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Abstracts Network M - Socio-Economic Theory
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Amarico M. S. Carvalho Mendes (Portuguese Catholic University, Portugal)
E-Mail address: amendes@porto.ucp.pt
Values, Norms, Transactions and Organizations
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This paper may be considered an essay on metaeconomics, since it deals with the meaning of several concepts often left undefined, or very briefly defined in economic theories. These concepts are the following: value including the values of things and moral values, social norms or institutions, social power, goods and services, transactions and organizations (firms, and others). The paper starts by proposing a general concept of value, encompassing both the value of things and moral values. From this concept it proceeds to the definition of six different types of values of things and moral values and to the concept of value transformation process of things which includes all the operations dealt with in economic theory as well as many other human actions. The last part of the paper starts with the distinction between moral values and social norms (or institutions) and the roles of social power and human organization in connecting the domains of morality and social normativity. The paper proceeds by distinguishing different types of norms, including possession norms which are important for defining the concepts of goods and services and transaction processes.
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Leszek Chajewski (Institute for Political Studies of the Polish Academy of Sciences and Collegium Civitas, Poland)
E-Mail address: chajewski@collegium.edu.pl
Embeddedness as a Process
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This article describes a strategy of modeling embeddedness of economic behavior as a process, as opposed to viewing it as a time-independent relationship between behavior and a social factor in which it is subsumed. Poland's classic model of embeddedness is reconstructed and its process facets demonstrated. These process aspects of the model are used to asses the degree to which key approaches in economic sociology concur with the embeddedness as a process thesis. I conclude that over the course of the last two decades economic sociology has increasingly emphasized process aspects of embeddedness, at the expense of its structural conceptualizations. Key consequence of this evolving understanding of embeddedness is that not all of its forms are of equal significance, therefore, economic sociology's empirical focus should shift from its traditional goal of demonstrating that economic behavior is more likely to be embedded than not, to identifying the forms of economic behavior that are likely to be dominating and thus also be predictive of the dynamics of economic behavior in the future.
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Nitsan Chorev (Central European University, Hungary)
E-Mail address: chorevn@ceu.hu
A Fluid Divide: Domestic and International Considerations in U.S. Trade Policy Formation
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Since 1934, domestic industries in the United States have found it increasingly more difficult to achieve their protectionist agenda. What are the factors determining protectionist policies in the United States? Sociological theories of the state have been largely concerned with domestic factors and have rarely integrated international considerations into the analysis. Yet, the history of US trade policy shows that an adequate analysis of policy outcomes necessitates the inclusion also of international factors. Moreover, the case of protectionist policies shows that the relative explanatory significance of domestic and international factors is not constant but changes over time. An adequate analysis of policy outcomes therefore also necessitates an exploration of the conditions shaping and transforming the relative explanatory significance of domestic and international factors. I draw on historical institutionalist analysis to show that the institutional structures of both states and international organizations account for the historically-specific balance between domestic and international factors: by shaping the political influence of actors in and across the two realms, institutions determine which considerations are prioritized. In the empirical part I offer a detailed historical analysis of US trade policy and show the usefulness of the theoretical argument for explaining transformations over time.
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Roger Churnside (University of Costa Rica, Costa Rico)
E-Mail address: chimi00@racsa.co.cr
Model of Space and Time of Organizations
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Sociologist Anthony Giddens has warned, over many years, against excessive efforts to solve basic problems of epistemology and generalization, arguing that they distract from empirical work, as the "main concern" of social science. And, within that line of thinking, he has refrained from offering an explicit model, even specific definitions, of his concepts of social time and space, while strenuously advocating their importance for social theory. But due precisely to his work and that of those who have followed his advice, as well as efforts of other social scientists, it is now possible to solve some of the problems of "epistemology" and "generalization" that he suggested to ignore or postpone. So, building upon those ideas, in this article we offer two complementary models, involving qualitative and quantitative concepts, graphical representations and mathematical tools, to represent social time and space. And their operation is illustrated by applying them jointly to shed light on long-standing issues of personal commitment that affect organizations in general, as well as recent rashes of instability observed particularly in business corporations.
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Ariel Ducey (University of Calgary, Canada)
E-Mail address: aducey@ucalgary.ca
Emotion and Incalculable Value
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A common understanding in current theoretical work on economics and emotions is that the latter impact the economy only when they transmute into specific, measurable cognitions and actions. Extending recent assertions that there are important non-cognitive or physical dimensions of economic action, this paper argues that another way emotions and economics connect to each other is by short-circuiting cognition at both ends. This connection produces economic value-but it is largely incalculable. Recent work in communication studies, political economy and social theory (by scholars such as Tiziana Terranova, Brian Massumi, Patricia Clough and Emily Martin, among others) opens up additional theoretical avenues that should be considered as emotions are integrated into the approach of socio-economics. Empirically, focusing on the non-cognitive connection between emotion and economics highlights the most significant kind of value which results from such activities as hosting the Olympic games, training workers in communication ("soft") skills, or workplace "health promotion" programs. Managerial theorists seem to already accept affect as valuable, as how-to books with titles like Emotional Branding imply. But if affect is valuable, it poses what may be insurmountable challenges to the traditional techniques of calculating that value and therefore important new dilemmas to social theorists who expect the economic to appear in calculable, and measurable, forms.
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Laszlo Garai (University of Szeged, Hungary)
E-Mail address: garai@eco.u-szeged.hu
How Outstanding Am I? A Measuring Device for Social Comparison within Organizations
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In modern organizations (whether small, large, or global) man has a prime interest in bearing an outstanding social identity based on a favorably selected status. The more excellent one's social identity, the greater his/her chance to obtain, at a definite cost, an economic benefit (access to a scarce resource or to an advantageous transaction). Both money and an outstanding social status are required for an economic chance. This paper deals with a calculation device for converting the values of these mediating factors into each other: the measure of outstanding social identity (MOSI). It applies the same logic by which the information theory calculates the value of the news about an occurrence that might have been expected with a well-definable probability. The probability at issue for calculating values of outstanding social identity (VOSI) is the one to be estimated in advance for getting an outstanding status in the organization and for this p probability the value is calculated as the logarithm of the invert of p. This device for calculating the VOSI enables complementary calculation of (e.g., adding, averaging, etc.) values. The MOSI is presented in the paper as applied to optimize human resources management.
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LaDawn Haglund (New York University, USA)
E-Mail address: ladawn.haglund@nyu.edu
Ties that Collide: Embeddedness Under Democratization and Neo-liberalization
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This paper uses the example of public goods privatization to argue that efforts to promote social and economic citizenship under democratic governments and drives toward neo-liberalism are mutually inconsistent. The contradiction between these phenomena can be better understood by using Polanyi's concept of "embeddedness" to examine institutional changes brought on by each process in public goods sectors. Democracy creates institutional arrangements that tie the economy to society through state intervention and civil society mechanisms that attempt to embody widely accepted logics regarding the provision of public goods. Neo-liberalism, conversely, creates institutional arrangements that shield economic actors from the very state interventions and social demands that bind markets according to societal bargains. Examples from privatization efforts in the electricity and water sectors in Costa Rica and El Salvador are used to show how institutional arrangements that come about through democratization entail state capacities and types of autonomy that conflict with the capacities and autonomies called for by neo-liberalization.
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Arturo Hermann (ISAE (Institute of Studies of Economic Analysis), Italy)
E-Mail address: a.hermann@isae.it; a.hermann@libero.it
Institutional Economics and Psychoanalysis: How Can they Collaborate for A Better Understanding of Individual-Society Dynamics?
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The idea of carrying out this work stems from the observation that although economics deals with the study of human actions and motivations in their historical evolution, there has been in many cases a lack of scientific collaboration with other fields of social sciences; in this regard, psychoanalysis is a case in point. In light of these problems, our analysis may be synthesized as follows: institutional economics, especially through Veblen's and Commons's contributions, has highlighted a number of aspects that provide a better understanding of the inner nature of social and economic relations. This has been realized through the elaboration of concepts which characterize, in their continual refining, the core of institutional economics: these include, among others, ceremonial/instrumental behavior dichotomy, instincts, culture, evolution, habits, path-dependency, tacit knowledge, technology, collective action, going concerns, working rules and social valuing. Considering the openness and the interdisciplinary scope of this approach, we look toward the possible ways of collaboration between institutional economics and psychoanalysis in order to address the multifarious aspects of social and economic issues. Bringing together psychological and socio-economic analysis can help cast more light on the complexity of factors at play in determining the historical evolution in any given context.
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Yong Suk Jang (Korea University, Korea)
Gili S. Drori (Stanford University)
Gil-Sung Park (Korea University)
E-Mail address: yongsukjang@korea.ac.kr; drori@stanford.edu; gspark@korea.ac.kr
Transparent Nation-States: Accountability as a Global Norm
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This paper involves a theoretical and empirical exploration of the expansion of a model of accountability and transparency in world society, and how this model affects nation-states worldwide. We are particularly interested in the fact that nation-states have attempted to become increasingly transparent actors in terms of reporting their national (financial) accounts. We investigate these national efforts toward greater accountability, as it is expressed in greater governmental attention given to global norms concerning national data compilation and disclosure, particularly after World War II. The preliminary investigations of this issue reveal interesting trends over the past three decades. Since the 1970’s, national governments across the globe (a) have provided greater amount of public data covering lager numbers of social, political, and economic domains, and (b) have tended to present their accounts and statistics in more standardized ways that conform to international principles and standards on data reporting. This research offers a macro-sociological perspective from which the development of global norms and their impact on nation-states can be studied. It also offers sociological understanding of nation-states located in world society where they are provided with pressures and guidelines to become appropriate rational actors.
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Michal Kubicki (Gdansk University, Poland)
E-Mail address: mkubicki@home.se
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Techniques taught in a western public administration program are not easily transplanted to the social contest of Poland and other Eastern Europe countries. Some Basic Assumptions That Underpin the Western Practice of Administration Are Lacking
Policy making has been a subject to research for decades. The issue of representation, legitimacy and transparency has been studied in various dimensions. Though the use of scientific method in policy making has a long tradition, in many parts of the world, it was not present until now. Central and Eastern Europe had to adopt European Union standards regarding policy proposals to gain access to European funds as they joined the EU. The requirement to present feasibility studies for the policy proposals to the EU representatives was one of these standards. The aim of this paper is to examine the transition process where representative methods of policy making have been confronted with the new quantitative tools. This paper summarizes author recent experience of a year spent on consultancy to local governments regarding feasibility studies and gives a broader background of this transition in all new EU member states. The author believes that the use of quantitative methods in policy making and evaluation in these countries has a limited impact on the rationalization of policy choices in terms of neoclassical theory principles. Other theoretical principles may provide better understanding of the policy making in this specific socio-economic environment.
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Justin Levinson (University of Hawaii, USA)
Kaiping Peng (University of California, Berkeley, USA)
Junqi Shi (Beijing University, China)
E-Mail address: justinl@hawaii.edu; kppeng@berkeley.edu; junqi_shi@pku.edu.cn
Cultural Differences in Monetary and Property Value Judgments
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Studies investigating lay judgments relating to utility function have often focused on single dimensional variables, such as expectation differences in finding or losing, to explain variance in judgments. These studies have found that judgments of monetary value are based on psychological and cognitive differences related to baseline expectations. Yet, such studies have not yet examined the role of social and cultural factors in value decision-making. The authors argue that human cultures may impact judgments of value due to cultural variations in ownership and property expectations. In addition, group membership biases may be implicated in value judgments, as well as morality judgments. The authors empirically investigate the role of culture, group membership, and morality in value and personal property judgments, and hypothesize that all three variables will impact judgments of value and ownership. Implications of cultural psychology are discussed in regard to financial assumptions, as well as with respect to legal assumptions relating to property ownership and transferability.
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Matthew A. Light (Yale University, USA)
E-Mail address: matthew.light@yale.edu
The Rise, Use, And Abuse Of Quantitative Indices In Public Policy
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Why do we quantify? When should we quantify? This manuscript considers the influence of quantitative indices, especially those derived from financial accounting and generally known as "audit," in contemporary social science and public policy. It aims to answer three broad questions:
1. What is audit? What are the historical origins of audit? What is its relation to broader historical shifts? And as an aside, is the use of audit in public policy especially developed in the United States, and if so, why?
2. What is the role of audit in contemporary politics? What is its role in the "depoliticizing" of political questions?
3. How susceptible to subversion is audit? To what extent do auditable criteria tend to undermine or corrupt the process they were intended to support?
The essay argues that the trend toward increasing use of audit and quantitative indices in public policies is in part the result of long-term historical change. However, the use of quantification to justify public policy is also a rhetorical tool that is consciously selected by political actors. The manuscript concludes by suggesting standards that should guide how a democratic society makes use of quantitative indices in constructing public policy.
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Anders Liljenberg (Stockholm School of Economics, Sweden)
E-Mail address: Anders.Liljenberg@hhs.se
A Socio-Austrian Representation of Markets; The Case of Externalities
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At the very heart of reaching out for new market study approaches lies the potential that inheres in forging unexpected theoretical cross-overs. Despite the fact that some sociologists since long strive to expand market knowledge by incorporating facets of economics, this potential still waits to be fully realized. The argument of the paper is that this in part stems from the particular kind of economics that is imported and thus transformed. Whether labeled neo-institutional or evolutionary, the majority of contributions are still firmly anchored in neoclassical reasoning. By bringing forward the Austrian school of human economics it is shown how an unorthodox version of economics is in the position to enrich the manner in which sociologists, most notably in the Actor-Network-Theory tradition, set out to grasp the construction of markets.
This is done by an applied discussion of externalities, by all means a key feature for anyone wishing to further progressive market representations. This holds in particular as market externalities by definition are not part of the rational calculation agenda associated with economic actors.
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Fred Luks (University of Hamburg, Germany)
E-Mail address: LuksF@hwp-hamburg.de
What Counts as Sustainable Development? Exploring Economic Constructions of Reality
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Today, sustainable development (SD) - as a development that meets the needs of present generations without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs -, is a generally accepted goal. However, this is because SD allows diverse interpretations. "What counts", then, is a crucial question in the sustainability discourse.
In my paper, I will argue that SD is indeed a concept that necessitates interpretation, since its often un-questioned "self-evidence" creates political and scientific problems. The problematization of SD as a political and a scientific issue is, among other things, a product of economic reasoning. In considering this, we can observe an "economic construction of ecological reality". I will examine how "economic rhetoric" shapes representations, calculations and evaluations in the sustainability discourse, focusing on the important role that the concept of scarcity plays in this context, elaborating the contingency of that concept and how thinking in terms of scarcity is related to notions of "space", "limits", "growth" and "efficiency". I will draw on insights from constructivist approaches, ecological economics and socio-economic theories. The upshot of the analysis is: Yes, language matters - very much more then mainstream economists seem to believe. But matter matters, too.
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Julia Maintz (University of Bonn, Germany)
E-Mail address: maintz@giub.uni-bonn.de
Representation, Association? Place as Relational Element In E-learning Interactions
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Consider an e-learning course as relational ensemble. A group of human and non-human course members, Internet access, collaborative virtual workspace tools, content, time and space-related conditions, people not in direct course context, as well as situation-specific influences shape the actor-network constituted by Capacity Building International's (InWEnt's) Blended Learning course "eLearning Training and Management". Blended Learning combines presence and online phases. What matters, who counts, and with what kinds of measures and metrics? I use Actor Network Theory as analytical framework to identify e-learning interactions at the interface of face-to-face and online environments. I trace actor-networks using a coding strategy in combination with qualitative software Qualrus that allows for the study of processes, here changing actor-network constellations. I identify key actants, intermediaries, qualities performed in interrelations, the character of relations between elements, and propose a theoretical account on actor-networked fluid categories relevant to Blended Learning with special focus on the place category. Results are based on ethnographic participation in the observed e-learning course sensitive to principles of virtual ethnography (Hine 2000).
Reference
Hine, Christine (2000). Virtual Ethnography. London, Thousand Oaks, New Delhi, Sage.
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Manfred Moldaschl (University of Technology Chemnitz, Germany)
E-Mail address: moldaschl@ws.tum.de
The Intangibles Hype
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Growing awareness of the limits of traditional accounting, new accounting standards, and new approaches to identify and measure intangible assets (like knowledge, reputation and social capital) led to a "gold rush" in some sectors of the economy and the management sciences. This gold rush builds on and reinforces the "audit explosion" as described by Michael Power. Based on the theory of reflexive modernization and socio-economics, the paper analyzes the dialectics between reflexivity and irrationality in current accounting practices and strategic management thinking. It also presents some empirical findings of a network research done in this field.
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Chris Moore (Massey University, New Zealand)
E-Mail address: c.i.moore@massey.ac.nz
Eclectic Observations on Incorporating Ethics into Economics
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This paper provides a collection of insights and ideas on understanding ethical behavior from a variety of theoretical perspectives in economics. Distinguishing between the individual consumer and firm levels and the national and global contexts, morals and values are discussed from standard neoclassical, institutional mainly transaction cost economics, and economics of reputation standpoints. The coverage of the paper is eclectic with several shifts of the theoretical lens. Thus it includes discussion on moving beyond the self-interest paradigm to a conversation on transaction costs and setting out of the new concept of social transaction costs. The paper also serves to highlight some of the very recent literature that is emerging to elucidate contemporary thinking on moral issues such as the use of child labor and its regulation. Insights on the regulation of immorality are therefore also included. In 1987 Amartya Sen, Nobel Prize winner in economics, bemoaned the distance that had grown between ethics and economics. This paper is intended as a contribution toward closing this distance.
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Laura Nistor (Babes-Bolyai University, Romania)
E-Mail address: mailtonistor@yahoo.com
The Rational Choice Paradigm in Explaining Macro-level Environmental Concern: A Model Based on Romanian Evidence
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Regarding global environmental concern some inter-national shifts are available. The value based explanations (e.i. Inglehart, 1996) regard the problem of environmental concern as the result of value shifts like materialist/ postmaterialist. In addition to this value-model an economic one was designed, which compares different nation's environmental concern with national well-being measured in GDP per capita (e. i. Franzen&Dieckman, 1999). The proposed paper- while assessing the advantages of these models- deals with the problem of explaining macro-level environmental concerns in post-socialist countries. In this sense a model based on rational choice paradigm is developed based on Romanian environmental decisions. While during the first transition (from communism to capitalism) environmental decisions have had clear inclinations toward economic benefits vs. environmental damages, in the second transition (toward EU integration) the model is becoming more ambiguous, revealing conflicts between dual, even contradictory attitudes. So, while the first stage model reflects a materialistic value orientation, the last one seems to reflect integrational provisos rather than a real transition to postmodernist values. For illustration, some longitudinal examples are proposed from the early nineties to present.
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Morio Onda (Ryutsu Keizai University, Japan)
E-Mail address: morio.onda@nifty.com
Mutual Help Network in Japanese Society
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Japanese people tend to be more self-involved than in the past as a result of modernization. However, there is one aspect of social action that has persisted at least in spirit. The purpose of the paper is to show how mutual help remains important and has been transformed in the transition from tradition to modernity. Mutual help was traditionally divided into three types. One is "Yui" which refers to reciprocity in helping to plant rice, and reroof a house by exchanging labor. The second is "Moyai" which refers to redistribution. In exchange for the right to get goods from a common store, local people had the obligation to maintain a common pool of resources. Finally, "Tetsudai" refers to support in funeral ceremonies requiring no monetary exchange. These customs have almost disappeared from modern life. However, the tradition of mutual help is still manifest in some modern civic activities in the guise of volunteering. The social system of mutual help arising from indigenous conditions contributed to overcome "tragedy of the commons." Modern society might do well to review such mutual help networks in search of ways of solving both public and private social problems in Japan and overseas as well.
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Bruno Pinheiro Wanderley Reis (Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Brazil)
E-Mail address: brunopwr@gmail.com
Cultural Calculations: Some Circularities About Interpersonal Trust and Political Participation in Complex Societies
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I start from Weber's characterization of markets as a form of "socialization among strangers" to ask about the pertinence of claiming the theoretical relevance of culturally-oriented behavior, conceived as opposed to strategically-oriented rational calculations. Apparently, the impersonality required for the operation of the large-scale networks so typical of complex societies should make a strong case in favor of the necessity of market-like mechanisms of individual incentives to promote large-scale coordination. Indeed, I think this is basically true. However, things don't seem conceptually so simple if we consider the normative basis of the operation of the market itself. Far from being a "spontaneous order", markets require specific normative orientations to operate nicely. The problem is that that point usually leads us to circularities between the two levels of analysis, famously illustrated by Putnam's work on Italy (1993). As for conclusions, I claim that "cultural" elements may retain their theoretical relevance if not conceived as opposed to strategic calculations but as an integral part of them; and that we should give attention to agent-based computer modeling, as it could handle with the nonlinearities that emerge as we try to manipulate both levels simultaneously.
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Zsuzsanna Vargha (Columbia University, USA)
E-Mail address: varghazs@freemail.hu
Calculated Fortune: The Production of Consumer Identities in Financial Consulting
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Focusing on how ordinary people do financial planning, this paper investigates the consequences of financial calculation on understandings of identity. It is argued that a basic category, such as the personality of investors, should be seen neither as pre-existing motivation that characterizes population segments, nor simply as classification offered by expert authority and appropriated by consumers. While incorporating the issue of resistances to categorization, the alternative proposed is that consumer identifications are the outcome of the operation of calculative agencies that are created with the participation of customers, diverse devices, and financial experts. Thus, desires, goals, and other properties of the self are the end result of the operation of such networks. The question is what kinds of selves are produced in this specific market. The encounter between the financial advisor and the client is selected as the site for observing the processes of turning one's life into a product, which requires disembedding, and re-embedding into a calculative space. This interface also illuminates how markets work; how product, producer, and consumer come to be aligned through micro-interaction. The US and Hungary are compared to explore the outcomes of different socio-technical configurations.
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Jean-Marc Weller (CNRS, France)
E-Mail address: jean-marc.weller@latts.enpc.fr
The Real Identity of K310 Land Parcel: A Workplace Study About Street Level Bureaucrats and New Technologies of Calculation in Agriculture
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Since 1992, Commun Agricultural Policy reform introduced direct area-based subsidies for farmers. To qualify for arable farming subsidies, farmers must declare the agricultural parcels they manage by giving information on the location, area and details of crops. This information is recorded and can be verified so that any inconsistencies can be identified.
So as to deter frauds and provide more efficiency to control activities, new technical tools have been developed. Specific land maps and documents, other cartographic references, aerial photography, and satellite imagery are the new tools that allow bureaucrats to examine, calculate, define and verify yields identity. This is the very official Monitoring Agriculture for Remote Sensing (MARS) program, designed to provide independent and timely information on what are doing farmers with their parcels. All this looks more efficient, more rational. But what about the work it requires for street level bureaucrats in charge of such controls? Is their everyday task really easier? More effective? What kind of difficulties can it raise? This paper is based on ethnographic observations concerning local bureaucracy of the French Agriculture Office (ministre de lâ Agriculture). It will focus on work practice. A troubling case of a socio-technical controversy will be especially examined.
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Gilanyi Zsolt (Corvinus University of Budapest, Hungary)
E-Mail address: zsolt.gilanyi@uni-corvinus.hu
J. A. Schumpeter: A Radically New Representation of Economies
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The most important feature of socio-economics, opposed to standard economic analysis, seems to focus on the social embedded character of economic processes. This necessarily changes the common representation of economies. In fact, standard economic analysis pretends to understand the functioning of modern economies by considering exclusively the interactions of individuals following their own interests, and determined by the "real" (commodities, tastes, technologies) without any reference to the "social". The most important social rule, obtained as a result of this individual calculus, would be the omnipresent economic relation, the exchange relation. J. A. Schumpeter break with this conception of the economic relation and hence with this conception of the representation of economies. He concludes that the basic economic relation is not exclusively the exchange relation between commodities but the credit relation. As a consequence, the traditional representation cannot be applied any more: for Schumpeter, an agent is associated with two vectors, one registering commodities and claims, the other debts, while in the economic tradition, an agent is associated with a unique vector of commodities. And the two vectors of Schumpeter cannot be evaluated in terms of utility, while the unique vector of commodities can be.
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P.W. Zuidhof (Erasmus University Rotterdam, The Netherlands)
E-Mail address: zuidhof@fhk.eur.nl
The Images of Markets: The 'Market' in Public Discourse
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With neoliberalism and globalization still holding sway, the idea of 'the market' maintains a firm grasp on public discourse. When Callon claims that the market is being embedded in the social sciences, it often appears that it only performs the market of neoclassical economics. Recently more attention has been devoted to the social processes underlying the dissemination of neoliberalism (e.g. Fourcade-Gourinchas and Babb, 2002). Less is known however about how the market is in fact represented in public discourse? This paper examines the ways in which the market is represented in non-academic discourses. It looks in particular at how this discourse either performs (or undoes) what I call 'the neoliberal displacement': the literal transposition of 'state' or 'government' by 'the market.' Through a number of case studies, I show how the market is represented by independent policy institutes ('think tanks') and in the Op-Ed pages of major newspapers in the US. This paper is part of my PhD. project in which I study the ways in which the idea of the market figures in political discourse in the US and the Netherlands in order to better understand the power of the idea of 'the market.'
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