At the 13th congress of the Association française d’économie politique (AFEP) [French Political Economy Association], held in Montpellier from July 3 to 5, 2024, a plenary session organized by Nicolas Postel (University of Lille) and Thomas Lamarche (University of Paris City) focused on collective publications in the field of institutionalist economics. The session was entitled “Institutionalist syntheses, what synthesis exercises teach us about institutionalism”.

Four collective publications were presented by a member of each editorial team: (1) Le Grand manuel d’économie politique presented by Anaïs Henneguelle (University of Paris City); (2) Théorie de la régulation, un nouvel état des savoirs presented by Thomas Lamarche (University of Paris City); (3) L’économie post-keynésienne, Histoires théories et politiques presented by Jean-François Ponsot (University Grenoble Alpes); and (4) the Handbook of economics and sociology of conventions presented by Guillemette de Larquier (University of Lille).

Nicolas Postel asked each speaker to explain the origin of his or her project and its position in the field of institutionalism in economics (in particular, its contribution). This provided an opportunity to promote the Handbook, co-edited by Rainer Diaz-Bone (University of Lucerne) and Guillemette de Larquier, and to recall what convention theory can contribute to other institutionalist approaches (and vice-versa).

Guillemette de Larquier introduces the Handbook as a response to the lack of introductory works on the economics and sociology of conventions (EC/SC) in French, and a fortiori in English for an international audience. When Master or PhD students want to familiarize themselves with EC/SC, there is no single text to recommend. Within EC/SC there are a number of authors who can be described as founders. EC/SC is not a school, but a research program in which researchers, mainly economists and sociologists, develop their own analyses. This plurality makes it difficult for a novice student, or even a researcher from outside the program, to identify what the core of EC/SC is.

Rainer Diaz-Bone and Guillemette de Larquier’s aim was to publish the first handbook introducing EC/SC to an international and interdisciplinary scholarship. It systematizes and presents the results of four decades of EC/SC’s research and it includes foundations, applications, comparisons, and methods. The handbook comprises more than a hundred chapters, divided into conceptual, disciplinary and applied sections. A student or researcher interested, for example, in the concept of investments in form, or in human resource management approaches or in the ecological crisis, will thus have at his or her disposal one or more chapters providing an overview of the state of knowledge on the issue as addressed by EC/SC. The handbook’s international and multi-disciplinary character can be illustrated by a few figures: 50% of contributors are French, 24% are German-speaking and the others are mainly European, but also (South)American or Japanese; 36% are economists, almost 50% are sociologists and the others are management researchers, political scientists, historians or geographers.

As for EC/SC’s contribution to the field of institutionalism in economics, paradoxally its early work says little about institutions. This is not the object EC/SC seeks to explain, nor the concept by which it explains economic coordination. In fact, EC/SC’s approach to institutions as instituted rules, accepted or imposed, as resources or constraints, is quite common in the social sciences. The contribution of EC/SC to institutionalist economics is to explain how institutions are applied in practice, how they are interpreted, readjusted to the context, reinforced or distorted, on the basis of conventions, i.e. representations of what is appropriate to do in a given context. Conventions enable actors to give institutions a meaning appropriate to the situation. If we take the example of the institutions that regulate wage-earning (in other words, the “rapport salarial”, one of the fundamental institutional forms of French regulation theory), EC/SC are interested in the conventions underlying their implementation, justification, criticism and evolution.

Guillemette de Larquier concludes by stressing that it would be a mistake to limit EC/SC to a microeconomic approach. It’s true that many analyses focus on the practices of actors in well-defined, small-scale situations. However, the conventions highlighted by EC/SC can be operational at several scales: local, national or international. They can, for example, explain how employability is interpreted in recruitment, in the implementation of a public training program for the unemployed, or in the construction of job quality indicators in the European Union. Let’s not forget that John M. Keynes, to whom macroeconomists (and post-Keynesians) largelly refer, introduced the concept of convention to explain the functioning of financial markets. Also, the work of Alain Desrosières on statistical conventions has an immediate macroeconomic application: the numerical analysis of GDP, inflation or unemployment is based on conventions that need to be studied to understand economic policies. This is exactly the work produced by Florence Jany-Catrice in her chapter published in the book on the state of knowledge in French regulation theory (TR) presented in the same session: “Articuler analyses conventionnaliste et régulationniste : le cas de la mesure de l’inflation”: she shows how statistical measurement conventions (concept of EC/SC) act on capital accumulation regimes (concept of TR) and also evolve with the transformations of these regimes. On the contrary, to confine EC/SC to a micro-economic approach, even a non-standard and heterodox one, would lead to the failure of any attempt to mutually enrich the different institutionalist approaches.

Text: Guillemette de Larquier
Photos: Martine Pernod-Lemattre

Conference report

Philipp Dieterich (University of Kassel)

The conference (titled “Calculation – Design – Cultivation. Ways of Designing Fair Business Models in the Data Economy”), which took place at the University of Kassel (Germany) from February 21st to 22nd 2024, addressed various approaches of fair value mediation in data economic business models, through sociological and (business) informatics lenses, considering the Sociology and Economics of Conventions (EC/SC). It served as the concluding conference of the project ‘Fair Digital Services: Co-Valuation in the Design of Data-Economic Business Models (FAIRDIENSTE)’, conducted by the Departments of Sociological Theory (University of Kassel, Prof. Dr. Jörn Lamla, project coordination), Participatory IT-Design (University of Kassel, Prof. Dr. Claude Draude), Knowledge and Data Engineering (University of Kassel, Prof. Dr. Gerd Stumme), as well as the Institute for Digital Management and New Media (LMU Munich, Prof. Dr. Thomas Hess). Also involved in the project were the two practice partners BurdaForward and the registered association ‘Institut für Technik und Journalismus e.V.’ (ITUJ, Institute for Technology and Journalism). The conference took place at the Research Center for Information System Design (ITeG), which promotes development towards a socially desirable IT design. Approximately 40 participants, including 20 speakers, attended the conference over the two days. It included introductory presentations on the FAIRDIENSTE project, two keynote speeches, and three panel discussions. In each case, the FAIRDIENSTE consortium gave a presentation on a co-evaluation approach, followed by a panel discussion with external guests from academia and practice. The following conference report will provide a chronological summary of each of these contributions and subsequent discussions.

Introduction to the FAIRDIENSTE Project
J. Lamla and Jonathan Kropf (Department of Sociological Theory, University of Kassel) provided an introduction to the FAIRDIENSTE project, which was funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research from February 2021 to April 2024. The project aimed to develop a scientific concept of fairness for the data economy and to produce well-founded results for the design of digital services. The Economics and Sociology of Conventions (EC/SC) was used as its theoretical foundation. A fundamental concept in the FAIRDIENSTE project is the idea of Co-Valuation, which involves considering fairness through the mediation of different values. Approaches chosen included Design (channeling value conflicts through design), Calculation (translating different values into the language of prices), and Cultivation (promoting a culture of fairness for negotiating value conflicts through the cultivation of critical competencies). The field of analysis was digital journalism, due to the numerous value conflicts observed there (e.g., distribution of data-economic revenues, blurred boundaries between journalism and advertising, crises in public debate culture, professional standards of journalistic work, discrimination or manipulation by algorithms). However, insights were intended to be beneficial for fairness in data economy as a whole.

The contents of the conference built upon the “White Paper” (https://www.uni-kassel.de/forschung/index.php?eID=dumpFile&t=f&f=9915&token=f0ee2575f3c555cfcbc35c4bb68a7a36d16c1a50), previously developed by the consortium. This serves as an analytical and practical resource for the implementation and design of fair business models in the data economy, akin to a toolbox. The aim was to make this toolbox as practical as possible in order to reach not only scientists but also practitioners from politics, business, and civil society.

Keynote I: ‘Data Worlds and Fairness – Perspectives from the Economics and Sociology of Conventions’ by Rainer Diaz-Bone (University of Lucerne)
In his keynote speech, Rainer Diaz-Bone provided insights into EC/SC (https://uni-kassel.cloud.panopto.eu/Panopto/Pages/Viewer.aspx?id=f6bbcb35-9bf6-4883-a1f5-b12500e9ea6b). He then outlined potential points of connection between EC/SC and the project at hand, along with the associated data-economic issues of fairness. R. Diaz-Bone explained that conventions serve as a justification for cognitive, organizational, and technical data infrastructures. He identified five different data worlds (academic, official statistics, market research, big data, civic data), each following conventions, and emphasized the importance of analyzing the circulation of data production, usage, revaluation, and reciprocal observations across these worlds. From the plurality of data worlds, he inferred that there can be no universal definition of fairness. He also noted that definitions of fairness must be developed empirically. In doing so, attention should be paid to how these definitions conflict with each other, in which constellations they are found, and where compromises can be identified. Fairness, he suggested, is often empirically linked to multiple logics. He concluded by stressing that analyses of fairness must begin with the production of data, as data does not consist of given facts but results instead from statistical chains.
In the subsequent discussion, J. Lamla described various ideas on how fairness could be conceptualized within EC/SC: firstly, fairness could be its own convention; secondly, each convention could have its own concept of fairness; thirdly, the concept of fairness could be approached at a meta-level to empirically trace how challenges of fairness relate to issues of value mediation. J. Lamla noted that the project had opted for the third perspective, which focuses on a procedural understanding of fairness. Consequently, R. Diaz-Bone highlighted the interesting approach of the FAIRDIENSTE project. He pointed out that the meta-analyses and questions that were raised regarding fairness oriented towards EC/SC can be helpful for developing guidance ideas for politics and governance without specific criteria catalogs.

Calculation
Regarding the calculation approach, Simon Engert (Institute for Digital Management and New Media, LMU Munich) elucidated that perspectives were developed on how fairness can be examined and achieved using economic mechanisms. The central aim was to translate different values into the language of prices, addressing questions such as the fair distribution of data-economic revenues. He summarized that fairness is both normatively desirable and economically relevant.

Christopher Buschow, Mena Teebken, Richard Weber and Thomas Hess

The panel featuring Christopher Buschow (TU Hamburg), Mena Teebken (Bavarian Research Institute for Digital Transformation), Richard Weber (BurdaForward), moderated by T. Hess, delved into the transformation of the media landscape and the challenges of fairness in digital journalism. The discussion focused on proposals for creating a fair business model. C. Buschow opened the panel by referring to various understandings of fairness, depending on historical experiences and linked to the fundamental transformation of the media world over the past 30 years. He emphasized that (lack of) fairness is relevant, both in the remuneration of journalists, and in ensuring non-discriminatory access to platforms. Following this direction, M. Teebken noted that a fair business model crucially depends on how fairly it treats users’ data, highlighting the importance of data. At the same time, she pointed out the necessary pragmatic balance between overly lenient and overly restrictive handling of data privacy. R. Weber emphasized the societal mission of a publisher to provide journalistic content, which necessitates direct and indirect payment methods. He stressed that implementing fairness does not solely lie with publishers, due to the multitude of stakeholders, thus requiring a consideration of the entire value chain.
The panel discussed possible processes for developing acceptable solutions for all stakeholders in journalism. Suggestions included negotiations through unions, the relevance of user interests, and creating a counterbalance to large platforms. The importance of negotiating fairness collectively among all stakeholders was repeatedly emphasized. Subsequently, the possibilities and limitations of tools to support journalism were discussed, highlighting the importance of user engagement and a transformative understanding of science. R. Diaz-Bone argued, based on the EC/SC, that an understanding of privacy that is related to information control and individual autonomy, that often guides many discussions, is actually an outdated bourgeois model from the 19th century and no longer relevant to current ways of thinking. However, the empirical relevance of privacy in the data economy presents an interesting case.

Design
Viktoria Horn (Participatory IT-Design, University of Kassel) referred to a comprehensive concept of design as the basis of the approach, encompassing technical, regulatory, and infrastructural aspects. The focus was on questions of democratizing design processes and reflecting values in artifacts. Therefore, much work was done with ‘participatory design’, where participation entails the early and continuous involvement of stakeholders in design processes, incorporating both technical and non-technical solutions. Fostering fair value mediation requires a multi-perspective process considering power asymmetries, which can be achieved, for example, through a participatory workshop with various stakeholders. Such a workshop was developed in collaboration with BurdaForward as part of the FAIRDIENSTE project and was conducted with different stakeholders.
The subsequent panel discussion with Alina Hang (BurdaForward), Tahireh Panahi (Public Law, IT Law and Environmental Law, University of Kassel), Peter Sörries (Institute of Computer Science, FU Berlin), moderated by C. Draude, began with considering the positive experiences of previous participatory workshops, which had lead to increased empathy among stakeholders. The feasibility of such concepts in reality was questioned, for instance by A. Hang, due to the diversity of actors and existing competitive situations. Challenges were also discussed regarding the implementation of values into technical artifacts and the implementation of fairness business models, particularly regarding financial and time resources. P. Sörries emphasized, based on his own experiences in conducting participatory workshops, the difficulty of deriving and maintaining design requirements, especially considering possible updates or changed data protection concepts. T. Panahi pointed out attempts to introduce more regulations at an EU level, which often allow companies a certain degree of leeway. She concluded that cultivation should be the prerequisite for legal regulations and laws. The panel participants agreed that users’ participation and co-creation is central to a fair data economy. R. Diaz-Bone emphasized the importance of testing and verification in the EC/SC, meaning that it must be tested and must work in reality to endure. This implies that a solely pluralistic perspective is not sufficient, but must always be tested and verified under the given conditions.

Alina Hang, Tahireh Panahi, Peter Sörries and Claude Draude

Cultivation
Markus Uhlmann (Department of Sociological Theory, University of Kassel) introduced the cultivation approach, which aims to explore possibilities for public negotiations of value conflicts and to promote critical valuation competencies. Starting from a problem-oriented presentation of recommendation systems’ popularity metric and personalization, Uhlmann proposed an alternative navigation paradigm. This is based on a cartographic approach, and structures a variety of content through conventions that users can explore independently. This cartography utilizes formal concept analysis linked to the EC/SC, as explained by Johannes Hirth (Knowledge & Data Engineering, University of Kassel).
In the subsequent discussion with Renate Fischer (University of Zurich), Karolin Kappler (Catholic University of Applied Sciences of North Rhine-Westphalia), and Miriam Ruhenstroth (ITuJ e.V.), moderated by J. Lamla, questions regarding the development of critical valuation competencies played a distinct role. In this regard, J. Lamla introduced the concept of ‘critical space’, which must necessarily be created, and asked how such a critical space could emerge. K. Kappler pointed out that its creation, especially in the field of digitization, is not sufficient. As long as exploitative relations of work, environment, and human in relation to data are not considered, a critical space is merely a sham. Instead, she suggested bringing attention to the plurality in a power-sensitive manner. R. Fischer, on the other hand, argued that while plurality exists, there are no skills to recognize it. She concluded that users lack critical evaluation skills and a navigation paradigm could be helpful. M. Ruhenstroth emphasized that ‘critical spaces’ such as the association ITuJ exist, and that cultivation often already takes place among users. She described the desire of users for simplification, such as using grades. However, this logic corresponds to a different logic than the EC/SC uses, as the EC/SC does not solely engage in accounting and tends to authoritatively determine what is good or bad, as J. Lamla explained. This led to a debate about the compatibility of the EC/SC logic with practicality in digital journalism. M. Ruhenstroth noted that people are capable of learning and interested in the topic. There is more demand than the association ITuJ can meet. K. Kappler identified the problem that children and young people are not taught how to act in a self-determined manner in the digital space, but rather they get mainly focused on predetermination and control. M. Ruhenstroth added that digitization in schools currently does not aim to teach the handling of digitization. Conventions could help address ownership and power relations. R. Fischer suggested focusing on imparting skills rather than mere knowledge. K. Kappler emphasized that media literacy means using media sensibly, the EC/SC being helpful in that regard. She further pointed out that competence also means using digital artifacts creatively and subversively against the algorithm.

Miriam Ruhenstroth, Renate Fischer, Karolin Kappler and Jörn Lamla

Keynote II: ‘On the Designability of Power Dynamics in the Platform Society: Insights from Digital Journalism’ by Sarah Ganter (Simon Fraser University, Canada)
Sarah Ganter’s presentation focused on the challenges and opportunities of digital journalism in the context of the platform society (https://uni-kassel.cloud.panopto.eu/Panopto/Pages/Viewer.aspx?id=1ab14570-457b-4bfa-b808-b12500e9f632). The aim of the presentation was to illuminate the specific problems of digital journalism within this framework and to highlight the design spaces of news organizations. S. Ganter described the asymmetric distribution of power between platforms and news organizations. On digital platforms, fairness had no value as it did not represent a profitable business model. Earlier attempts, between 2005 and 2015, to shape the power dynamics of platforms, had shown that this asymmetric distribution of power could not be overcome despite various strategies. Aspects that manifested the power of digital platforms, as mentioned by S. Ganter, included the ability to set and break standards, comprehensive expertise and reach, cross-domain actions, and the secrecy of strategies. Platforms could empower digital journalism to be quickly actionable without making high short-term financial investments. Building on this, S. Ganter described possible design spaces for news organizations that exist despite asymmetrical power relations. News organizations were actively involved in the process of platformization and saw it as an opportunity to increase their reach and consolidate or expand their power positions. S. Ganter worked out how news organizations pursued different strategic approaches in dealing with platforms, ranging from confrontation, to coexistence, to collaboration, depending on various endogenous and exogenous factors.

Sarah Ganter

Outlook
J. Lamla concluded with a positive assessment of the conference in the light of the numerous new insights. For him, it became clear once again that there is an empirical and practical relevance of the concept of fairness, especially in journalism. He observed that, taking the EC/SC into account, there are some theoretical challenges regarding the significance of conventions and norms in the data economy, such as the question of why the justification of central concepts such as privacy is not keeping pace with developments. T. Hess praised the productive work of the interdisciplinary team, which contributed to the project’s great success. He advocated for utilizing the existing design space. As a summary, he added that the interdisciplinary team with different perspectives was a great success of the project, and emphasized that there are design opportunities that must be seized. He hopes to be able to address this, together with others, in another research project in the future.

by Olivier Gayot (Clersé, University of Lille)

Compte-rendu en français

The Economics of Convention and Social Policies study day was held at the University of Lille on 10 November 2023. Organized by Cécile Vasseur and Olivier Gayot, with the support of Guillemette de Larquier, and funded by Clersé (UMR 8019) (https://clerse.univ-lille.fr/), the day provided an opportunity to share questions and the results of numerous studies at different stages.

The day brought together around twenty-five researchers, including nine participants, to discuss economics of convention and social policies. Several categories of work were presented: chapters of collective works, state of the art, results of surveys and calls for projects or articles. The diversity of these works and convention theory gave rise to rich exchanges.
The day was organized around three workshops: (1) economics of convention and the question of work, (2) economics of convention and forms of justification for social and ecological action, and (3) economics of convention and health.

1. The economics of convention and the question of work

Géraldine Rieucau, Olivier Gayot et Philippe Semenowicz

Philippe Semenowicz – The contribution of convention economics to the understanding of inclusion policies
Philippe Semenowicz presented part of his chapter on work integration in the Handbook of Economics and Sociology of Conventions (https://conventions.hypotheses.org/handbook-of-economics-and-sociology-of-conventions). This presentation, based on a review of the literature on convention theory to work integration, shows that work integration policies can be divided into two categories: those aimed at employers and those aimed at people in work integration.
An analysis of inclusion policies aimed at commercial companies shows that the aim of inclusion organizations is to influence companies’ human resources policies by influencing their perceptions of inclusion. In order to do this, inclusion  organizations, as intermediaries in the field of integration, rely on a range of actions that help to shape these uncertainties (skills assessment, partnership relations, etc.).
An analysis of policies aimed at beneficiaries shows that support for these people is provided “below the conventions”, i.e. upstream of the recruitment process, in order to make it easier for them to pass the various “tests” that give them access to the labor market.
However, convention theory’s analysis shows that these measures tend to individualize the issue of unemployment and encourage the sorting of jobseekers on the basis of behavioral and psychological criteria, which accentuates discrimination in recruitment. These actions have been further reinforced by the recent introduction of activation policies. These policies are based on conventions of individual responsibility, the management of unemployed people who enter into their private lives and the production of judgements about the usefulness and uselessness of certain professional activities by Pôle Emploi, the French institution that aims to decrease unemployment.
Philippe Semenowicz concludes that, in the light of the analyses already carried out, it might be appropriate to focus more on people in work-integration, particularly the uses of work-integration, or to analyze the work-integration process in certain specific professional sectors.

Géraldine Rieucau

Géraldine Rieucau – Jobs, work and the ecological transition: elements for a approach of convention theory
Géraldine Rieucau presented an ongoing research project funded by ADEME, the aim of which is to establish the link between public policy measures for ecological and social transition and the world of work. The project, known as COMETES, began in 2022 and brings together seven partners in two areas with a high incidence of poverty and unemployment (Picardy and Seine-Saint-Denis).
The project has a number of different objectives: identifying green jobs, developing “good quality” green jobs and promoting these jobs. To do this, the author relies on around sixty semi-structured interviews carried out in the two areas, some of which were with directors of organizations involved in integration through economic activity.
First, the analysis reveals three categories of green jobs: 1) green jobs, where the tasks are ecologically oriented; 2) greening jobs, which include ‘green’ tasks; 3) support jobs, which support the ecological transition without tasks specifically oriented towards ecology.
Second, the presenter highlights the fact that transition jobs are currently mainly jobs in the work-integration sector. This raises the question of the continuity of these jobs, insofar as they tend not to provide specific outlets outside the integration structures in the field studied. In this way, the ecological transition is putting pressure on jobs that are a priori low-skilled and temporary, whereas this transition requires long-term investment. This paradox raises the question of how these jobs should be valued in public policy, how economic players should coordinate their efforts and how ecological tasks should be justified in the world of work. These various questions, studied with the help of the powers of valorization, conventions-institutions and the articulation between the registers of ecological justification and the other forms of justification present in capitalism, are still being analyzed. However, it would appear that a form of compromise is emerging between commercial and industrial conventions and a new form of ecological justification that is still struggling to be valued within the current institutional framework.
Géraldine Rieucau concluded with the idea that, if the ecological and social transition is to succeed, green jobs need to be developed and made sustainable. First, by enhancing the individual career paths of people on integration schemes. Second, by further developing training and awareness-raising on the ecological transition, while seeking to avoid distorting existing schemes.

Olivier Gayot

Olivier Gayot – Social clause facilitators as intermediaries in the work-integration labor market
Olivier Gayot presented the main findings of an article (accepted for publication) on the role of social clause facilitators in training and stabilizing the work-integration labor market.
The presentation sought to show how these facilitators, by encouraging the introduction of social clauses in public procurement contracts, are helping to create the conditions for the emergence and stabilization of the work-integration market. This particular market, seen as a form of sub-market adjoining the labor market, aims to promoting access to the labor market for people in situations of integration through economic activity.
The contributor shows how, by carrying out various tasks on behalf of local authorities, social clause facilitators act as intermediaries in this market and participate in the commodification of the work-integration market. First, by shaping the uncertainties involved in recruiting people for work-integration schemes using “profiles” based on objectified social characteristics. Second, by helping to define the price of an hour of work experience. In this way, facilitators help to make the work-integration labor market run more smoothly and ensure its two main characteristics: the presence of a workforce and a price to coordinate exchanges.
The facilitators also help to stabilize the work-integration market. First, by identifying the supply side of this market (beneficiaries of social clauses) and the demand side (hours of work experience included in public contracts). In this way, they seek to influence local authorities in the implementation of social clauses in order to stabilize, or even increase, the number of hours of work-based integration included in public contracts from one year to the next. What’s more, by helping to identify the beneficiaries of the social clauses, the facilitators ensure that they have the workforce available to meet the demand for the work-integration schemes that they are helping to create.
Finally, the author shows that two quality conventions for social clauses coexist, and that these two conventions modify the way facilitators carry out their missions. The first, known as the “quality convention for social clauses directly aimed at integration through economic activity structures”, tends to favor people who are further away from employment and female beneficiaries. The second agreement, known as the “quality convention for social clauses aimed at commercial enterprises”, emphasizes the competitive rules that dictate the operation of public contracts. By promoting these competitive rules, the facilitators are also helping to ensure that social integration structures compete with each other and with commercial enterprises. What’s more, the application of these rules reinforces the logic of “sorting the unemployed” according to their “distance” from the labor market, which translates into competition between beneficiaries.
Olivier Gayot concludes that, through their actions, facilitators have the power to regulate the work-integration labor market, and that this form of regulation varies according to the quality of the social clauses they implement.

2. The economics of convention and forms of justification for social and ecological action

Rainer Diaz-Bone

Rainer Diaz-Bone – Epistemological evaluation of convention theory – evaluation research with convention theory
In his presentation, Rainer Diaz-Bone suggested that evaluation should be seen as a field to be explored by the economics and sociology of conventions. More specifically, he invites researchers in this field to get involved in the issue of program evaluation, which is a form of evaluation that exists both within and outside the academic world and should be based on convention theorists’ foundations.
Rather than a simple evaluation carried out after the implementation of a public policy, program evaluation can use the tools of economics and the sociology of conventions to explore the different stages of evaluation. First, by questioning the objectives of the evaluation, the way in which it is constructed and the choice of criteria used. Then, by drawing on the various approaches in convention theory: the institutional approach, the dispute, the question of values and valorization, the emergence of standards, indicators and categorizations in measurement. Finally, by producing an evaluation of the policy in terms of its objectives and the way in which it has been deployed by public players and received by users.
All these tools, already used in current convention theory, make it possible to question program evaluation at different levels: how it is created, why it is created, what the different stages will be, etc., but also to question the gap between what is expected of a public policy and its effects on the territories in which it is applied. Rainer Diaz-Bone points out that convention theory, thanks to its realistic approach and the fact that it already includes questions about evaluation and value, is today the best approach for training and discussing with evaluation professionals.
However, there are two points of friction between convention theory and program evaluation: 1) convention theorists systematically stand back from their object of study, which is undermined by evaluation processes that involve personal involvement; 2) convention theory is not very well equipped to question its own practices and conclusions in the short time available for evaluation.
In conclusion, Rainer Diaz-Bone suggests two areas for improvement: 1) to gear convention theory towards an ex ante analysis of the implementation of public policies, so that conclusions can be drawn quickly and clearly at the time of evaluation; 2) to improve communication between public authorities and universities in order to overcome the lack of data that limits the work of researchers.

Andriamanalina Razafindrakoto

Andriamanalina Miorintsoa Razafindrakoto – Coordination issues for public players in the social construction of a children’s flour market
Andriamanalina Miorintsoa Razafindrakoto came to present the main findings of her thesis on public health policies relating to infant milk in Madagascar. The Madagascan government is aware of the challenges posed by child malnutrition in a country where 81% of the population lives below the poverty line, and has been taking preventive health action on this issue for 25 years.
The author highlights the successive forms of coordination of these policies: initial national management, based on the actions of the World Bank; regional management, coordinated by UNICEF and the Madagascan Ministry of Health; and current management, based on decentralized cooperation between the Madagascan government and the social enterprise Nutri’zaza.
The author shows that the coordination methods are based on different conventions. The first convention used, a market convention, failed to match the profitability objectives of the social enterprise with the population targeted by public policy. As a result, the coordination of players based on this agreement was abandoned. The second form of coordination is based on a compromise between a civic convention (social aspect) and an industrial convention (production aspect), giving rise to a social action whose hybrid management raises questions.
This hybridization has enabled the social action of distributing infant milk to be maintained over time and to reassure investors and private funds, shareholders in the social enterprise that produced the milk in the first place (industrial agreement). However, local political institutions, which wish to see the distribution of the product as a form of public service (civic agreement), sometimes refuse to apply tax benefits to the social enterprise because they consider that this policy should not result in the generation of profit for a private company. Thus, the compromise at the origin of the institution is made visible by the existence of an ethics committee within the association that distributes the products, a marketing activity (to sell the product) and an activity focused on nutritional education.
Andriamanalina Miorintsoa Razafindrakoto concludes that the implementation and roll-out of this public child nutrition policy, in the form of a hybrid social action, is creating points of tension across the country.  The National Nutrition Office, which coordinates the policy across the country, promotes three principles: the principle of free access to the public service, the empowerment of beneficiaries and a principle of non-exclusivity. These three principles are in contradiction with the industrial agreement that enables the social action to be maintained over time, which sometimes obliges the Regional Nutrition Office to buy the products directly and distribute them free of charge in order to achieve the objectives of the public policy.

Anaïs Henneguelle

Anaïs Henneguelle – The greening of French social protection: in search of lost indicators
Anaïs Henneguelle presented the results of a survey, funded by social protection, on the “greening” of this administration. The project, called Proseco, was the result of a call launched by EN3S and was carried out between September 2021 and June 2023.
The call for tenders had two objectives: to identify the environmental pressures caused by social security and to highlight the obstacles and levers for creating more environmentally-friendly social protection. The main question was how to ensure that social protection would be less polluting in the future.
Anaïs Henneguelle explains that the solutions initially envisaged by the social protection system were to make benefit payments conditional on more ecological use, or to pool health transport. For the time being, these solutions have been shelved. However, the project led by the author, Alexandre Berthe (University of Rennes 2) and Lucile Marchand (Agrocampus Rennes), focused more on the very idea of ‘greening social protection’, and the effects that this environmental injunction may have on this institution.
The analysis carried out for this report was based on three questions: 1) why produce indicators; 2) what are statistical indicators used for; 3) who are they used for?
In response to the first question, the presenter explained that several studies exist on the ecological effects of health and its environmental impacts (Shift Project, Ademe). These studies reflect a form of political injunction to produce ecological health indicators. In this way, the production of indicators makes it possible to put people in “working order” by means of figures and objectives, and to justify the implementation of action. The solution favored by the social security system was to use a carbon footprint, despite the irrelevance of some of these indicators to the activities managed by social protection (the carbon cost of paying pensions, for example).
On the second question, the authors show that the statistical indicators used are in fact based on an industrial convention. This convention, which was ill-suited to social security, was nevertheless not called into question, and the use of carbon footprints was generalized to the various regional departments. In so doing, the administration was able to respond to the political injunction to produce figures, even though these were not particularly relevant to the activity of social protection. The contributor shows that, in reality, the figures produced by the administration take the form of ex post justifications for numerous internal organizational changes rather than serving as decision-making aids. Their use therefore allows a form of coordination in the absence of a common representation of the notion of the greening of social security (multiple representations and justifications of what this greening is).
To the third and final question, the presenter explained that the figures created (carbon cost, number of drugs thrown away by doctors, etc.) are not really used in explicit governance policies. If there is a suspicion of implicit governance using these figures, it is not clearly identified and specified by the administration. Nevertheless, the authors of the report show that a narrative is developing around the production of these figures, rather than the figures themselves. This narrative is based on the need to quantify an action and its effects before taking action, which makes it possible, when figures are not available, to justify a certain form of inaction, or to justify certain actions that have already been implemented in another context.
To conclude, Anaïs Henneguelle points out that despite the various existing ecological reports, the actions implemented by the regional social security funds do not offer any scenario for getting “below two degrees”.

Rainer Diaz-Bone, Anaïs Henneguelle et Nicolas Postel

3. The economics of convention and health

Hélène Croguennec – Le Saout

Hélène Croguennec – Le Saout – The commodification of old age in public EPHAD: from user to customer
Hélène Croguennec – Le Saout presented the results of a field study conducted as part of her thesis on the supposed dynamics of financialization in public EPHADs. The study, based on semi-directive interviews and passive observation, revealed that several conventions run through these EPHADs.
The first convention identified by the author is a market convention. It applies to all public EPHADs and is reflected in: standardization of the offer, competition between public and private players in EPHADs within a market that is intended to be homogenous, and the introduction of regular evaluations and a benchmark of good practice. The second agreement is a civic agreement, based both on the fact that these establishments are public and on the health service they provide.
According to the presenter, the predominance of the commercial agreement in EPHADs is leading to two phenomena. The first is the invisibility of public funding (departmental council and social security contributions) for these establishments in favor of private funding (accommodation provided by users). The second is the use of standardized indicators and the systematic use of equations to determine the care and dependency packages that influence the funding of these facilities.
Nevertheless, the two conventions (industrial and civic) coexist and, for the time being, a fragile compromise is emerging. This compromise is expressed by the author as the fact that the market convention is valued in practice as long as it does not imply a lack of quality in the support (civic convention). However, this state of affairs is systematically called into question and is subject to change whenever there is a situation of tension (requests from residents that are not anticipated or considered unwarranted by staff) within the establishments.
Hélène Croguennec – Le Saout concluded with the idea that it might be relevant to extend her analysis not only to private EPHADs, but also to other sectors (disability and early childhood) in order to analyze existing agreements and compare the way in which compromises are made in these structures.

Nicolas Da Silva

Nicolas Da Silva – The industrialization of healthcare and its critics
Nicolas Da Silva presented a summary of the chapter he wrote for the Handbook of Economics and Sociology of Conventions (https://conventions.hypotheses.org/handbook-of-economics-and-sociology-of-conventions). The chapter focuses on the evolution of convention theory applied to healthcare, moving from an analysis of the mechanisms by which healthcare is commodified to the phenomenon of the industrialization of healthcare. The presentation focuses on the question of the industrialization of healthcare, showing how this has become an integral part of medical practice over time.
The author shows that doctors have constructed their representation of healthcare in contradiction with the market and its imperative of profitability. They are also opposed to the state, as employer, which has the power to change the way doctors work, just as it has the power to change the quality of patient care.
Thus, the convention that dominated medical practice until the 1980s was the result of a compromise between the inspired city (creativity, innovation, medical art) and the domestic city (taking into account the individuality of each patient). In this way, the medical practice that was valued was that based on interpersonal relations between doctors and their patients: a good doctor is one who knows his patients.
However, the domestic convention that predominated in the compromise that underpinned medical practices was criticized. This criticism is based in particular on the deleterious effects of medical paternalism, the cognitive limitations of doctors who have difficulty keeping their knowledge up to date, and a form of denunciation of medical opportunism (abuse of the asymmetry of information between doctor and patient). In this way, the compromise between the inspired city and the industrial city has been destabilized, and is tending to be replaced by a conception of health derived from the industrial city (efficiency).
The influence of this approach on medical practices is reflected in the development of randomized clinical trials, which make it possible to compile data and provide information deemed more relevant than that produced by “traditional” practices. In addition, the industrial city is giving rise to: the creation of norms (standards, certifications produced by health agencies, etc.); the monitoring of practices; the introduction of financial incentives to encourage doctors to adopt certain practices considered to be “quality”; the introduction of financial penalties for practices considered to be deviant; the introduction of soft law and self-regulation by doctors; payment for performance (compliance with imposed norms).
The author concludes that the introduction of industrial logic into the way doctors work implies at least two criticisms: 1) the relationship with illness, which may be seen as a break with a standard state (industrial city) or because the patient feels ‘different’ (previous compromise), is poorly defined; 2) the tendency for doctors to become hyperspecialized, which leads them to distinguish between ‘technical’ care and ‘intellectual’ care, tends to limit the effects of care from a systemic point of view. In so doing, the author shows that the State and doctors tend to promote the industrial convention, without giving it the means to function.

Cécile Vasseur, Hélène Croguennec – Le Saout, Nicolas Da Silva et Léo Delpy

Cécile Vasseur

Cécile Vasseur – The use of healthcare networks by mutual insurers: a market-industrial compromise
Cécile Vasseur presented the results of her thesis, defended on 23 November 2023 at the University of Lille (https://www.theses.fr/s336693). The work, which focuses on mutual health insurers, uses a conventionalist approach to show how these organizations, which claim to be non-profit-making, tend to adopt practices and behaviors similar to those of private insurers.
On the one hand, the author highlights the fact that the care network section is a blind spot in the economic analysis of mutual insurance companies. Yet it is within these networks, which are partnerships between mutual insurers and optical, hearing aid and dental care professionals, that mutual insurers adopt the most competitive practices. On the other hand, by analyzing the players’ discourse, Cécile Vasseur highlights the existence of an industrial market compromise. Thus, the practices of mutual insurance companies are based both on the development of standards and norms (industrial agreement) and on competitive logic (market agreement).
The industrial agreement is mainly used in the development of care networks because it makes it possible to set ceiling prices and control the expenditure of the mutual health insurance companies. By promoting an industrial approach to healthcare networks, mutual health insurers are encouraging the emergence of regulated standards and practices, which are not always readily accepted by healthcare professionals. The growing importance of healthcare networks is forcing hearing aid, optical and dental professionals to become part of these networks, even if this integration contradicts the representations of healthcare that they value.
The commercial agreement enables mutual insurance companies to maintain their position in a competitive environment established by various governments and the European Union through a succession of laws. This legislation, which tends to deny the special nature of mutualist players (no profit motive, democracy), pushes these organizations to adopt practices similar to private insurance. In so doing, the author notes an erosion of mutualist values, in particular the democratic aspect of decision-making (reduced representation of customers in decision-making, professionalization of mutual directors). This agreement also influences the relationship that mutual insurers have with their healthcare networks (competition between healthcare providers, competition with other mutual insurers, etc.).
Finally, Cécile Vasseur concludes that despite the discourse of the mutuals, they play an important role in the development of this competitive environment. The players within the mutual health insurers can thus adopt an anti-competitive position through their discourse, while at the same time favoring practices taken from the world of private insurance. By adopting practices similar to those used by private insurers, mutual health insurers reinforce the commercial conception of their activity. In the same way, by importing some of their practices into their organizations and their healthcare network, mutualist players encourage the emergence of a market conception of healthcare. In so doing, the presenter shows that the players act within the institution when they apply the rules imposed on them, but also on the institution when they help to reinforce certain conventions or representations of health.

From July 5 to 7, 2023, the 12th congress “Crises and inequalities: how to inhabit the world of tomorrow” [Crises et inégalités: comment habiter le monde de demain?] of the French Association of Political Economy (AFEP, https://twitter.com/AFEP_EcoPo) was held at the Université Paris Cité – which is located at the former area of the Parisian mills (“Grands moulins de Paris”).

Four sessions, organized by Rainer Diaz-Bone (University of Lucerne) and Guillemette de Larquier (University of Lille), were devoted to economics and sociology of conventions (EC/SC) entitled “Economics and sociology of conventions – Taking stock, Looking ahead”. The 13 presentations in these four sessions were (mainly) based on chapters to be published in the Handbook of Economics and Sociology of Conventions (Springer). The handbook aims for more than 100 chapters, 32 first chapters had been published online first before the AFEP congress. The presentation were grouped by topics, beginning with three of the founders, who presented main achievements of EC/SC since the middle of the 1980ies, but also gave insight into their ongoing work. The next two sessions were devoted to main fields of EC/SC: labor market analysis, the analysis of finance and the study of values and valorization. The fourth session presented considerations devoted to EC/SC’s methodology, but also ongoing research on social and regional economics.

Session1: “Perspectives of the founders” – 05/07/2023

• Olivier Favereau (Paris/France): “The economics and sociology of conventions, a critical theory?”
• André Orléan (Paris/France): “Où en est l’économie des conventions?”
• Robert Salais (Paris/France): “Convention et capacités”

Robert Salais, André Orléan and Olivier Favereau

Session 2: “Labor and finance” – 05/07/2023

• Julia Brandl (Innsbruck/Austria): “Economics and sociology of conventions in the field of human resource management: taking stock and looking ahead”
• Guillemette de Larquier (Lille/France): “Labor, conventions and conventions of labor”
• Tom Duterme (Louvain-La-Neuve/Belgium): “Standards as reforms. The role of conventions in sustainable finance”

Julia Brandl

Guillemette de Larquier

Tom Duterme

 Session 3: “Value and valorization” – 06/07/2023

• Christian Bessy (Paris/France): “Valuation and Enrichment”
• Samuel Zarka (Paris/France): “The power of valorization : a concept to link political economy and the sociology of work?”
• Daniel Urrutiaguer (Paris/France): “Art Worlds facing the socio-ecological stakes”
• Antoine Rieu (Paris/France): “The conventional construction of the
  economic values of Social Joint Ventures”

Session 4: “Methodology and explanatory strategies” – 07/07/2023

• Rainer Diaz-Bone (Lucerne/Switzerland): “Methodological positions and perspectives of economics and sociology of conventions”
• Cécile Vasseur (Lille/France): “Conventions, democracy and social economy”
• Kenkichi Nagao & Junya Tatemi (Osaka/Japan): “Regional development. How convention theory explains economic development”

The sessions were attended by 15 up to 30 visitors each. The presenters as well as the audience gathered scholars from EC/SC from three different generations. EC/SC is an approach in which many PhD projects are proceeded – an indicator for EC/SC’s future. Also, the mostly English offered presentations and the audience demonstrated the ongoing internationalization of EC/SC. All in all, discussions of the presentations made evident that EC/SC is a developing scientific movement, which has many applications and fruitful concepts to offer for contemporary research issues in the social sciences. 

Last but not least, we can point to other presentations at the congress, which were related to EC/SC too: Philippe Batifoulier, Franck Bessis, Géraldine Rieucau, etc. See AFEP programme: Programme_XIIe_Congres_AFEP

Also, at the congress, the Grand manuel d’économie politique was presented, including sections devoted to convention theory. See the blog report.

Irina Wais and Patricia Stöckli (University of Lucerne)

On the occasion of the Colloquium on Social Research at the University of Lucerne (Switzerland), which took place in two-hour sessions spread over the fall semester of 2022. The colloquium was organized by Prof. Dr. Rainer Diaz-Bone and Guy Schwegler. Six lectures mainly related to the economics and sociology of conventions (EC/SC) were presented.

The first lecture was given by Jürg Huber from the Hochschule Lucerne on «Strategien zur Bewältigung heterogener Textkorpora in einem vertrauten Feld: Beispiele aus einer Diskursanalyse zum schulischen Musikunterricht» [Strategies for coping with heterogeneous text corpora in a familiar field: examples from a discourse analysis on school music teaching]. Followed by two presentations from France by Prof. Dr. Guillemette de Larquier from the University of Lille (CLERSÉ) on “The substance of conventions in economics (of convention)” and Prof. Dr. Philippe Batifoulier from the University of Paris 13 (CEPN= on “Covid crisis, mainstream economics and economics of conventions”. This was followed by a presentation from Germany with Dr. Sarah Lenz from the University of Hamburg on «Moral infrastructures of digital economy. Wie die Tech-Industrie die Klimakrise lösen will» [How the tech industry wants to solve the climate crisis]. The colloquium was concluded with two Swiss presentations. On the one hand, Prof. Dr. Marion Schulze and Prof. Dr. Alain Müller from the University of Basel with the topic «Durch Materialitäten denken» [Thinking through materialities] and on the other hand with Valeska Cappel from our home university Lucerne on «Digitale Gesundheit: Klassifizierung und klassifizieren von Gesundheit mittels Gesundheits-Apps» [Digital health: classifying and categorizing health using health apps.]. The lectures took place partly at the University of Lucerne and partly online via Zoom.

Convention theory wants to answer the question how the world is looked at. Depending on the field, there are different conventions. In the case of industrial convention, for example, there is standardization and efficiency. The discipline originated in France, particularly in economic sociology and socioeconomics. Today, the theory of conventions is applied in various social science research areas. This is made possible by the transdisciplinarity of the approach.

First session

On September 21, 2022 Jürg Huber presented his research on «Strategien zur Bewältigung heterogener Textkorpora in einem vertrauten Feld: Beispiele aus einer Diskursanalyse zum schulischen Musikunterricht». This session presented how the discipline of music education reflects about its strategies of music teachers traing in relation to the schools and in relation to the music education as a science.

Second session

On October 5, 2022, Guillemette de Larquier gave a presentation on the substance of convention in the Economics of Convention. Like convention theory, economics starts from four general features: Conventions serve to coordinate between actors, they involve regularities in behavior, they are arbitrary, and they are responses to uncertainty. For economists, this raises three questions: what kind of uncertainty is involved in coordination? What kind of rationality do individuals use? On what kind of normativity are conventions based?

For the game theory philosopher David Lewis (Convention, 1969), a convention is an arbitrary, self-sustaining solution to a recurrent coordination problem. Following a convention Lewis describes as a social process of equilibrium selection is where a convention acts as a solution. For Lewis, a convention is self-sustaining. Although conventions are neither legal nor contractual, there is no reason for actors to deviate from it when others conform to it. Conventions set priorities, which may be determined by cultural, cognitive, or biological factors, and facilitate coordination when rational considerations are insufficient. In doing so, actors always reason in terms of the past: they adhere to a convention because they have already adhered to it in previous situations and this has always been the best decision. The actors thus make use of a bounded but calculated rationality. Regarding normativity, the question is whether the convention as a solution is a good (efficient) solution. According to H. Peyton Young, conventions can promote economic welfare because conventions reduce transaction costs by coordinating expectations and reducing uncertainty. On the assumption that a convention is good per se, Young advises cautious optimism. We perceive giving a pregnant woman a seat as a “good” convention. Some time ago, however, blacks in the U.S. had to give up their seats to whites. Young points out that conventions are not always for the common good of all. This is because people can also follow “bad” conventions, since the only “normativity” of a convention lies in its self-reinforcement.

According to economist John Maynard Keynes (The general theory of employment, interest, and money, 1936), the financial investment market is characterized by a radical uncertainty problem arising from the future value of an investment. This problem of valuation in a situation of uncertainty is what Keynes calls speculation. Market value would thus be a self-referential mechanism based on what everyone thinks, what others think, what others think, and so on.

To stop this speculative spiral, there are conventions, such as the assumption that the price tomorrow is likely to be what it was today and what it was yesterday. Although this conventional way of valuing the market does not provide a sufficient basis for a calculated mathematical expectation, as long as the parties involved rely on maintaining the convention, it confers a sufficient degree of stability and continuity. Thus, it is more reasonable to discontinue calculations and follow a convention instead.

The (original French) economics and sociology of conventions enriches convention theory with further insights, such as the recognition that there is a plurality of forms of valuation and action. Uncertainty arises from this plurality of existing conventions. Viewing rationality as interpretive, the French economy of convention assumes that actors have a judgmental capacity about what is appropriate and what is not. Luc Boltanski and Laurent Thévenot (On justification, 2006) emphasize that each convention, described as a value order, corresponds to a particular form of coordination and a particular conception of value. Each convention is thus associated with an evaluation of the good functioning of the collective (common good). In this way, a convention that is perceived as “bad” can be criticized and still remain in place because it is not an arbitrary solution, but a convention.

Third session

Prof. Dr. Philipp Batifoulier’s presentation on October 19, 2022, entitled “Covid crisis, mainstream economics and economics of conventions” demonstrated the importance and ubiquity of values in healthcare. For example, every medical profession has a professional ethic based on a “deontological code” that defines the ethical stance to be followed. This is in stark contrast to the notion of mainstream health economics (MHE), which reduces every conceivable behavior to the logic of homo economicus. However, the goal of a physician is not merely his self-interest, but also his professional commitment and the well-being of his patients. MHE, which is primarily concerned with economic and financial dimensions, makes values a question of efficiency – in the sense of “your money or your life”.

To capture the prevailing diversity of values in health care in terms of convention theory, Batifoulier draws on “framework of orders of justification” by Boltanski and Thévenot (2006), which understands orders of value as models of valuation to assign value to people and things. In the field of health care, Batifoulier distinguishes six orders of value: the market order (competition, favorability, value for money), the civic order (welfare, solidarity, public access), the industrial order (efficiency and performance enhancement), the domestic order (proximity, neighborhood, tradition), the opinion fame order (popularity, public recognition, audience), and the inspired order (research, innovation, creativity). What is a good doctor or a good hospital can be justified from this perspective in different ways, depending on the value order chosen. Quality depends on conventions and is based on the values that a particular community holds for the common good of its members.

Using the example of hospital reforms in Western countries, Batifoulier illustrated this plurality of values. While these reforms are based on an industrial quality convention that has justified, among other things, the regrouping of and closure of local hospitals, patients place more value on home-based quality, that is, on high-quality care that is accessible in time and space. Patients even oppose these reforms in the name of industrial quality if it makes access to care more difficult.

Batifoulier’s analysis also focuses specifically on the processes of valorization/devalorization. The power structure and health policy prescribe value orders by defining what is more and what is less valuable – they valorize and devalorize. The dominance of certain conventions/qualities thus reflects prevailing power relations. Actors who possess the “power of valorization” determine which convention/quality is preferred. In the health sector, this power of valorization belongs to politicians and the health bureaucracy, which valorize market quality: Health care must therefore be cost-effective, and a “good” hospital physician should be both a qualified medical professional and a professional who makes money for the hospital.

The COVID-19 crisis makes visible developments and problems that often remained veiled in the ordinary situation. The crisis has reminded us that humans are mortal. Unlike homo economicus, the individual suffers and is often particularly helpless and weakened in the face of illness. A dogmatic position on values, as the MHE does, cannot be used to understand the COVID-19 crisis. The EC/SC, on the other hand, insists on the empirical reality of a plurality of values. This was extremely important in mastering the crisis. If a single mode of coordination (or quality convention) had been assumed, the crisis would have been even greater. Nurses represented different values, and mastering such a crisis also meant appealing to a plurality of values. The COVID-19 crisis is thus also a crisis of collective forms of coordination, interpretation, and evaluation.

In conclusion, Batifoulier emphasized that an analysis of health policy should always be value-based, and the EC/SC provides a helpful framework for this. The COVID-19 pandemic demonstrated how critique from a health-preferred perspective, can bring economic activity to a halt. Convention theorists can examine whether health capitalism takes this critique and adapts by emphasizing concern for the self and the healthy body.

Fourth session

On November 2, 2022, Dr. Sarah Lenz presented her research on site, “Moral infrastructures of digital economy. Wie die Tech-Industrie die Klimakrise lösen will”.

In her research, Sarah Lenz links the theory of social worlds and arenas with the economics and sociology of conventions (EC/SC) in order to sociologically grasp the relationship between the transformational dynamics of digitalization and sustainability. Her guiding question is thus: How do societies respond to such challenges?

To begin, Lenz described the legitimation crises of digital and ecological modernization. Both the ecological critique and the call for democratic digitalization have been around since the 1990s; both visions are grounded in perspectives critical of capitalism, deal with issues of inclusion, and are more necessary today than ever. The vision of democratic digitization, for example, has not only failed to materialize, but has even taken an opposite direction. Commercialization, monopolization and surveillance are central elements of the new digital world.

With regard to the present, Lenz emphasized the simultaneity of both crises. The crisis of sustainability and digitalization are interrelated. On the one hand, digital technologies have a major impact on the climate crisis. Besides the high energy consumption, the production of digital technologies, such as the production of smartphones, consumes valuable natural resources (“precious earths”). On the other hand, digital technologies are also seen as having potential for combating the climate crisis, in the form of “environmental monitoring”. This raises the question of whether digital technologies promote or impede the implementation of sustainability goals. Whether digital technologies are considered sustainable is subject not least to the interpretative sovereignty of the IT industry. In this context, Lenz also focuses on forms of power and inequality that result from the interaction of both transformation dynamics.

Methodologically, Lenz is guided by the Grounded Theory situation analysis according to Adele Clarke. The situation to be analyzed, the relationship between digitalization and sustainability, involves individual and collective action and is characterized by radical uncertainty as well as different normative reference points – hence the link to the sociology of conventions. The basic idea is to link the EC/SC approach with the concept of social worlds, with the idea of a sociology in crisis mode. According to Lenz, one challenge that might arise from this is based on the fact that EC/SC focuses more on static states, while Lenz’s research interest is in transformational dynamics.

With the concept of boundary objects, Lenz wants to connect EC/SC with the study of social worlds. This is because boundary objects enable coordination between different worlds. From a pragmatic perspective, Lenz wants to ground EC/SC materially with the help of boundary objects. As boundary objects, Lenz considers models, theories, global standards, or climate networks that mediate the interface of the social world of digitalization and the social world of sustainability.

A key boundary object is the “Action Plan for a sustainable Planet in the digital age”. This Action Plan has three concerns. First, a change in values and norms, such as breaking away from profit orientation. Second, sustainable digitization and third, the promotion of sustainable digital innovations.

Fifth session

On November 23, 2022, Prof. Dr. Marion Schulze and Prof. Dr. Alain Müller gave a lecture on «Durch Materialitäten denken».

Schulze and Müller presented their research individually, but emphasized that they are “materially” interwoven. Both researches are an attempt to reunite social scientific thinking on the question of materialities. Methodologically, they use recursive heuristics to think social scientific thinking from artisanal expertise and practices.

Müller’s research explores the question of realism in the practice of constructing mountain reliefs. Thus, he argues, a successful relief looks confusingly similar to the real mountain, in the sense of a parallel shift between the model and the copy. Theoretically, Müller draws heavily on Bruno Latour.

Müller has also noted the central importance of this reference to reality among the authors and readers of “realistic” Franco-Belgian comics. There is a strong expectation that the drawings faithfully reflect reality. At the same time, the community also accepts a certain degree of creative and artistic representation. Müller wonders what conventions are maintained in the negotiation of this tension in the community.

As an anthropologist of science, Müller’s methodological approach is ethnographic. On the grounds that ethnography emerged under the influence of realist literature and is thus in a realist tradition. Furthermore, ethnography focuses on matter and locally situated practices, which is why this method lends itself to the practice of relief construction. In his fieldwork, Müller visited Hugo Lienhard’s workshop for mountain reliefs and used the method of photo-ethnography. He asked himself what rhetoric Hugo Lienhard used in the process of making reliefs to capture the process from model to likeness.

Müller related that Hugo Lienhard always walks off the mountain to be depicted in advance in order to “feel” and experience it. In the subsequent construction process, however, it is only about the mountain and aesthetic or energetic aspects have to be left out. For Müller, this raises the question of how plural realities are represented as singular realities.

Schulze’s research is to be placed in the field of gender studies. She is interested in “doing weaving,” practices of weaving in the genealogy of feminism. Schulze shows how weaving comes to be used in different feminist practices.

Sixth session

The last talk was given by Valeska Cappel on December 7, 2022, on the topic of digital health, «Digitale Gesundheit: Klassifizierung und klassifizieren von Gesundheit mittels Gesundheits-Apps».

Valeska Cappels’s ongoing research aims to find out to what extent health classifications are changing and how the operationalization of health happens. Compared to the past, today health is dealt with in a preventive way, this change happened through digitalization and the accompanying health apps. The core question of the research is how do the users deal with the concepts of health apps? After all, health can be viewed from different “convention views” and thus approached differently accordingly. The current state of research at the talk we heard was that there are three ideal types of health app users. The balanced, the subjected, and the misappropriated. The balanced have knowledge of health themselves and use the apps to reflect that knowledge. The subjected have their behavior influenced by these apps. The misappropriated used the apps but without a specific goal.

Christian Bessy & Claude Didry (2022)

Report on the round table initiated by Florent Le Bot (IDHES Université d’Evry) at the occasion of presenting and reflecting on the new publication:
Christian Bessy & Claude Didry (eds.) (2022): L’économie est une science réflexive. Chômage, convention et capacité dans l’œuvre de Robert Salais. [Economics is a reflexive science. Unemployment, convention and capacity in the work of Robert Salais]. Villeneuve d’Ascq: Presses Universitaire du Septentrion.
https://www.septentrion.com/fr/livre/?GCOI=27574100797150

Florent Le Bot, Robert Salais, Jean-Philippe Robé, Christian Bessy and Claude Didry

Leibniz University Hannover 15th and 16th September 2022

Report by Laverne Iminza Chore (University of Innsbruck)

The Leibniz University Hannover recently hosted the 12^th Economics / Sociology of Conventions (EC/SC) workshop for methods and theory development with a particular focus on education. Christian Imdorf, Arne Böker & Christian Schneijderberg jointly organised the event held on the 15th and 16th of September 2022, which received support from the Fritz Thyssen Foundation. The workshop saw scholars from German-speaking countries (Germany, Austria, Switzerland), France, and Sweden come together to advance the EC/SC discourse in the field of education and beyond.

Romuald Normand (University of Strasbourg), whose research spans international comparison of education policies, the European construction of lifelong learning, globalization and transformations of higher education, and actors and policies of innovation in education accepted the invitation for a keynote. In his talk, he proposed to renew the critique of neoliberalism in the field of education and analyzed how EC/SC and European sociologies in education could engage in constructive and reflexive dialogue for this purpose. Romuald Normand showed how the use of EC/SC can offer possibilities for extending the critique of neoliberalism by analyzing plural modes of coordination and evaluation in quality and accountability policies in education systems and the underlying grammar.

The congregated scholars addressed social and educational inequalities, educational governance, skilling, sustainability and change, and the COVID-19 pandemic. The two presentations centered on inequalities included Kenneth Horvath’s (University of Teacher Education, Zürich) work on educational inequalities and Leonie Bisang’s (University of Lucerne) early career project on social inequality. In his presentation “The conundrum of how to test for talent”, Kenneth Horvath posed the critical question of whether French pragmatic sociology offers a novel perspective on racism. His session clarified that talent and merit are impossible to test. He elaborated on why it is challenging to test for talent by pointing out the ambiguities, potentialities, plurality and contextuality that engulf it. Kenneth Horvath’s work proposes that instead of testing for talent, research should concern itself with inquiring about racism. The paper is still in the formative phase, but the potential outcomes for EC/SC and how it influences perceptions on tests is something to anticipate. Leonie Bisang, in her presentation on “Social inequality in the transition from school to university: university or university of applied sciences?” posited that social backgrounds play a significant part in shaping the educational trajectory of young people. She highlighted a possible connection of Pierre Bourdieu’s approach with EC/SC using the example of the transition from upper secondary to tertiary education. From her work, two approaches are conceivable: If one takes situationalism seriously, the question arises regarding situations in which habitus is an active support. If, on the other hand, one considers the habitus as the primary explanatory principle, actors only come into situations through this. It is intriguing how the conceptualization fits the empiric as this early career project unfolds.

The second stream of sessions revolved around the governance of educational transitions with presentations by Raffaella Simona Esposito (University of Teacher Education FHNW) and Regula Julia Leeman & Sandra Hafner (University of Teacher Education FHNW). In her presentation, Raffaella Esposito showed how, in the transition from compulsory to post-compulsory upper secondary education, the supply of and access to vocational middle schools is steered (in an active/passive and direct/indirect way) employing targeted strategies and instruments. Using the example of two cantonal case studies, she showed that both cantons studied restricted these school-based vocational programs, not least because this allows the balance of power between company-based vocational education and training (VET) and school-based VET to be maintained and company-based VET to be reproduced and stabilized as an unquestioned standard within the Swiss VET system. The discussion after this presentation revolved around possible elements of a power analysis guided by conventional theory. Regula Leemann, Sandra Hafner and Raffaella Esposito presented the first results of a study on the importance of key indicators in the political governance of educational transitions and a related traffic light system in a selected canton in Switzerland. Based on documents and interviews, they demonstrated that the construction of the indicators is based on different common goods, providing the responsible actors with a map for orientation and a warning system to cope with uncertainties in governance and enable legitimacy of governance towards the taxpaying public. At the same time, these indicators unfold as standards of normative power typically oriented towards a statistical average of, e.g., the historical development of reference entities like other cantons or Switzerland as a whole. Therefore, key indicators not only support responsible actors in reaching a common good but also restrict their views and way of action as they are narrowed down to the measurable indicator and target, reducing the plurality of modes of engagement to quantifiable outputs. In the discussion, Romuald Normand pointed out that these indicators, which are oriented toward the civic convention, can counter market logics that influences many national education systems. Kenneth Horvath suggested that the limitations and restrictions in the coordination of action by indicators need to be reviewed critically.

A further group of sessions falling under the theme of sustainability and change was led by Sarah Lenz (Hamburg University), and Eltje Gajewski (University of Duisburg-Essen) & Simon Schrör (Weizenbaum-Institute/Humboldt University). In her presentation, Sarah Lenz addressed the question of how the theory of social worlds and arenas – the US-American pragmatist approach – can contribute to the study of conventions. Starting from the emerging discourses about the mutual effects of digitalization and sustainability, she argues that the pragmatistic-interactionist theory of social worlds and arenas is much more concerned about the micro-sociological preconditions in light of heterogeneous perspectives. Analyzing how actors of different interests collide within arenas as zones of conflict, defending, contesting their positions, negotiating, manipulating, or even excluding others, provides direct insight into “power in action” and the emergence of inequalities and new paradoxes. Taking the example of a collaboratively developed “action plan for sustainability in the digital age”, she shows how actors create objects they can all refer to together without denying their positions. Such boundary objects allow – in contrast to how the sociology of conventions would suggest – also “compromises without consensus”. Thus, from the perspective of the sociology of conventions, it is worthwhile to examine such boundary objects and the normative infrastructures they stabilize. Elte Gajewskis and Simon Schrör’s research looks at the ecological reconfiguration of product presentation by empirically investigating drugstore products. They demonstrate how standard products are enriched through varied analytical and narrative forms of presentation with a promise of sustainability. The theoretical argument draws from Luc Boltanski and Arnaud Esquerre’s view of the economics of enrichment. The take-home message from the discussion was that their work appears to be a robust scheme to apply to further empirical research. At the same time, an emphasis on the mechanisms behind the enrichment strategies, especially on meta price, could help develop an in-depth middle-range theory that integrates the presentation and the price-setting of sustainable products. Christian Schneijderberg (University of Kassel) conducted a presentation that addressed accreditation, audit and evaluation regimes in higher education and provided an integrated approach and analytical framework to study them as effective long-term governance means or higher education policy tools. Drawing from Thévenot, he emphasized that when studying organizational procedures, multiple conventions apply during the process, primarily industrial but also domestic, inspired and civic conventions. The complex situation could be analytically divided into several sub-situations in a study on investments in form. For example, organized procedures legitimized by civic action (situation 1, e.g., law-making by parliament about the accreditation of universities), which are adapted in law-applying by legitimate representative bodies of actors (situation 2, e.g., accreditation council, including representatives of the academic profession, students, etc.), which decide on regulations (e.g., accreditation criteria) to guide the work of organizations (situation 3, e.g., accreditation agencies and expert groups (i.e., another collective of actors in the law-application)), etc. After analyzing all sub-situation separately, the “overall” picture of organized procedures could be constituted by comparatively looking at specificities (e.g., differences) and commonalities (e.g., similarities) reflected in the ideal types of conventions/orders of worth. Christian Schneijderberg further elaborated on this with the following commentary: “EC/SC is very much “stuck” on analyzing the micro- and/or macro-levels, including the micro-macro link. The responses to my presentation make it clear that the sociological meso-level – addressing organizational behavior and organized procedures – seemingly needs to become more present in theory and methods development and application”.

Two presentations focused on positioning EC/SC in other established fields, such as HRM and organization studies. In her presentation of a soon-to-be-published book, Julia Brandl (University of Innsbruck) questions why human resource management has yet to catch up with the EC/SC approach. She highlights common themes and questions that both fields touch on and illuminates how labor conventions provide a rich avenue for exploring how employment practices influence employee behavior and enable coordination at the workplace. Julia Brandl relates EC/SC to the pluralist HRM paradigm that acknowledges the coexistence of conventions and how that is a condition for democracy. The presentation culminates with a prescription of how the sociology of conventions may enrich human resource management research. Simon Weingärtner, Monika Hasenbruch and Juan S. Guse (Leibniz University Hannover) also touched on EC/SC and sociology/organization studies. Their paper presentation on “organized justification” gave an insight into their findings on merit-based selection procedures for “gifted” people in different organizations. Building on ethnographic observations, they argued for expanding Boltanski’s and Thévenot’s regime theories of action or “engagement”, which takes into account formal organization as an independent context of justification processes and stresses the role of “compromise objects”. The presentation was remarked on by Lisa Knoll (University of Paderborn), who agreed that the organization phenomenon deserves more attention in EC/SC analyses. Her critique focused on what she perceived as an essentialist notion of organization which she views as incompatible with methodological situationalism. Her comment was followed by a lively discussion about the role of organizations within the EC/SC framework.

In the session “Telemedicine during the Covid-19-pandemic: conventions, competencies, and collaboration – the case of Covid-19-teleconsultations”, Karolin Kappler (FernUniversität in Hagen) presented three scenarios of teleconsultations-uses, which she and the team in Hagen around Stefan Smolnik worked out from interviews with intensive care physicians who used Covid-19-teleconsultations. During the vivid discussion, the attendees emphasized the importance of focusing on the negotiation processes and the upcoming moments of conflicts and negotiation between different stakeholders involved in the acceptance, adoption and use of teleconsultations. Furthermore, for the ongoing research on the implementation of teleconsultations for further indications (such as heart failure or rare diseases), possible research questions and methodological approaches were discussed. This presentation was part of the pandemic and crisis theme that was also dominant in the show-and-tell sessions featuring Karolin Kappler’s “Corona as an Accelerator of Digitization-border-work in times of home-office, home-schooling, and home-everything”, Sarah Lenz’s “Society at Risk-Sociality as Risk. Situational Experience and Coping with Uncertainty during the First Lockdown” and Valeska Cappel’s “Corona-Apps-once familiar data is given a new purpose, regimes turn into conventions”.

When comparing lifelong learning systems across Europe, Swedish vocational education and training has been heralded as representing a universal regime with a strong emphasis on solidarity, egalitarianism and social citizenship. However, the introduction of higher vocational education (HVE, yrkeshögskolan), a post-secondary training form mandated to train people to meet local labor market needs, complicates these composite descriptions. Rebecca Ye (Stockholm University) expounded on the questions about the Swedish VET as representing a universalist, statist and school-based ideal type. Building theoretically on the sociology of conventions, the paper probes the plural worlds of higher vocational education participation beyond simplistic understandings of human capital accumulation or universalistic welfare. Drawing on interviews with trainees and archival material, the project examines forms of justifications evoked by ordinary actors engaged in this training form. The analysis reveals that HVE participants do not enroll merely to “get work” or “get ahead”. Instead, their participation is described as a response to constraints in terms of geographical and social proximity to challenging the difficult circumstances they encounter in the labor market. Or their enrolment is a result of contingency and vacancy chains. Taken together, she suggests that HVE serves as a mode of governing vocational knowledge through operating as a projective institution within reach that offers compromises between a plurality of interests. “From the lively discussion that followed after the presentation of our working paper, comments received from esteemed members of the EC/SC workshop spurred us to consider how we can discuss these findings, and the popularization and transformation of a skilling regime in Sweden, concerning the temporality of welfare conventions. Moreover, there were suggestions for our analysis to go further to identify and locate the common good. As we progress our work, we will also embark on a more in-depth discussion on the implications of projective institutions for the contemporary governance of vocational knowledge and competencies” Rebecca Ye commented.

Early career project presentations at this workshop also included Martin Gehrig’s “Coordination of Action in Curriculum Development”. After his presentation, Martin Gehrig remarked that the feedback was pivotal in highlighting that he still needs to find a way out of the mess of the social negotiation processes in the curriculum project. In his own words: “Against the background of the EC/SC, I now want to tell a story of my own about the project – a story that doesn’t ignore the uncertainties and conflicts and traces the role of conventions and objects in stabilizing it”. Sandro Stübi in his dissertation project presentation “Recognition of prior learning in Switzerland’s collectively organized skill formation system” found the workshop a valuable springboard for idea exchange and advancing one’s questions.

To wrap up what had been a stimulating workshop, Rainer Diaz-Bone and Ken Horvath shared their latest thoughts on how EC/SC could be a foundation for the sociology of social research and for the sociology of quantification, more specifically. In their presentation entitled “On data worlds, social research and convention theory”, they emphasized that measurement, which is key for linking social theory and quantification, is organized by a plurality of conventions and epistemic values in different data worlds. EC/SC could therefore address several issues that have been foreclosed in much social research, spanning from the social problems to which the development of methods provides answers over the application of established methods in different situations to the loss of their acceptability and relevance. This presentation inspired interesting questions and conversations for the future directions of EC/SC and marked a culmination of the workshop.

We are very grateful to the Fritz Thyssen Foundation for the generous support provided for the EC/SC workshop and the Leibniz University Hannover for hosting this year’s edition.