Talk changes things: The implications of McCloskey's Bourgeois Dignity for historical inquiry

In The Bourgeois Dignity, Deidre McCloskey asserts that although there were many reasons that have been posited for the rise of the bourgeois class and the tremendous increase in the world's standard of living that occurred during the Industrial Revolution, including the enlightenment and the Protestant ethic, something else was required. For her, that something else was a change in the esteem that was afforded to the bourgeois, to capitalists and to capitalism. The talk changed and a change in the talk was what ultimately changed things. In this article, we briefly explore and defend McCloskey's (2010) claim that a change in talk was at the root of the Industrial Revolution. Further, contrary to much of the literature on the relationship between discourse and social change which tends to focus on discourse as an artifact rather than a driver of change, we argue using examples from outside of economics and economic history that a change in talk not only tends to accompany but often precedes dramatic social transformation.     

A behavioral approach to the political and economic inquiry into the nature and causes of the wealth of nations

Deirdre McCloskey's Bourgeois Dignity (2010) represents another breakthrough work in her career, and the second volume in a multi-volume work on the economic and intellectual history of western civilization. In a sense, the subtitle of the book explains well what this volume is all about – why economics cannot explain the modern world. An important modifier would be – modern economics cannot explain the modern world – because much of what McCloskey argues is the resurrection of an older argument that was associated with classical liberal political economists from Smith, Bastiat, Mises, Hayek and Friedman. Fundamentally, she reasserts the power of ideas to shape the world. McCloskey's narrative is simple and compelling – materialist stories (whether technological, genetic, or institutional) do not work; incentive based stories do not provide a complete picture of why some countries grew rich while others remained poor, let alone for the exact timing for the divergence in the wealth and poverty of nations with the Industrial Revolution in the 18th and 19th century. McCloskey proposes that incentive based explanations must reside within a broader narrative that addresses values and beliefs, as well as institutions, technologies, and material conditions. In doing so, McCloskey paves the way for a true behavioral approach to a political and economic inquiry into the nature and causes of the wealth of nations.     

Discovering rhetoric: The ecology of enterprise in the Bourgeois Era

Deirdre McCloskey's Bourgeois Dignity deploys Israel Kirzner's theory of entrepreneurial discovery in her explanation of the Industrial Revolution. This essay examines whether Kirzner's theory can bear the analytical load that McCloskey would place on it. I identify two potential incongruities between Kirzner's theory and McCloskey's historical account but find them both unconvincing. Kirzner's entrepreneur is a good fit for McCloskey's story. I argue further that the fit can be strengthened by incorporating further elements of Kirzner's theory, including entrepreneurial alertness.     

Dignity and development

This paper explores how expanding the notion of informal institutions in the broader institutional framework provides a more complete explanation for development. Specifically, I incorporate McCloskey's notion of ‘dignity and liberty’ as part of the institutional nexus. By doing so, a richer explanation and understanding of the importance of institutions in explaining different economic outcomes is offered. Focusing on bourgeois dignity offers a precise mechanism to explain how institutions matter to support economic growth. In addition, analyzing the changing attitudes toward the bourgeoisie provides a specific example of mechanisms that can lead to institutional change.     

‘Blair's children’: young women as ‘aspirational subjects’ in the psychic landscape of class

This paper engages with the subjective experience of ‘doing’ aspiration, teasing out the psychic and social costs that accompany this as a classed process. It draws on a qualitative study of young women located in further education and contemplating their futures under New Labour, locating how the political rhetoric of aspiration gets institutionalized within school practices; how it intersects with maternal expectations and practices of involvement; and how these are lived and managed by subjects located in different positions in class‐inflected social space. In attending to the tangled web of institutional, intergenerational and affective practices which shape young women's aspirations, the paper seeks to interrupt the celebratory and simplistic rhetoric of aspiration that characterizes the contemporary socio‐political register of neoliberalism. As these ideals become further entrenched by the current Coalition government, there is an even greater urgency for such sociological enquiries.     

How capitalism and the bourgeois virtues transformed and humanized the family

McCloskey's two volumes argue that a change in our ideas about the dignity of human beings laid the groundwork for the tectonic changes in economic organization known as the advent of capitalism and the Industrial Revolution. The Industrial Revolution also changed human behavior by cultivating further the virtues that nourished it. This process can be seen in the way in which the capitalism transformed the family from the realm of “Prudence mostly” to “Love mostly.” Rather than undermining some romanticized vision of family life, capitalism is responsible for humanizing it by opening space for Love.     

Marital Monogamy as Ideal and Practice: The Detraditionalization Thesis in Contemporary Marriages

Within the sociological literature on intimate life, a detraditionalization thesis outlines a marked shift in the construction of marriage in post‐World War II Western societies, suggesting a growing focus on emotional and sexual satisfaction within the marital dyad (Cherlin, 2004; Giddens, 1992). In this article the authors investigated one aspect of marital relations in light of the detraditionalization thesis: marital monogamy. Drawing from 90 in‐depth interviews with both heterosexual and same‐sex married participants in Canada, they found that the detraditionalization thesis appears to capture best the extension of multicultural norms to abstract ideals about marital monogamy, rather than an actual shift in marital sexual practices, particularly among heterosexual respondents. These data call out for greater attention to both the social mediation of Giddens's detraditionalization thesis and a more nuanced concept of marital fidelity than a simple binary axis of “monogamous/nonmonogamous” permits.     

Reconsidering Durkheim's Assessment of Tarde: Formalizing a Tardian Theory of Imitation,Contagion, and Suicide Suggestion

Emile Durkheim summarily rejected Gabriel Tarde's imitation thesis, arguing that sociology need only concern itself with social suicide rates. Over a century later, a burgeoning body of suicide research has challenged Durkheim's claim to a general theory of suicide as 4 decades worth of evidence has firmly established that (1) there is a positive association between the publicization of celebrity suicides and a spike in the aggregate suicide rate, (2) some social environments are conducive to epidemic‐like outbreaks of suicides, and (3) suicidal ideas or behavior spreads to some individuals exposed to a personal role model's suicidal behavior—for example, a friend or family member. Revisiting Tarde, the article examines why Tarde's theory deserves renewed attention, elucidates what he meant by imitation, and then formalizes his “laws” into testable theses, while suggesting future research questions that would advance the study of suicide, as well as other pathologies. Each “law” is elaborated by considering advances in contemporary social psychology as well as in light of its ability to supplement Durkheim's theory in explaining the “outlier” cases.     

Migration aspirations and the perceptions of the political,economic and social environment in Africa

While much research has investigated how objective pull factors in the destination countries affect migration movements, and how subjective push factors affect migration aspirations, we know little about the interrelationship between subjective and objective factors. This paper therefore examines how people's perceptions of their political, economic and social structural environment affect their migration aspirations and to what extent these perceptions are determined by the objective situation in a country. Accounting for individual perceptions is important because individuals may be affected by structural factors to different degrees, and their knowledge of the objective situation may vary. Perceptions may also be affected by individuals' norms and values as well as people's different expectations. This study is based on data from Round 7 of the Afrobarometer survey, fielded between 2016 and 2018 in 34 African countries. Our findings show that positive perceptions of the structural environment are related to lower migration aspirations and that this relationship is only partly dependent on the objective situation in a country.     

Reconstructing Granovetter's network theory

We employ concepts from graph theory and cooperative game theory to reconstruct Granovetter's famous thesis concerning ‘the strength of weak ties’. In contrast to existing formal models related to this thesis, our approach captures the mechanisms Granovetter invokes in the derivation of his thesis. Notably, our model allows for an analytical distinction between the strength of ties and the value of ties – a distinction empirical research on the labor market has shown to be of great importance. We use our model to test the theoretical validity of Granovetter's thesis and to evaluate its robustness if implicit assumptions in Granovetter's argumentation are dropped.     

Moving away or staying local: the role of locality in young people's ‘spatial horizons’ and career aspirations

Social mobility has been a central tenet of UK Government public policy, viewed as a silver bullet to creating a socially just and ‘fair’ society as well as an economically successful one. Within policy discourse young people's aspirations are deemed of critical importance to achieving educational success and in turn social mobility. However, within both popular and policy rhetoric ‘place attachment’ is routinely posited as a serious hindrance to successful realisation of aspiration, putatively because it embeds young people in ‘place’ (e.g. a particular community or geographical location) and prevents them from accessing employment in national labour markets. This paper, however, problematises the notion that ‘place attachment’ and ‘spatial mobility’ are necessarily mutually exclusive. Calling on data from a qualitative study of young people's aspirations in two distinctive regions of South Wales, UK, the analyses reveal that despite the largely localised ‘imagined futures’ of these young people they held very ‘high’ aspirations for professional forms of employment, which for some young people meant moving away from home and locality in order to achieve. The paper calls for a rethinking of how young people's aspirations are conceptualised both in government policy and academic research.     

How Does Juvenile Offending Relate to Mothers' Aspirations and Expectations for Their Sons?

Mothers of 317 first‐time juvenile offenders (M = 15.35 years old) were interviewed over 2.5 years about their expectations and aspirations for their sons' futures. Mothers' expectations were lower than their aspirations, reflecting a discrepancy between what mothers felt was important for their child's future and what they considered likely to happen. As their children continued to engage in delinquent acts, mothers' expectations for their sons' future success diminished. Youth age moderated the association between delinquency and maternal expectations, such that when perceived delinquency was high, expectations were lower for mothers of young sons compared to mothers of older sons. These findings carry implications for practice and intervention, as parent expectations and aspirations are both directly and indirectly associated with youth achievement.     

Durkheim and individualism

Durkheim endorses moral and rejects methodological individualism. But he arrives at this ‘general position’via a particular development of it that runs into serious sociological, apart from any philosophical, trouble. It depends on an ethical relativism that in turn depends on an idea of society qua harmonious system, generating more or less practical aspirations, and a single appropriate, ‘normal’ morality. Yet modern society generates ideals quite unrealisable in it, and continuing, fundamental conflicts between moral doctrines and beliefs. To uphold central humanist, individualist ideals, we cannot rely on Durkheim's particular sociology or on his ethical relativism, and to defend his general position must unhook it from both.     

Young people's educational aspirations: psychosocial factors and the home environment

Utilising data from Understanding Society (2010–2013), this study examined the contribution of young people's psychosocial and background factors and home environment to their educational aspirations in the UK. Young people's general well-being and self-efficacy emerged as good predictors of their educational aspirations as did some aspects of their home environment. Interestingly, filial dynamics such as emotional closeness to parents and cultural capital (e.g. participating in cultural events, discussing books) were better predictors of 10–15-year-olds’ aspirations than were more school-driven parent–child interactions (e.g. homework, extra-curricular activities). Furthermore, the findings from this study showed no shortage in young people's educational aspirations although interesting demographic trends emerged with certain groups (i.e. preadolescents, males) being less aspirant than middle adolescents and females. These findings have significant implications for family and educational policy, especially with regard to ‘raising aspirations’ and reducing early school leaving and, also, for reconsidering the role of the home environment as a web of emotionally and intellectually charged relationships between parents and children rather than an extension of the school day. Finally, discussions on young people's educational aspirations should not be polarised but informed by notions of opportunity (structure) and what young people make of it (agency).     

Gendered and classed activist identity in the Russian oppositional youth movement

This article examines how activist identity is constructed in the Russian opposition youth movement Oborona. The research is based on fieldwork among youth activists in Moscow and St Petersburg. The author analyses how activist identity is classed and gendered, as well as its relations to the Russian civic field. The article suggests, first, that the activist identity is marked by an affiliation with the intelligentsia: activists have grown up in intelligentsia families and articulate their activities through the intelligentsia's ‘markers’, such as intelligence, discussion skills and education. Secondly, activists follow a dissidents' cultural model, by emphasizing the importance of non‐conformism and traditional dissident values, and draw parallels between the contemporary government and the totalitarian Soviet state. Thirdly, this traditional intellectual dissident identity is associated with cosmopolitanism through the movement's international connections and appropriation of the forms of action of global social movements. Sometimes the activist practices and aspirations conflict with the group's ideals. Furthermore, the activist identity is gendered and embodied in the right activist ‘look’, which is defined by masculinity. Regardless of the movement's liberal ideals in regards to democracy, questions of gender and sexuality are not discussed, and activists do not question traditional understandings of gendered divisions of labour.     

Dynasty Formation in Eight Imaginary Societies*

De quelle maniere les aspirations populaires et les mecanismes de controle de l'elite permettent-ils l'etablissement de dynasties ? Quelles sont les differences qui existent entre les societes dynastiques et les societes non-dynastiques dans les possibilites reelles de mobilite sociale intergenerationnelle ? Cet article tente d'apporter une reponse a ces questions par une analyse mecanographique simulee de huit societes fictives dont les effectifs demographiques sont modeles a l'image de l'Ontario. Nos analyses revelent que les societes dynastiques possedent les caracteristiques suivantes: (a) une tres forte probabilite d'heriter un statut d'appartenance a l'elite; (b) une faible chance d'entrer dans l'elite en provenance d'une classe inferieure; (c) les individus mobiles se retrouvent dans un nombre limite de classes; (d) une probabilite mediane relativement elevee d'une mobilite ascen-dante moderee (une a deux classes); et (e) un faible risque median d'une mobility descendante. Ces resultats sont expliques et verifies, par apres, en utilisant des donnees provenant de societes contemporaines. On discute, en dernier lieu, a la lumiere de ces resultats, les avantages des societes dynastiques et non-dynastiques. How do popular aspirations and elite controls contribute to the formation of dynasties? How do the opportunities for intergenerational social mobility differ in dynastic and non-dynastic societies? This paper attempts to answer these questions through a computer simulation of eight reasonably realistic “imaginary societies” modelled demographically after that of Ontario. The simulations reveal that dynastic societies are characterized by (a) a high probability of inheritance of elite status; (b) a low probability of entering the elite from below; (c) the restriction of mobile persons to a limited number of classes; (d) a relatively high median probability of moderate (one or two class) upward mobility; and (e) a relatively low median risk of downward mobility. These findings are explained and then verified by data from actual societies. The relative advantages of dynastic and non-dynastic societies are discussed in view of these findings.     

Identities under construction: professional journalism in a phase of destabilization

Is journalism going through ‘de-professionalization’ or is it just entering a new phase – taking a different shape? And what is the meaning of professional ideals such as scrutiny and autonomy in these processes? My article aims at analysing those matters, focusing on the case of Swedish journalists. Empirical support is drawn from a national survey conducted four times since 1989 on the Department of Journalism and Mass Communication at Gothenburg University. Questions about journalists’ perceptions of various ideals offer excellent opportunities to explore possible homogenization vs. fragmentation, as well as what the attitudinal dimensions actually say about the professional content of Swedish journalism. The results are analysed by the conceptualization of Bourdieu's field theory, along with current professional theory, and point at a possible separation of professional levels: where a few ideals constitute an all-embracing umbrella of professional ideology, while the flora of attitudes below is more diverse and dependent on factors of organization, gender and age. The professional ideals may furthermore be regarded as a form of cultural capital, used as legitimizing tools in journalism's struggle for maintaining status quo. The main conclusion is that journalism is not de-professionalizing on an ideological level, but going through a re-formation. Traditional journalistic ideals have attained increasing support over time and the efforts to fix professional boundaries are fierce. This does not mean that the democratic functions of journalism should not be guarded: as the ideals start taking discursive shapes, they are also increasingly bound to clash with praxis.     

Graffiti

Progress is a term subject to considerable popular appeal, postmodernist criticism, feminist ambivalence, and development debate. In this article, I mark the traces of 'progress' as desires expressed by women working on Zimbabwe's commercial farms and in clothing and food processing factories for what they do not have. The backdrop of the discussion is the historical record concerning women workers in Zimbabwe and representations of 'women' that appear in some of Zimbabwe's contemporary imaginative literatures. The research shows that 'progress' emerges in the factual and fictional accounts of 'women' workers of Zimbabwe as aspirations for altered gender meanings and identity.