TY - JOUR

T1 - Jurisdictional engagements

T2 - Rethinking change in professional authority via pragmatic sociology

AU - Blok, Anders

N1 - Publisher Copyright: © 2021 European Sociological Association.

PY - 2022

Y1 - 2022

N2 - This article discusses the fruitfulness of Laurent Thévenot’s pragmatic sociology of engagements to the study of change in professional authority, a central yet unresolved theoretical issue in the sociology of professions. Invoking Andrew Abbott’s seminal notion of professional jurisdiction as starting point, the article uncovers how pragmatic sociology’s landmark model of dynamics of justification contains the seeds of an original reworking, build on plural grammars of legitimacy for shoring up public-political authority for expert-professional groups. Adding to this, Thévenot’s elaboration of plan-based and familiar engagement regimes allows one to grasp the equally important role of professionals’ co-shaping of state regulatory instruments and work practices of experience-based judgment, respectively. Professional authority, in this framework, is sustained and undergo meso-historical change at the intersection of these three engagement regimes. Illustrations are drawn from three collaborative case studies of inter-professional coordination in domains of urban climate adaptation, lifestyle disease prevention, and innovation management.

AB - This article discusses the fruitfulness of Laurent Thévenot’s pragmatic sociology of engagements to the study of change in professional authority, a central yet unresolved theoretical issue in the sociology of professions. Invoking Andrew Abbott’s seminal notion of professional jurisdiction as starting point, the article uncovers how pragmatic sociology’s landmark model of dynamics of justification contains the seeds of an original reworking, build on plural grammars of legitimacy for shoring up public-political authority for expert-professional groups. Adding to this, Thévenot’s elaboration of plan-based and familiar engagement regimes allows one to grasp the equally important role of professionals’ co-shaping of state regulatory instruments and work practices of experience-based judgment, respectively. Professional authority, in this framework, is sustained and undergo meso-historical change at the intersection of these three engagement regimes. Illustrations are drawn from three collaborative case studies of inter-professional coordination in domains of urban climate adaptation, lifestyle disease prevention, and innovation management.

KW - Justification work

KW - pragmatic sociology

KW - professional authority

KW - state forms

KW - workplace familiarity

KW - Justification work

KW - pragmatic sociology

KW - professional authority

KW - state forms

KW - workplace familiarity

U2 - 10.1080/23254823.2021.1923546

DO - 10.1080/23254823.2021.1923546

M3 - Journal article

AN - SCOPUS:85130857909

VL - 9

SP - 197

EP - 225

JO - European Journal of Cultural and Political Sociology

JF - European Journal of Cultural and Political Sociology

SN - 2325-4823

IS - 2

ER -