Sociological Theory 31(1)

Sociological Theory, December 2013: Volume 31, Issue 4

Gender and Public Talk: Accounting for Women’s Variable Participation in the Public Sphere
Francesca Polletta and Pang Ching Bobby Chen

This article develops a theory of the gendered character of public talk as a way to account for women’s variable participation in the settings that make up the public sphere. Public settings for citizen talk such as radio call-in shows, social networking sites, letters to the editor, and town hall meetings are culturally coded female or male. In feminized settings, where the people who organize public talk are from feminized professions and where the favored modes of talk and action emphasize stereotypically feminine values, women are likely to be as active and influential participants as men. We test this proposition by way of an examination of the organized public deliberative forums in which many Americans today discuss policy issues. We show that women truly are equal participants in these forums. We account for this surprising development by demonstrating the female gendered character of the contemporary field of organized public deliberation.

Bourdieu, Marx, and Capital: A Critique of the Extension Model
Mathieu Hikaru Desan

It has been claimed that in extending its critical problematic to the cultural sphere, Pierre Bourdieu transcends the economism of Marx’s concept of capital. I argue that this claim must be rejected. First, I show that Marx’s concept of capital was not economistic. Second, I trace Bourdieu’s changing understanding of capital, showing how it became less compatible with Marx’s over time. Third, I point out ambiguities in Bourdieu’s concept of capital that, despite gestures toward a Marxist understanding of capital, further distance him from Marx. Fourth, I argue that Bourdieu tends to take the economic field and economic capital for granted, unlike Marx. I conclude that if different forms of capital are but extended forms of economic capital, the notion of economic capital that they extend is not a Marxist one.

Toward a Sociology of Public Demonstrations
Claude Rosental

This paper develops a social-theoretical approach to public demonstrations (e.g., software demos, the performances of “market pitchers,” even street protests). Public demonstrations are often viewed as proofs, persuasion tools, and theatrical performances. I argue that they play a larger set of roles in social life. Depending the spaces of their enactment, they may serve as transactional and coordination devices, cognitive and relational tools, mobilization and competition apparatuses, observatories for demonstrators, and resources for project design, management, and assessment. They constitute an important form of interaction and help to structure social relationships. My argument is based on investigations into the uses of public demonstrations by the European Commission and U.S. scientists and engineers. These studies illustrate how “demo-cracies”—regimes that use public demonstrations for the management of public affairs—have developed in industrial and postindustrial societies.

The Worldwide Expansion of "Organization"
John W. Meyer and Patricia Bromley

We offer an institutional explanation for the contemporary expansion of formal organization—in numbers, internal complexity, social domains, and national contexts. Much expansion lies in areas far beyond the traditional foci on technical production or political power, such as protecting the environment, promoting marginalized groups, or behaving with transparency. We argue that expansion is supported by widespread cultural rationalization in a stateless and liberal global society, characterized by scientism, rights and empowerment discourses, and an explosion of education. These cultural changes are transmitted through legal, accounting, and professionalization principles, driving the creation of new organizations and the elaboration of existing ones. The resulting organizations are constructed to be proper social actors as much as functionally effective entities. They are painted as autonomous and integrated but depend heavily on external definitions to sustain this depiction. So expansion creates organizations that are, whatever their actual effectiveness, structurally nonrational. We advance institutional theories of social organization in three main ways. First, we give an account of the expansive rise of “organization” rooted in rapid worldwide cultural rationalization. Second, we explain the construction of contemporary organizations as purposive actors, rather than passive bureaucracies. Third, we show how the expanded actorhood of the contemporary organization, and the associated interpenetration with the environment, dialectically generate structures far removed from instrumental rationality.