Analysing political ideas and political action

Abstract

This paper examines the relevance of Boltanski and Thévenot's newly translated book, On justification, to the analysis of political ideas and political action. While situating the work of the authors within its initial intellectual context, namely the ‘economics of conventions’, it shows that one of the key contributions of the ‘sociology of justification’ lies in the answers it brings to two fundamental, as yet unresolved, questions in political science and political sociology: first, how is it possible to identify those ideas which are politically relevant? Second, how is it possible to capture the dynamics of public ideas? After outlining the sources of the quandaries faced within political science and political sociology as regards these two questions, the conceptual framework of Boltanski and Thévenot is presented and explained, and research perspectives suggested. This article argues that On justification provides a highly engaging, stimulating and empirically useful contribution to current debates in social and political theory around the dynamics of political arguments and ideas.

Keywords:

• Boltanski
• Thévenot
• ideas
• action
• political culture

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Tom Oshorne, Willie Watts-Miller and the two anonymous reviewers for their help and comments.

Notes

1. In other works, Boltanski and Thévenot have explored other forms of social interactions than the regime of justice which is at the centre of On Justification, such as the regime of agapé, the regime of violence and the regime of familiarity (see, for instance, Boltanski, 1990).

2. In a book published in 1990, that is, after the first version of the model of the ‘orders of worth’ had come out (see Boltanski & Thévenot, 1987), Boltanski explained why they had come to privilege the term ‘worth’ over ‘value’ by outlining three points: values are not necessarily orientated towards justice (e.g. there are aesthetic values); values are too often derived from random opinions expressed by interviewees answering closed questions within surveys, thereby perpetuating the idea of both an innumerability and arbitrariness of values; the worth that is ascribed to a person is not attached to it in a substantial way in the model, contrary to explanatory schemes postulating the internalization by social actors of the values of their group (see Boltanski, 1990, pp. 80–1).

3. Thus the established hierarchies are always only provisional, since the ascribed qualities and positions are not permanently attached to the persons (following what the authors call the ‘principle of common humanity’). The existence of a fundamental equality between individuals indeed represents a key tenet of democratic societies.

4. Of course, I am here (and in the following paragraphs) using the term ‘polity’ in its usual sense and not in the particular meaning that Boltanski and Thévenot have given it in their work.

5. Their ‘project departs from this tradition, however, in its concern for dealing with justification in a single framework, whether a technical act of production or moral behaviour is at stake’ (2006, p. 70). From this point of view, they overcome the traditional Aristotelian distinction between techné and phronèsis, that is, between ‘technical’ and ‘practical’ judgements.

6. Lara (1997) has indeed argued that it was not the case. He asserted that such aim could only be achieved through the elaboration of a new philosophy of the mind, such as the one currently emerging out of the work of the French philosopher V. Descombes.