Producing expert capital: how opposing same-sex marriage experts dominate fields in the United States and France

ABSTRACT

This paper examines experts testifying before U.S. and French courts and legislatures on same-sex marriage debates between 1990 and 2013. Experts provide special weight to political arguments, which I call expert capital. For this reason, social movements and decision-makers solicit them. Yet, because of specific national conditions, this article shows that not all experts have the capacity to use their respective academic and professional resources to impact policymaking. Drawing on 71 in-depth interviews and ethnographic observation in both the U.S. and France, I analyze how progressive and conservative experts have struggled for dominance in their fields. Results show that American progressive experts have achieved a degree of power in their fields as their conservative counterparts turn to resources outside the academic mainstream. In France, progressives have only recently challenged conservatives’ dominant position. This power distribution is due to: 1) size and centralization of knowledge regimes; 2) disciplinary and university reactions to research on gender and sexuality; 3) academic and professional organization strength; 4) social acceptance of gay families; and, 5) division among allied experts. These findings show that nationally specific knowledge production fields constrain and enable the ability of experts to provide expert capital to their activist and decision-maker allies.

KEYWORDS:

• Experts
• expert capital
• social movements
• same-sex marriage
• United States
• France

Acknowledgments

This research was supported by funding from the National Science Foundation (grant SES 1226663), the Bourse Chateaubriand of the Ministère des affaires étrangères de France and the Fulbright Commission, the UCLA Center for European and Eurasian Studies, and the UCLA Graduate Division’s Dissertation Year Fellowship program. My sincere thanks goes to the interviewees for sharing their experiences, to the reviewers and editors at Social Movement Studies for their constructive criticism, and to the members of my dissertation committee, chaired by Abigail Saguy, for their guidance.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. Hollingsworth v. Perry, 133 S. Ct. 2652 (2013); DeBoer v. Snyder, 973 F. Supp. 2d 757, 775 (E.D. Mich. 2014).

2. Obergefell v. Hodges, 135 S. Ct. 1039 (2015).

3. Brief of The American Sociological Association as Amicus Curiae in Support of Perry and Windsor, Hollingsworth v. Perry and Windsor v. Bipartisan Legal Advisory Board, 570 U.S. 12–144 (2013).

4. Sources: Gallup, http://www.gallup.com/poll/170801/americans-say-sex-couples-entitled-adopt.aspx?utm_source=marriage&utm_medium=search&utm_campaign=tiles; Copyright © 2015 Gallup, Inc. All rights reserved; Ifop, http://www.ifop.com/?option=com_publication&type=poll&id=2839; Copyright © 2015 Ifop, Inc. All rights reserved.

5. See for example: Brief of Robert P. George, Sherif Girgis, and Ryan T. Anderson as Amici Curiae in Support of Hollingsworth and Bipartisan Legal Advisory Board, Hollingsworth v. Perry and Windsor v. Bipartisan Legal Advisory Board, 570 U.S. 12–144 (2013).

6. Perry v. Schwarzenneger 274 F. Supp. 4 (U.S. D.C. N. CA. 2010).

7. http://respectmyresearch.org/scientists/dr-judith-stacey/. Accessed 10/18/2015. See also http://www.prweb.com/releases/2006/07/prweb412920.htm. Accessed 06/25/2017.

8. Ifop, http://www.ifop.com/media/poll/3798-1-study_file.pdf; Copyright © 2017 Ifop, Inc. All rights reserved.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Science Foundation [SES 1226663];

Notes on contributors

Michael Stambolis-Ruhstorfer

Michael Stambolis-Ruhstorfer is a sociologist of law, knowledge, culture, gender, and sexuality. He is an assistant professor (maître de conférences) in American studies at the Université Bordeaux Montaigne.