‘Our world was made by nature’: constructions of spontaneous order

ABSTRACT

This article explores the concepts of spontaneity and spontaneous order, in particular their deployment by Friedrich Hayek and Karl Polanyi. Although in many respects these thinkers were poles apart, the article identifies a point of convergence. They both mobilize the concept of spontaneity in a manner that naturalizes a particular social process: for Hayek, the market economy, for Polanyi, society’s protective movement that arises in reaction against the market economy. To contextualize the uses of spontaneity by Hayek and Polanyi, I trace its evolution, with reference to Leibniz, Mandeville, and the thinkers of the Scottish Enlightenment. Having sketched the ways in which earlier thinkers understood spontaneity, I turn finally to Hayek and Polanyi. I argue that their invocations of spontaneity and spontaneous order contribute to a downplaying of relations of domination and exploitation. While Hayek sees the market system as the exemplar of spontaneous order, for Polanyi, the concept of spontaneity underpins his belief that the protective countermovement is a ‘natural’ reaction to the evils of market society; as such, power relations pass beneath the radar.     

In iron light: Eeriness,decomposition and social movements

In the UK, the recent flourishing of organised resistance against austerity and the dominance of the free market over all aspects of life has done little to buck an overall trend of decreasing membership in political parties and similar organisations. Few informal organisational forms on the Left have fared better. However, these diminishing structures have certain key characteristics in common and there are suggestions of alternative political forms emerging in their stead. This article argues that such periods of decomposition, far from being an indication of failure, are an important and desirable element of social movement that can and should be deliberately factored in to political organising. Building from the notion that the basis of social change is the ability to move out of existing institutions, the article explores three methodologies of decomposition that bridge the divides between mythology, poetry, and political theory: Negative Capability, Eeriness, and the surrealist game.     

Scaling limits for the transient phase of local Metropolis–Hastings algorithms

Summary.  The paper considers high dimensional Metropolis and Langevin algorithms in their initial transient phase. In stationarity, these algorithms are well understood and it is now well known how to scale their proposal distribution variances. For the random-walk Metropolis algorithm, convergence during the transient phase is extremely regular—to the extent that the algo-rithm's sample path actually resembles a deterministic trajectory. In contrast, the Langevin algorithm with variance scaled to be optimal for stationarity performs rather erratically. We give weak convergence results which explain both of these types of behaviour and practical guidance on implementation based on our theory.     

Racism,class ethos and place: the value of context in narratives about asylum‐seekers

The British public view asylum‐seekers in generally negative terms. Yet whilst there are an abundance of reports and opinion polls that measure levels of hostility in order to fuel political ‘debate’ very little is known about how asylum seekers are spoken about in more quotidian contexts. Based on an ethnographic study of racism in Southend‐on‐Sea, Essex this paper identifies two kinds of narrative (abstract truths and context‐dependent stories) commonly used by established members of the community to speak about asylum‐seekers. The paper then seeks to explain why more affluent, suburban residents of the town tend to draw upon the abstract narrative while less wealthy, centrally located residents are more likely to regale context‐dependent stories about asylum seekers. An explanation for this socio‐spatial phenomenon is constructed around a Bourdieusian theory of practice that unravels local class relations and maps out a field for local symbolic prestige. Finally this microanalysis is used as a springboard to consider the wider relationship between racist narratives and social and cultural reproduction.     

The Influence of Context on the Strategic Decision‐Making Process: A Review of the Literature

This paper critically reviews the strategic decision‐making process literature, with a specific focus on the effects of context. Context refers to the top management team, strategic decision‐specific characteristics, the external environment and firm characteristics. This literature review also develops an illustrative framework that incorporates these four different categories of contextual variables that influence the strategic decision‐making process. As a result of the variety and pervasiveness of contextual variables featured within the literature, a comprehensive and up‐to‐date review is essential for organizing and synthesizing the extant literature to explicate an agenda for future research. The purpose of this literature review is threefold: first, to critically review the strategic decision‐making process literature to highlight the underlying themes, issues, tensions and debates in the field; second, to identify the opportunities for future theory development; and third, to state the methodological implications arising from this review.