how regulators understood markets, from being physical trading sites populated by agents that required vetting and certification to a distributed, multi-sited system surveilled through transparency and disclosure. Throughout these ontological transitions, technology’s inscrutability remained, limiting the capacity of the state and its regulatory agencies to shape the evolution of finance and its underlying infrastructures. (shrink)