Esther Berner & Rainer Diaz-Bone (2026)

In Rainer Diaz-Bone & Guillemette de Larquier (eds.), Handbook of economics and sociology of conventions. Cham: Springer, Online first

Abstract. Fashion, textiles, and clothing have been continuously an object under study in the approach of economics and sociology of conventions (EC/SC). The production, distribution, and consumption of clothes and other fashionable goods have been studied in different ways to understand their value as well as the institutional settings in which the production of fashion is embedded. The foundational models of EC/SC have been applied to the study of fashion worlds as “worlds of production” or “orders of worth.” Fashion trends, dress styles, and ways of clothing are also part of cultural identities, historical narrations, and lifestyles which are evaluated, criticized, and justified. The production of textiles and clothes is organized in regional economies as well as in global value chains, which have been studied by scholars in the field of EC/SC, too. In contemporary capitalism, it is primarily fashion as a luxury good that has been addressed by EC/SC employing the concept of “enrichment.” Also, fashion and its industry are contested and criticized, why practices of critique and justification are important for the social construction of fashion’s values. The chapter presents how EC/SC has focused on fashion and its different branches, but also the production of textiles and clothing, and surveys its main contributions.

Lien/Link

Salma Sharifi Khajedehi, Morteza Namvar, Ali Intezari & Saeed Akhlaghpour (2026)

PACIS 2026 Proceedings. Conference papers, 6.

Lien / Link

Convention Theory and Culture

Rainer Diaz-Bone (2026)

In: In: Moebius, S., Nungesser, F., Scherke, K. (eds) Handbuch Kultursoziologie. Springer VS, Wiesbaden. Online first.

Zusammenfassung. Die Soziologie und Ökonomie der Konventionen (kurz Konventionentheorie oder EC/SC) stellt einen komplexen neopragmatischen Institutionalismus dar, der eine Reihe von Perspektiven und Konzepten einbringt, die für die Analyse von Kultur, kulturellen Praktiken und kulturellen Institutionen geeignet sind. In einer Vielzahl von Studien ist ein ganzes Spektrum von Kunst- und Kulturwelten untersucht worden. Das vorliegende Kapitel führt in die Konventionentheorie ein und gibt einen Überblick über Konzepte und Anwendungen. Das Kapitel skizziert, wie sich die Konventionentheorie als zeitgenössische Kultursoziologie positioniert hat.

Abstract. The sociology and economics of conventions (convention theory or EC/SC for short) represents a complex form of neopragmatic institutionalism that incorporates a range of perspectives and concepts suitable for the analysis of culture, cultural practices, and cultural institutions. A wide range of art and cultural worlds has been examined in numerous studies. This chapter introduces convention theory and provides an overview of its concepts and applications. The chapter outlines how convention theory has established itself as a contemporary sociological approach to culture.

Lien / Link

Eeva Luhtakallio (2026)

Journal of Political Power. Online first, open access.

Abstract. The article presents a new conceptualization of politicization as a process with three components: a conflict, a public, and formatting that renders the conflict recognizable to others. This conceptualization addresses current theory’s difficulties in recognizing emergent political action, especially when short lived or using unconventional forms of argumentation. Drawing on Laurent Thévenot’s and Judith Butler’s work, this formulation focuses especially on the notion of formatting, largely overlooked by prior accounts of politicization. Two ethnographic examples illustrate how formatting a conflict matters particularly amid fragile beginnings of politics, yet the three part conceptualization should be fruitful for analyzing any kind of emergent politics.

Lien / Link

Seyithan Özer (2026)

Housing Studies. Online first, open access

Abstract. Housing standards are re-emerging as central instruments for raising dwelling quality, yet they are being introduced into planning systems reshaped by decades of market-oriented reform. This article examines why England’s Nationally Described Space Standard (NDSS), introduced in 2015, achieved only limited adoption despite broad support. Drawing on the convention theory, it shows how the market-oriented planning system positioned private actors to shape the form of housing standards and the conditions of their implementation—including standards introduced precisely to correct the failures of that market. The analysis traces this through the Housing Standards Review consultation. The result was a standard that acknowledged civic concerns in principle while making their realization conditional on market approval. The analysis reveals how institutional architectures convert structural advantage into regulatory outcomes independently of stakeholder preferences and suggests that the effectiveness of standards addressing climate change, building safety, and housing quality will depend less on their technical ambition than on whether the institutional conditions through which they are authorized and applied can sustain non-market priorities.

Lien / Link

Catarina Delaunay & Luís Gouveia (2026)

Health: An Interdisciplinary Journal for the Social Study of Health, Illness and Medicine, Online first, open access.

Abstract. Since the 1990s, marked by Health’s inaugural issue and the publication of Boltanski and Thévenot’s De la justification, the Sociology of Health and Medicine has been shaped by traditions rooted in Critical Sociology, particularly Foucauldian, Marxist, and Bourdieusian paradigms. These frameworks have offered incisive critiques of power, biopolitics, medicalization, and neoliberal reframing of health responsibility. Concurrently, another sociological movement emerged through the development of French Pragmatic Sociology, or the “sociology of critical capacity.” By foregrounding actors’ justifications, plural conceptions of worth, and regimes of engagement, it reorients the analysis from structural domination to situated critique, one that is attuned to the complexity, uncertainty, and ambivalence of health-related action. It enables a relational, context-sensitive approach to the lived experiences of patients and professionals as they engage with institutional arrangements and enact critique within situated action. Drawing on a non-exhaustive, interpretive review of empirical studies engaging with Pragmatic Sociology, particularly in healthcare controversies, clinical decision-making, patient–professional interactions, and health innovation, this article shows how this perspective fosters nuanced understandings of normativity, critique, and coordination in health practices. It traces this theoretical realignment and argues that Pragmatic Sociology offers a compelling, flexible, and still underutilized epistemological and methodological framework for health research, sustaining and extending critique through an empirically grounded analysis.

Lien / Link

Diversified Individuality? Human Resources and Organization in a Time of Change

Julia Brandl (2026)

In: Maja Apelt, Ingo Bode, Raimund Hasse, Uli Meyer, Victoria v. Groddeck, Maximiliane Wilkesmann & Arnold Windeler eds. Handbuch Organisationssoziologie. Wiesbaden: Springer VS, pp. 505-520.

Zusammenfassung. Die Zusammensetzung der Beschäftigten ist eine Grundfrage der betrieblichen Beschäftigungspolitik. Der vorliegende Beitrag skizziert, wie die instrumentell ausgerichtete Diskussion zu Diversitätsmanagement diese Frage behandelt, und nutzt konzeptionelle Überlegungen und empirische Befunde aus der organisationssoziologischen Forschung, um Triebkräfte des Diversitätsmanagements sowie Unschärfen und Ungereimtheiten zu reflektieren. Damit soll das Diagnosepotenzial der Organisationssoziologie im Bereich des Diversitätsmanagements veranschaulicht werden.

Abstract. The composition of the workforce is a fundamental issue in corporate employment policy. This article outlines how the instrumentally oriented discussion on diversity management addresses this issue and draws on conceptual considerations and empirical findings from organizational sociology research to reflect on the driving forces behind diversity management as well as its ambiguities and inconsistencies. The aim is to illustrate the diagnostic potential of organizational sociology in the field of diversity management.

Lien / Link

Organizations, Conventions, and Criticism: French Neopragmatism in Organizational Research

Lisa Knoll (2026)

In: Maja Apelt, Ingo Bode, Raimund Hasse, Uli Meyer, Victoria v. Groddeck, Maximiliane Wilkesmann & Arnold Windeler eds. Handbuch Organisationssoziologie. Wiesbaden: Springer VS, pp. 395–410

Zusammenfassung. Die französische Économie des conventions ist in der Wirtschaftssoziologie beheimatet, hält aber auch auch für die Organisationssoziologie wichtige Perspektiven bereit. Sie macht sichtbar, dass die Organisation der Wirtschaft auf vielfältige Weise möglich ist und erweitert so klassische Vorstellungen von „der Organisation“, die auch Märkte miteinschließt. Ins Zentrum des analytischen Interesses geraten die Techniken des Organisierens, die Regeln und Verordnungen, Ratgeber und Handlungsanweisungen, sowie der permanente Streit, der um sie geführt wird. Organisation erscheint so als Manöver gegen und für die Kritik. Das Anwachsen der Bürokratie in Zeiten ihres postulierten Abbaus wird so erklärlich.

Abstract. The French Économie des conventions is rooted in the sociology of economics, but it also offers important perspectives for the sociology of organizations. It highlights that the economy can be organized in a variety of ways, thereby expanding classical conceptions of “organization” to include markets as well. The focus of analytical interest is on the techniques of organization—the rules and regulations, guides, and instructions—as well as the ongoing disputes surrounding them. Organization thus appears as a maneuver both against and in favor of criticism. This explains the growth of bureaucracy at a time when its reduction is being called for.

Lien /Link

Tomi Lehtimäki (2026)

European Journal of Social Theory. Online first, open access.

Abstract. This article critically examines French pragmatic sociology and how it can operate as an analytical framework for understanding human–animal relations. While pragmatic sociology specifically accounts for nonhuman elements, it grounds its approach in the notion of common humanity, which excludes nonhuman animals. After identifying this tension, the article contrasts common humanity to the critique animal rights theorizing has directed at such humanistic starting points. This alternative form of commonality, promoted by animal rights, is based on sentience. Instead of focusing on various nonhumans in general, commonality based on sentience focuses on the shared capacities between humans and nonhuman animals. Following this, the article examines how the boundaries of such sentient commonality are demarcated and how sentience could operate in situational justifications. The article concludes that pragmatic sociology holds the potential to work as a promising analytical framework for analyzing human–animal relations if it can account for this new form of commonality.

Lien / Link

Umut Yener Kara & Burcu Şimşek (2026)

Quality and Quantity. Online first, pp. 1-23.

Abstract. This article argues for a methodological extension of digital controversy analysis to digital metrics by presenting a case study of user reviews for The Last of Us Part II on Metacritic. While digital controversy analysis is generally used to study public debates on science and technology, we contend that it can be naturally adapted to study controversial cases of evaluation and quantification for a more nuanced understanding of how users evaluate and quantify their judgments at the interface of digital evaluative infrastructures. To demonstrate our approach, we collected user reviews of The Last of Us Part II on Metacritic and analyzed them using a combination of sentiment analysis, semantic network analysis and thematic analysis. We found that most users adopted competitive and dichotomous evaluation practices, affectively polarized around issues related to politics and fandom. In this context, they frequently chose extreme scores with the intention of “balancing” the average score, a practice that we contend is deeply intertwined with Metacritic’s evaluation infrastructure and culture. In the controversy, numerical ratings not only served as one topic of the controversy but also served as the primary means through which the controversy was enacted. In this regard, our methodological approach allowed us to capture a sym-metrical dimension between qualitative judgements and quantitative ratings.

Lien / Link

Gary Herrigel & Patrick Feuerstein (2026)

Review of Social Economy. pp. 1-40.

Abstract. This paper deals with a specific case in the contemporary crisis of globalization. It examines the way in which rules, roles, and conventions governing cocoa production in Ghana have evolved over time. Using a theoretical approach to global exchange rooted in the economy of conventions, economic anthropology, and pragmatism-inspired economic sociology, the paper views exchange as a form of social cooperation that requires rules and conventions to make it possible. We show that the specific arrangements that have evolved in the cocoa industry in Ghana appear today to be self-undermining. As older strategies exhaust themselves, neither incumbent practices nor any feature of contending alternative strategies for organizing global cocoa exchange represent an obvious ‘most efficient’ option for producers. The market is not going to decide how Ghana manages the reality of its exhausted cocoa industry. Only extra-economic deliberation and struggle over lines of specialization and cooperation in exchange will.

Lien / Link

Rainer Diaz-Bone (2026)

In Rainer Diaz-Bone & Guillemette de Larquier (eds.), Handbook of economics and sociology of conventions. Cham: Springer, Online first

Abstract. Economics and sociology of conventions (in short EC/SC or convention theory) has a huge body of research on food and agriculture. The chapter presents the beginning of this research field and its importance for the interdisciplinary and international establishment of EC/SC since the early 1990s. EC/SC has delivered the foundations for studies in disciplines such as economic geography, economic sociology, or institutional analysis applied to food and agricultural analysis. EC/SC’s most important theoretical models developed by Michael Storper and Robert Salais (worlds of production), Luc Boltanski and Laurent Thévenot (orders of worth and quality conventions), or Boltanski and Arnaud Esquerre (enrichment economy) are widely employed in this research field. The chapter focuses on seminal research on cheese (camembert), coffee, and wine. Thereby the role of conventions for the social construction of food quality and food categories is presented. A main aim of the chapter is to introduce the principal concepts of EC/SC to demonstrate its huge range of existing and possible applications in the analysis of food, food-related practices, and structures of food markets and food branches. EC/SC links the analysis of food production, food distribution, and food consumption with the analysis of food evaluation and valorization. For this, EC/SC’s research on eating out and restaurants is of importance, because it completes the production perspective with a stronger emphasis on institutions for the consumption of food.

Lien / Link

Stefan Wahlen, Bärbel Mahr, Gunnar Vittersø, Hanne Torjusen, Mattia Andreola & Sabina Kuraj (2026)

International Journal of Sociology of Agriculture and Food, 32(1), pp. 283-300. Open access.

Abstract. This paper examines how highly invested food consumers in in Italy, Germany and Norway navigate the tensions between cultural food traditions and environmental sustainability. Drawing on French conventions theory and focus group discussions, we examine how these consumers justify their food choices in light of biocultural diversity – understood as the interplay between food traditions, ecological concerns, and the use of natural resources. Our analysis reveals three primary justification frameworks, or ‘worlds of worth’: the Domestic World, which is grounded in tradition and trust-based relationships with producers; the Green World, which focuses on ecological responsibility; and the Inspired World, which prioritises creativity and personal fulfilment. While these worlds often coexist in everyday food practices, they also generate conflicts, for example between ethical ideals and convenience, or sustainability and cultural heritage. Italian participants in our study emphasised domestic and convivial food traditions, Germans expressed a strong commitment to creative and waste-conscious eating, and Norwegians balanced ecological awareness with self-sufficiency and national food identity. Our findings demonstrate that food choices are not shaped by fixed national cultures, but by context-dependent justifications reflecting multiple, and sometimes conflicting, values. We conclude by emphasising the importance of acknowledging these tensions in order to better integrate cultural and environmental priorities in sustainable food systems.

Extract: “This paper explores the connections between eating culturally specific foods and the natural world. A particular focus is on how engaged eaters justify their food at critical moments in the relationship between cultural conventions and natural resources. We draw on the work of Boltanski and Thévenot (2006/1991) to examine critical moments of justification, or the ’conventions’ that shape social interactions, economic institutions and the governance of food systems. Their theory of  conventions provides a valuable analytical framework for studying the complex and ever-changing relationships between social norms, cultural values, economic practices, and the use of natural resources within food systems (Ponte 2016). It allows for an examination of the relationship between cultural norms related to ’good food’ and the broader issue of biodiversity and natural resource use. The theory is also relevant for understanding how conventions evolve over time, leading to different modes of coordination between food chain actors and collective expectations about food quality. We analyse data from focus groups with engaged eaters involved in food initiatives, to compare the cultural conventions of eating in Italy, Norway and Germany, and how these engaged eaters reflect broader concerns about natural resources and biodiversity. This enables us to compare tensions and conflicts in consumer conventions around ‘good food’, and to explore how these conventions shape and are shaped by the biological realities of food production. For example, while traditional meals in many European countries are culturally specific and often centred around meat, recent dietary trends such as the Planetary Health Diet challenge these conventions by promoting plant-based diets. Such changes in dietary habits may also be reflected in a shift towards increased cultivation of vegetables and legumes as alternative sources of proteins.” (p. 284)

Lien / Link

Manuel Cervera-Marzal & Bruno Frère (2026)

Sociology Lens, pp. 1-11

Abstract. This study is concerned with the notion of “grammar” as it was developed at the core of Luc Boltanski and Laurent Thévenot’s pragmatic sociology. This notion is particularly useful for articulating the normative elements that motivate and justify social action. But a specific case—that of the civil disobedience—has led us to identify an epistemological difficulty that this paradigm cannot successfully resolve in its current state. This case raises a broader question: how can we understand the fact that the common goods invoked by actors to justify their actions do not always correspond to the characteristics of the actions that sociologists are able to observe? To achieve this resolution, and thus, to reverse our fieldwork out of the theoretical impasse into which pragmatic sociology risks driving it, we suggest that the paradigm’s concept of grammar should be modified by drawing on Noam Chomsky’s concept of generative grammar and Ludwig Wittgenstein’s reflections on rules and language games.

Lien / Link

To use or not to use neonicotinoids? An analysis of disputes over their use by beet growers based on modes of action

Claude Compagnone (2026)

Revue d’éthique et de théologie morale, 332(2), pp. 31-47

Résumé. Cet article vise à s’interroger sur la manière dont, aujourd’hui en France, les discours et les actions se structurent dans l’espace public national autour de l’usage des néonicotinoïdes par les producteurs de betterave. S’appuyant sur les régimes d’actions « tactique-stratégique » et « de la justification », il montre comment des coups et contrecoups se succèdent dans le temps, depuis plus d’une vingtaine d’années, entre les défenseurs et les contempteurs de cet usage, et comment les uns et les autres se réfèrent, pour ce faire, à des principes supérieurs communs différents. Les événements décrits tiennent plus de la guerre larvée, avec une succession d’opérations tactiques et de moments de paix armée, et rendent compte d’une certaine incapacité politique à établir des compromis à même de permettre la construction d’une autre réalité.

Abstract. This article sets out to examine current French discourse and actions in the national public sphere concerning the use of neonicotinoids by beet producers. Drawing on the “tactical-strategic” and “justification” approaches, we narrate more than twenty years of debate between defenders and detractors of this practice, showing how both sides rely on different foundational principles. The events described herein resemble a sort of low-intensity war, with a succession of tactical operations and periods of armed peace, and reflect a certain political inability to reach compromises that would enable the construction of a different reality.

Lien / Link