Jurisdictional engagements: Rethinking change in professional authority via pragmatic sociology

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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.

Original languageEnglish
JournalEuropean Journal of Cultural and Political Sociology
Volume9
Issue number2
Pages (from-to)197-225
Number of pages29
ISSN2325-4823
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2022

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 European Sociological Association.

    Research areas

  • Justification work, pragmatic sociology, professional authority, state forms, workplace familiarity

ID: 309280589