A Service of Leibniz-Informationszentrum econstor Wirtschaft Leibniz Information Centre Make Your Publications Visible. zbw for Economics Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies (Cologne) (Ed.) Periodical Part economic sociology_the european electronic newsletter, Volume 11, Number 1-3 economic sociology_the european electronic newsletter Provided in Cooperation with: Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies (MPIfG), Cologne Suggested Citation: Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies (Cologne) (Ed.) (2009) : economic sociology_the european electronic newsletter, Volume 11, Number 1-3, economic sociology_the european electronic newsletter, ISSN 1871-3351, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies (MPIfG), Cologne, Vol. 11, Iss. 1-3 This Version is available at: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/155928 Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen: Terms of use: Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Documents in EconStor may be saved and copied for your Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden. personal and scholarly purposes. Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle You are not to copy documents for public or commercial Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich purposes, to exhibit the documents publicly, to make them machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen. publicly available on the internet, or to distribute or otherwise use the documents in public. Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, If the documents have been made available under an Open gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort Content Licence (especially Creative Commons Licences), you genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. may exercise further usage rights as specified in the indicated licence. www.econstor.eu economic sociology_ the european electronic newsletter Vol ume 11, N umber 3 | July 20 10 11.3 Editor Philippe Steiner, Université de Paris-Sorbonne Book Review Editors Sascha Münnich and Mark Lutter, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies Editorial Board Patrik Aspers, Stockholm University Jens Beckert, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies, Cologne Johan Heilbron, Centre de Sociologie Européenne, Paris Richard Swedberg, Cornell University, Ithaca Table of Contents Note from the editor _2 A Grammar of Performance | by Florence Jany-Catrice_3 Unemployment, A Social Construction by Nadya Araujo Guimarães, Didier Demazière, Helen Hirata and Kurumi Sugita_10 The Solidarity Economy | by Jean Louis Laville_25 The “Social Construction of the Market” in a Transitional Economy by Louis Augustin-Jean_33 Solidarity and Social Networks by Anna Cristina Braga Martes and Dimitri Fazito_43 Issues of Chinese Economic Sociology | by Laurence Roulleau-Berger_54 Interview with Marion Fourcade _66 Book Reviews_ 69 PhD Projects_ 77 http://econsoc.mpifg.de Note from the editor 2 Note from the editor Dear reader, In the interview section, Marion Fourcade goes back over her formative years and considers some of the results and outcomes of her important book ( Economists and Socie- In the opening paper, Florence Jany-Catrice analyses the ties. Discipline and Profession in the United States, Britain idea of performance. Taking stock of studies on the socio- and France ) recently published by Princeton University economy of services she explains some of the flaws con- Press. In a period of time in which major economists – see veyed by this word and suggests some new and challeng- for example chapter 9 of Joseph Stiglitz’s Freefall. America, ing views in order to have a better understanding of this Free Markets, and the Sinking of the World Economy – crucial dimension of our present economic activity. A claim that after the recent period of market fundamental- socio-economic approach or Économie sociale is also at the ism, reforming economics is one of the steps toward reform- basis of Jean-Louis Laville’s paper in which he argues that ing the economy, it is worth considering the issue of how democratic solidarity is a possible solution to the diffusion economic theory was made what it is in these three major of the market society. countries when the development of economics is at stake. Further, we have in this issue a set of papers dealing with This is our last issue as editors. We would like to thank all several facets of the job market using a comparative ap- the contributors to Volume 11 of Economic Sociology. The proach. Nadya Guimarães, Didier Demazière, Helena Hirata European Newsletter and the staff in Cologne, with a spe- and Kurumi Sujita examine the situation and the related cial mention to Christina Glasmacher. The next editor of social representations of unemployed people in three ma- the Newsletter is Nigel Dodd to whom should be sent any jor cities (São Paulo, Paris and Tokyo). Ana Braga Martes material for the November issue ( [email protected] ). In and Dimitri Fazito compare the nature of social networks the present monetary and financial turmoil, his deep knowl- of Brazilian emigrants in the United States and Bolivia; their edge of the sociology of money will be most relevant. study illustrates how important the social contexts of emi- gration are, whether in Brazil or in the country of emigra- With best wishes for a fruitful and pleasant summer, tion. Nicolas Milicet Finally, this issue offers a bird’s eye view of the sociology of [email protected] economic life in Asia. Louis Augustin-Jean’s study is a wonderful example of what we would call the socio- Sidonie Naulin political construction of the market in the case of the sugar [email protected] industry in Southern China. Laurence Roulleau-Berger offers a general overview of socio-economic research in Philippe Steiner contemporary Chinese sociology. [email protected] economic sociology_the european electronic newsletter Volume 11, Number 3 (July 2010) A Grammar of Performance 3 A Grammar of Performance BBByBy Florence JanyJany----CatriceCatriceCatrice1111 dominated by service industries (§II.); the growing indi- vidualisation of employment relationships (§III); the ‘mod- ernisation’ of public services (§IV); and the expansion of I. Etymological duality quantification (§V). The practices associated with the evaluation and measurement of performance at work can The etymological duality of the word ‘performance’ is a perhaps be seen as the most highly developed manifesta- source of both semantic richness and ambiguities. On the tion of these four simultaneous changes. This being so, one hand, the verb ‘to perform’ means to function, oper- and although certain forms are dominant in contemporary ate or behave in a particular way, and although it was capitalism, the notion of performance has retained its originally limited to the functioning of animals or ma- pluralistic nature with regard to both its construction and chines, its meaning is no longer restricted in this way and the systems put in place to assess it. can be extended to any being or situation 2. Moreover, in the sense of ‘to accomplish’, it means to carry out or com- II. Productivity in services: an elusive plete a task, giving it a dynamic effect referring to both the notion action and the result of that action. The transformation of industrial economies and production On the other hand, the word’s Latin etymology gives it a systems into service economies has changed the mode of meaning more akin to the (still positive) idea of perfection. coordination of agents and the arrangements for incen- This idea relates more to a quality of an individual and in tivising employees, in particular because everything coming this case denotes a task or situation requiring exceptional under the heading of ‘production’ is less clearly defined qualities, the public manifestation of capabilities, etc. In and more determined by convention. The introduction of this sense, performance refers not so much to an action as arrangements for coordinating and incentivising employees to the outcome of an action. often seems to be a (limited) response to the difficulties of mechanically applying the productivity indicators used in Thus, all things considered, this ambiguity of meaning manufacturing industry (§2.1.), in particular because of the arises out of the fact that ‘performance’ denotes, in turn conventions associated with the ‘product’ or output of and with increasing degrees of overlap, both the results of service activities (§2.2.). an action and the optimisation processes involved in attain- ing those results. 2.1. The difficulty of using the notion of productivity in service economies In the sphere of work and employment, ‘performance at work’, although now in widespread use, is a relatively The Fordist era was underpinned by a regime aimed at recent expression and has retained, through successive increasing production (in volume terms) and distributing additions, these two meanings of performance. It is fairly the fruits of the growth in output on the basis of a so- widely regarded as one element in a new way of displaying called Fordist compromise. This compromise rested on a commitment to paid work; the tools used to measure per- combination of objectified indicators of industrial produc- formance at work have become the gateways to self- tivity, on the one hand, and of principles of redistributive commitment, even serving, if need be, as the basis for new justice, on the other. The objectified