The first set of postdocs for our ERC project on popular government have just been advertised. These 3 postdocs will be based at UC Louvain with my co-PI Pierre-Etienne Vandamme and focus on contemporary democratic theory. Apply! jobs.uclouvain.be/Personnelsci...
Er det her en revival af #socialinvestment tankegangen, @ditteandersen.bsky.social ? Eller en del af den nordiske velfærdsDNA at investere i befolkningen tidligt i livet? Eller bare valgflæsk?
A type of code switch called 'change of footing' by Goffman (Forms of Talk 1981), observing Nixon. Apparently a common behavioral pattern within a certain species of US presidents.
Are you interested in the role of elites in disseminating ideas and framing policies? Then you should consider contributing to this Special Issue edited by me and Milka. You can email us an abstract if you want to know whether your paper idea is a good fit with the theme.
🚨 Postdoctoral Position at the University of Konstanz 🚨
We’re hiring a post-doc for our @excinequality.bsky.social project on political elites and decision-making.
4-year position | Deadline: Feb. 20 | Start: Sept 2026
Please share widely 🙏
The ad is here stellen.uni-konstanz.de/jobposting/f...
Since the hegemon's eye is now focussing on Greenland, I recommend revisting our research note in @bjsociology.bsky.social on the Power elite in Greenland
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....
Check out this special issue on Social Investments in the welfare state. We do indeed find that this logic has deep roots but also show it is always intertwined with other logics and so it should be evaluated contextually.
In "What's so new about social investment? Evidence from the history of the Danish welfare state" @aludvig.bsky.social and Troels Krarup find utilitarian logics similar to the modern social investment paradigm were central in the early formative period of the welfare state.
doi.org/10.1177/0001...
Science is more art than science
- Rick Sanchez
Is it now time to take him literally, but not seriously?
EXTENDED DEADLINE: April 15!
Join us and @samfriedman.bsky.social Friedman (LSE), Annette Zimmer (Uni Münster) and William Genieys (Sciences Po) for a two-day conference/workshop, June 3 and 4. Excellent opportunity for paper feedback. DM me for info and questions.
Please share and repost!
Deadline is tomorrow!
If you are researching political elites and want to combine your research with brown cheese and salmon, then there is one day left to apply for our workshop in Oslo.
Find the call for papers in the previous post.
VP JD Vance in Greenland pointing off in the distance
Out on the town having the time of my life with a bunch of friends. They're all just out of frame, laughing too.
My two brilliant colleagues, Milka Hadjievska (working w me on the ERC MORALITES project, CBS) and Håkan Johansson (Lund) just published their paper on the state consecration of civil society elites in Sociology! journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...
The very first paper from our large comparative project - the World Elite Database - is out.
Lots of coordination and important discussion on comparing elites allow us to - for the first time really - compare elites across very different national contexts.
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
Hvornår begyndte vi at sige 'anden-dame' i stedet for vicepræsidentfrue?
Curious about the civil society elites in Sweden? Able to read Swedish? Well, here's a book for you. I contribute w 2 chapters, 1 on revalist leaders' hist. role in SWE society & 1 on the hyperagents, the very well connected, with Roberto Scaramuzzino.
Moral Economies of the Polycrisis Conflict, Critique and Legitimation in Critical Times International Workshop. 16-17 June 2025. University of Hamburg. Organizers: Laura Lüth (University of Hamburg), Till Hilmar (University of Vienna), and Linus Westheuser (Humboldt University Berlin). By disrupting what is taken for granted, moments of economic, political, and ecological crisis reveal the implicit modus operandi of a society. As routines get derailed and settled arrangements come under strain, institutions are forced to explicate the “implicit social contract” (Barrington Moore) underpinning power, domination, and inequality. Who deserves protection when times get rough? Whose suffering matters and whose claims are made to count? Who is blamed? And what even counts as a crisis and what is shrugged off and fades into a ‘new normal’? These questions touch on a tacit structure of social expectations commonly discussed under the heading of moral economy. Drawing on thinkers like E.P. Thompson, James C. Scott, or Marion Fourcade, the moral economy perspective examines expectations of unequal reciprocity and distributive claims in economic relations; ideas of systemic legitimacy resting on mutual obligations between dominant and dominated groups; or political priorities tied to assumptions about the (un)deservingness and moral worth of social groups. Moral economy approaches focalize the ideational and institutional architecture of capitalist societies by parsing how legitimacy and hegemony are embedded in everyday moral reasoning. In addition these approaches also often look at social practices, struggles, and forms of critique centered around the violation of moral claims. At our workshop, we want to discuss work in the moral economy paradigm that sheds light on the current “polycrisis” composed of geopolitical turmoil, economic shocks, ecological breakdown, as well as crises of care and political legitimacy.
What can the moral economy perspective teach us about the way capitalist societies navigate these crises? To what extent do crises open up a space in which dominated groups can critique inequality and demand a renegotiation of the implicit social contract? How do demands and political responses informed by existing moral economies deepen inequality and domination? How do institutions like the welfare state or social and eco-social policies seek to mend rifts in the moral economy? What are moral background assumptions that make some developments (such as migration) but not others (such as poverty and extreme wealth) appear as crises? And what is the explanatory status of moral economy as a concept? For instance, are popular moral sentiments and subjective aspirations a driver of political and economic action, or are they merely a symptom of existing power relations? Is moral economy about agency or structure? And if both, how exactly? These are some of the questions we want to discuss with a group of international scholars. We invite papers taking a moral economy perspective to empirically research or theorize the current conjuncture. Papers can be at all stages of development, the event is meant to collaboratively discuss work in progress. We especially welcome submissions from doctoral and post-doctoral researchers. Limited funds are available to assist with travel and accommodation for those lacking institutional support. Please send an abstract of max. 500 words to: laura.lueth@uni-hamburg.de, till.hilmar@univie.ac.at and linus.westheuser@hu-berlin.de Deadline for abstract submissions: 7 April, 2025 The workshop is supported by the Economic Sociology Section of the German Sociological Association (DGS), the Research Unit Economic Sociology at the University of Hamburg, and the Research Unit Macrosociology at Humboldt University Berlin.
📢 CALL FOR PAPERS 📢
"Moral Economies of the Polycrisis. Conflict, Critique, and Legitimation in Critical Times"
Workshop, June 16-17
University of Hamburg
Deadline for abstracts: 07/04
Supported by the Economic Sociology section of @dgsoziologie.bsky.social
linuswestheuser.com/cfp-moral-ec...
No cultural elite, eh? Can be for better or for worse I guess 😀
Very cool! A story of how political/administrative power and economic power are once again divided? And the waning importance of educational credentials for the economic elite?
🚨 New Paper Out! 🚨
🔍 Forms of Capital, Social Change and the Weight of the Past: The Effective Agents of the Swiss Field of Power 1910–2015
w/ Jacob Aagaard Lunding in open access in Sociology
📄 Read here: doi.org/10.1177/0038...
A thread (1/10)
EXTENDED DEADLINE: April 15!
Join us and @samfriedman.bsky.social Friedman (LSE), Annette Zimmer (Uni Münster) and William Genieys (Sciences Po) for a two-day conference/workshop, June 3 and 4. Excellent opportunity for paper feedback. DM me for info and questions.
Please share and repost!
🔥🔥
Starting to miss the days when history had ended.
Happy to announce two more excellent keynotes for the MORALITES opening conference! @samfriedman.bsky.social and Annette Zimmer (Uni Münster)! More info and registration : cbs.nemtilmeld.dk/1152/ Deadline for registration: February 28.
Come work with us! We are looking to hire an Associate Professor in Business Studies with a focus on Management, Leadership, and Organization at the Department of Social Sciences and Business, Roskilde University. Great Department and near Copenhagen.
Please share or apply!
tinyurl.com/mpura4k9
MORALITES is an @erc.europa.eu funded project (grant agreement No. 101114850). The project analyses the historical role of the moral elites of civil society and their impact on moral economies in four countries: Italy, Poland, UK, and Denmark since from the late 19th century until today.
bring scholars from elite studies, civil society research and expertise research together to discuss the role of elites in shaping norms and policies within or across social fields. We are working on adding one or two more keynotes so stay tuned! Registration: cbs.nemtilmeld.dk/1152/
⚡⚡First keynote confirmed for our June 3-4 MORALITES opening conference in Copenhagen! Very excited to have William Genieys - @sciencespo.bsky.social and @cnrs.bsky.social - present on his work on elites and state power. Come join us! Deadline for abstracts on February 28! The conference aims to ⬇️
The economics department at Copenhagen Business School has PhD scholarships ☺️- please apply.
Please share.
www.cbs.dk/cbs/jobs-paa...
