Mobilizing moral boundaries: the politics of derivatives reform in the US

This paper explains the reform of derivatives markets in the US by stressing the influence of moral distinctions on financial market regulation. The results show that business and consumer groups outside finance activate boundaries between legitimate risk management and illegitimate speculative practices. This categorical distinction delegitimised certain practices within the financial industry and affected both the relative power of interest groups and the political agenda. First, the mobilisation of moral boundaries strengthened the position of legitimate groups and weakened that of the financial industry in negotiations. This forced the latter to alter its lobbying strategies. Second, by highlighting inappropriate speculative practices, groups outside the financial sector changed policy-makers’ perception of problems. Policy-makers adopted a position which is congruent with broader moral understandings. The study is based on data from Congressional hearings, interviews, media articles, letters and interest group publications. The process tracing analysis advances our understanding of the social mechanisms linking moral perceptions and institutional change in financial markets.     

The Infusion of Relational Market Obligations into the Austrian Agenda—Some Lessons Learned from Economic Sociology

Given its dictum of market equilibrium, economics in general obviously does poorly in shouldering market dynamics. Pervading obligatory traits of the market (other than mere dyadic contracting) is yet another area where not much attention is devoted. Whereas the Austrian agenda fills the first of these voids in a most sophisticated manner, its current discourse appears as oblivious concerning the manner in which market exchange transforms into relational interconnected obligations. That is to say, exchange is hardly understood as an indispensable facet of durable market obligations such as relationships 'constituting the market', but exclusively as immediate entrepreneurial arbitrage. Apart from an outright peculiar failure to recognize some of its own roots in this regard this omission unnecessarily delimits the manner in which Austrians can proceed and deepen their market analysis. The principal idea of this paper is to scrutinize the manner in which relational market obligations can be introduced into Austrian reasoning by drawing on ideas from within economic sociology. Max Weber's dictum on market openness takes on a particular role in this regard. An adjacent contribution strived for is to let this scrutiny foreshadow the manner in which such a partial reconciliation of market ideas from within economic sociology and Austrian economics could proceed.     

法社会学视野中的民间法

在国家法日益渗透于社会生活方方面面的同时,仍然有大量的“善意违法”“合理的法律规避”“擦边球”等现象存在,究其原因在于国家法本身的局限性与社会生活实际的背离,而在社会生活中起着调整作用的民间法却被长期忽视甚至破坏,论文以法社会学的视角对此现象作以论述。     

The sociologist as social architect: A new task for macro-sociology?

The theme of voluntarism and determinism is revisited, here in the context of forecasting for futurists. Although fraught with danger the use of scenarios is vital in a world of rapid change, in which people are more than ever aware of the choices open to them and the ways they are able to determine their own future. The author proposes that a merger between the approaches of the sociologist and the futurist could aid our understanding of social futures. The outcome is a ‘design sociology’ based on six key concepts.     

The Federal Budget and Social Reconstruction

Automakers are facing a growing process of financialization that can be characterized by the preference to value capital through financial activities as more profitable than by productive activities. The aim of this article is to study the financialization of the automotive industry by analyzing the five largest automakers in the world: Toyota, Volkswagen, Hyundai, General Motors (GM) and Ford. The profitability of financial activities was compared to that of productive activities; shareholder structure; share acquisitions; origin of top managers; compensation to executives; employee salaries; dividend payments to shareholders and employment. The results showed that increasingly more financial activities are fundamental to businesses dominated by major shareholders. Dividend payments have shown compliance to shareholder value maximization principles. Compensation to executives has shown that there is a layer of highly paid top managers, while in the workforce, salaries are below the average of the countries in which the automakers operate. The proportion of times that a CEO’s earnings outweigh the average earnings of less skilled workers is hundreds of times. Employment has been changing, with significant increases in China, for instance. This article aims to improve the knowledge of this important sector of world industry and contribute to development of economic sociology.     

Triathlon,suffering and exciting significance

In this article, I examine how triathletes learn to physically manage, socially perform and individually reflect upon the endurance sport of triathlon as a microcosm of the ‘civilising process’. Elias’s particular conceptualisation of habitus is centrally utilised to explain why, at this particular point in civilising processes, more men and women in factions of the Canadian middle class quest for ‘exciting significance’ through gruelling endurance sports like triathlon (swim‐bike‐run competitions). Pain and suffering narratives gathered from 62 participants in Canadian triathlon are analysed alongside ethnographic data collected over a three‐year period in Ontario, Canada. Specifically addressed is how triathletes come together as a mutually recognised ‘pain community’ of like‐minded actors, and how they learn to relish physical and mental suffering in the sport.     

The Rejection of Qualitative Research Methods in Economics

Abstract:

The article analyzes the status quo of qualitative methods in economics. While a majority of economists consider knowledge of empirical research methods to be of considerable importance, it must be noted that qualitative research methods are scarcely implemented in economic publications. Given all the advantages of qualitative research methods, the reasons and processes responsible for the rejection of qualitative research methods in economics must be empirically identified and further discussed. To gain insights into the perception and application of qualitative research methods in economics revealing the status and representational patterns in qualitative social research. I addressed professors, editors of economic journals, and postdocs from Germany to access economists’ functional orientations and interpretative patterns, in order to establish preliminary indicators with regard to the subject-specific perspectives and the underlying scientific conceptions of economists. My findings reveal a fundamental rejection of qualitative research methods in economics due to methodological critique, a nomothetic world view and missing career opportunities. The article intends to initiate a discussion about the missing opportunities of the methodological contraction in the economic profession.     

追寻正义:中国法律社会学的危机与出路

与经典社会理论的分析不同,法治实践在中国形成了一系列悖论特征,在劳动法、财产法、合同法、金融法、公司法和环境法等领域,形成了一种内外有别,呈现身份和产权差序化格局的法律体系。无论是形式主义或实体主义理论都不能完整把握其性质。中国法律社会学不能直接套用西方的某派学说或者盲目坚持本土主义、实践主义的学术路径。要对改革时期中国的法治运动在全球和国家层面形成的特殊结构与悖论逻辑,在社会理论层面展开更为切实而深刻的分析,并在正义和规范层面对法治发展做出前瞻性的批判、反思和引导,这将是未来中国法律社会学突破学术困境、探索新路的关键。     

Territorial Stigmatization and Territorial Destigmatization: A Cultural Sociology of Symbolic Strategy in the Gentrification of Parkdale (Toronto)

Territorial stigmatization is one of the most powerful concepts for understanding how social, spatial and symbolic processes are intertwined in producing contemporary urban inequality. Through a detailed case study of Parkdale, a Toronto neighbourhood that has been profoundly shaped by its long association with poverty, single room occupancy housing and psychiatric survivors, this article works at the points of intersection between the rapidly expanding literature on territorial stigmatization and wider social scientific interest in gentrification‐led displacement. Drawing on archival research, participant observation and interviews with residents, it demonstrates how territorial stigmatization, and a new allied concept, territorial destigmatization, operate in Parkdale. Territorial stigmatization and destigmatization work across three dimensions: legal, material and discursive. Using conceptual tools from cultural sociology to foreground symbolic elements of these three dimensions, two strategies of territorial destigmatization are delineated: one that operates in concert with gentrification‐led displacement, and the other that works to symbolically reinscribe stigmatized persons and housing forms. To complement and sharpen territorial stigmatization research, recent findings from studies of stigma are integrated to show how psychiatric survivors and housing advocates in Parkdale use territorial destigmatization to offset gentrification‐led displacement.