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The institution of critique and the critique of institutions

Craig Browne
Thesis Eleven 2014 124: 20 originally published online 8 September 2014
DOI: 10.1177/0725513614549433
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DOI: 10.1177/0725513614549433
critique of institutions
the.sagepub.com
Craig Browne
University of Sydney, Australia
Abstract
My paper argues that Luc Boltanskis pragmatic sociology makes an important contri-
bution to two central concerns of critical theory: the empirical analysis of the contra-
dictions and conflicts of capitalist societies and the reflexive clarification of the
epistemological and normative grounds of critique. I show how Boltanskis assessment of
the limitations of Bourdieus critical sociology significantly influenced his pragmatic
sociology of critique and explication of the political philosophies present in actors
practices of dispute and justification. Although pragmatism has revealed how social life
involves considerable uncertainty, Boltanski contends that critique needs to take into
account how institutions generate semantic security, as well as symbolic violence.
Boltanskis endeavour to reformulate critique is compared with influential alternative
conceptions, notably those of Habermas, Castoriadis, and Honneth. Despite its
potential deficiencies and weaknesses, Boltanskis reformulation of critique is found to
be of considerable theoretical significance. In particular, Boltanskis analysis of the role
critique has played in the reorganization of capitalism can be extended, and his work is
suggestive of how some of the intentions of critical theory can be pursued in new ways.
Keywords
Luc Boltanski, capitalism, critical social theory, critique, institution
In the opinion of Luc Boltanski (2013b: 43), the notion of institution has been central to
recent French style critical sociology and its distinction from the Frankfurt School
tradition of critical social theory. This contention could, of course, be misleading.
Contemporary critical social theory has developed empirical analyses of institutions and
Corresponding author:
Craig Browne, Department of Sociology and Social Policy, University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia.
Email: craig.browne@sydney.edu.au

Browne 21
theoretical reinterpretations of institutions properties, such as in terms of recognition,

social freedom, justice, or social functions (Honneth 1995, 2014; Fraser and Honneth
2003; Habermas 1987a). Yet Boltanski is right to claim that the notion of institution has
become a focal point of French critical sociology and social philosophy. The reasons
why are similar, however, to those that resulted in critical social theorys reorientation in
terms of the intersubjective paradigm of communication (Habermas 1984; Honneth
1995). The notion of institution was intended to be an alternative to the dichotomy of
subject and object; rather than reducing one to the other, it represented the inter-
connection between them and the dual processes of practices as instituted and instituting
(Merleau-Ponty 1973, 2010; Castoriadis 1987). Further, the notion of institution drew
attention to the significance of meaning to social reproduction and the salience of inter-
pretation to social legitimation, whilst sustaining an allusion to the empirical sociologi-
cal or everyday sense of institutions as organized practices and social relations, like the
family, religion or law. More specific to the context of French social theory, the notion of
institution incorporated structuralisms insight into the patterned and relational complex-
ion of meaning, but it importantly rectified structuralisms deficiencies with respect to
the historical crystallizing of meaning and the constitutive qualities of social practices.
Now, it is less the notion of institutions enabling a synthesis of elements taken from dif-
ferent perspectives and more the tension between these variegated considerations that
informs Boltanskis conception of the dialectical interrelationship between critique and
institution. Boltanski contends that the institution is the object of critique and in certain
respects its precondition (Boltanski 2011).
According to Boltanski, institutions seek to define reality. That is, an institution
stands in a somewhat reflexive relationship to facts and involves the determination of the
whatness is of the what is (Boltanski 2011). In a sense, it is critique, or the possibility of
critique, that discloses this core attribute of institutions, particularly because critique
precipitates a shift in the registers of justification. In my opinion, Boltanskis sociology
of critical practices is undoubtedly suggestive of a revised and renewed conception of the
critical theory methodology of immanent critique. Similarly, Boltanski and Chiapellos
account of the implication of critique in the alteration of the spirit of capitalism is
particularly relevant to the situation of contemporary critical theory (Boltanski and
Chiapello 2005). Indeed, critical theory may acquire greater self-understanding concern-
ing its social-historical genesis and practical application from reflecting on Boltanski and
Chiapellos analysis of the nexus between contestation and institutional change. At the
same time, Boltanskis sociology of critique cannot be adapted to the project of critical
theory in an unqualified manner. One reason why mediation would be required is pre-
cisely because Boltanskis sociology of critical practices highlights the disputations that
result from the interface between different frameworks of meaning or regimes of justi-
fication (Boltanski and Thevenot 2006). From the standpoint of critical theory, Axel
Honneth (2010) has expressed serious reservations about the tendency, in his opinion,
to dissolve the social in the pragmatic methodology that Boltanski originally elaborated
in collaboration with Laurent Thevenot. Honneth contends that Boltanski and Theve-
nots rather programmatic exposition of the linkage between action and justification is
deficient with respect to the historical formation of stable systems of action and the
non-normative conditions of social reproduction (Honneth 2010).

22 Thesis Eleven 124(1)
If Honneths claims prove correct then the main theses of Boltanskis sociology
would be of limited relevance to critical theory. However, Honneths assessment of
Boltanski and Thevenots work On Justification is partial; it neglects the subsequent
applications of the pragmatic approach and Boltanskis arguments have undergone
certain refinements. Further, Honneths critical assessment does not really do justice to
Boltanskis intention of enabling a more radical interrogation of the terms in which the
social order has been typically represented. Boltanski claims that the main contribution
of the pragmatic standpoint to sociology has been to underline the uncertainty that
threatens social arrangements and hence the fragility of reality (Boltanski 2011: 54;
emphasis in original). In my opinion, the significance of this disclosure can only be
properly determined in relation to its exemplifications. My analysis specifically con-
siders Boltanskis collaborative work with Eve Chiapello on The New Spirit of Capit-
alism, and its proposal of a historical sequence of three phases of capitalism corresponds
in its main details with that of critical social theory (Boltanski and Chiapello 2005).
Like the work of Theodor Adorno, Boltanskis sociology is coherent, but it does not
constitute a unity that is free of tensions. It could even be described as having striven to
resist certain tendencies of institutionalization, like that of deriving affirmation from
processes of methodical repetition. Institutions, Boltanski argues, are always incomplete
and the image of them as self-contained is a myth (Boltanski 2011). Boltanskis thesis is
that the possibility of critique is present in the contradictions of institutions and that cri-
tique works with the difference between the instituted sense of reality and the wider hor-
izon of meanings and possibilities of the world. Before exploring the significant
innovations of this reconceptualization of critique, it is necessary to explicate how
aspects of Boltanskis sociology of critique have been framed by its complex engage-
ment with Pierre Bourdieus critical sociology of domination. Following this clarifica-
tion, several key dimensions of Boltanskis pragmatism are sketched, including its
depiction of the connection between justification and criticism. Boltanskis reformula-
tion of critique is then compared with aspects of two influential alternative interpreta-
tions of critique and his conception is found to omit some presumptions that are
integral to other versions of critique. Despite the potential problems that these omissions
create, it is consistent with Boltanskis understanding of the exigencies of critique and
the peculiar dilemmas that the contemporary capitalist constellation poses. Boltanski
argues that a more complex mode of domination developed in response to critiques and
social conflicts. The concluding critical assessment explores some of the tensions of
Boltanskis undoubtedly innovative approach and his substantial investigations into the
interrelationship of institutions and critique.
I
Boltanskis explication of the notion of institution rectifies the perception of an imbal-
ance that had been created by the differentiation of the pragmatic sociology of critique
from that of Bourdieus school of critical sociology (Boltanski 2011). It is now well-
known how this strand of French pragmatism sought to emphasize the contingencies
of the processes of social action and the importance of subjects reasoning, particularly
their capacities for criticism, disputation and justification (Boltanski 2013a; Benatouil

Browne 23
1999; Wagner 1999; Celikates 2006). Although these considerations demarcated French
pragmatism from Bourdieus critical sociology, the resultant concentration on the
relations of actors to situations generated certain misleading impressions. Notably,
Boltanskis pragmatism was faulted for being either indifferent to the historically endur-
ing and systematic properties of social relations or incapable of properly addressing
these dimensions of social orders. Honneths criticisms of Boltanski and Thevenots
On Justification is a variation of this position, but Honneth equally recognized the import
of pragmatisms investigations of the moral dimension of social relations (Honneth
2010). The perceived deficiencies of French pragmatism nevertheless led to an undoubt-
edly mistaken inference sometimes being drawn. That is, that the pragmatic sociology of
critical capacities was not itself critical; rather, it was presumed to be strictly descriptive
and explicatory.
The pragmatist translation of critique into a topic of empirical investigation no doubt
provides some grounds for this misunderstanding. Similarly, the sociology of critique
explicitly challenged critical sociologys mode of authorization. Boltanski did not pri-
vilege the standpoint and justifications of the social scientist over those of social actors.
In fact, he argued that his investigations into disputation revealed strong similarities
between the manner in which subjects formulate criticisms and the format of the critical
sociologists critiques of injustice and domination (Boltanski 2013a). In either case, the
practices of critique typically involve claims to demonstrate the effects of forces that are
not transparent and arguments for change or redress are presented in the universalistic
terms of a general interest (Boltanski 2013a). Like Cornelius Castoriadiss endeavour to
elucidate the implications of social imaginaries, Boltanskis pragmatism is intended to
enable the critical interrogation of hierarchy through exposing the mechanisms of its
constitution (Castoriadis 1987).
For Boltanski, the problem was not that Bourdieus critical sociology did not
apprehend the manner in which institutions legitimate hierarchy. Instead, the complete
opposite was the case. Bourdieu demonstrated how domination derives from mis-
recognition. He showed how institutions consolidate hierarchies and their symbolic
legitimation in diverse domains, including those of educational outcomes, national
languages, aesthetic taste, sport, and knowledge (Bourdieu 1988, 1990b; Bourdieu and
Passeron 1977). In Boltanskis opinion, Bourdieu importantly revealed the symbolic
violence of institutions. Yet, this disclosure was based on suppositions that led to one-
sidedness and positions that are antithetical to conjoining critique with the practical
transformation of heteronomy. Bourdieu argued that the reproduction of institutions of
domination flowed from a type of implicit consent on the part of individuals to their
authority and not just from the simple exercise of external power.
Symbolic violence is the coercion which is set up only through the consent that the dom-
inated cannot fail to give to the dominator (and therefore to the domination) when their
understanding of the situation and relation can only use instruments of knowledge that they
have in common with the dominator. (Bourdieu 2000: 170)
Symbolic violence partly derives from the internalized dispositions that are con-
stitutive of individuals practices, like the tacit rules enabling communication and the

modes of communicating, the embodiment of an identity and the expression conveyed by

styles of action, and individuals pre-reflexive knowledge of their place in social space
and their corresponding estimations of worth and possibilities (Bourdieu 1990a). The
very habitus of individuals, or the practical dependence of individuals on these kinds
of structured disposition, is then a source of symbolic violence, because the practices that
they enable are in some important respects self-negating for the majority of individuals.
That is, the social recognition most individuals receive for their practices, such as diet,
recreational tastes, occupation, speech patterns, and even simply their ways of being,
situate them in a relatively subordinate position in a field or social hierarchy. Of course,
the converse is the case and symbolic power is a matter of the ability of a minority to
convince a majority of their practices superiority. At the same time, symbolic violence
ensues from the majority of individuals misrecognition of the dynamics of the field or
institution. For instance, Bourdieu pointed to how educational outcomes are explained in
terms of achievement within the school system, rather than on the basis of the prior pos-
session of cultural capital (Bourdieu and Passeron 1977). While ideology is undoubtedly a
major source of misrecognition, the rules that determine the allocation of positions are in
large measure obscure to subordinated individuals owing to their habitus. Similarly, the
fact that the habitus is strongly shaped by early socialization and exists as a kind of second
nature is a constraint upon the modification of practices and it structures new experiences
in accordance with the structures produced by past experiences (Bourdieu 1990a: 60).
In On Critique, Boltanski (2011: 44) admits that despite their lack of attention to
actors critical capacities, critical sociologies appear to generate a critical power
superior to that of pragmatic sociologies of critique. In Boltanskis opinion, there are
two interrelated reasons why this is the case. First, there is the force of the distinction
between social scientific knowledge and the everyday knowledge of social actors.
Second, critical sociology is similar to institutions insofar as it generates a type of, what
Boltanski (2011) terms, semantic security. That is, critical sociology produces a sta-
bility of meanings compared to pragmatisms claims about the motility of actors critical
capacities. Still, Boltanski argues that each of these reasons for the apparent strength of
critical sociology has come under challenge.
The sense of certainty that Bourdieus critical sociology generated was enabled by the
social-historical circumstances of the post-Second World War nationalization of social
class as a result of the state regulation of capitalism and the consolidation of the welfare
state (Boltanski 2011). This constellation has been under increasing strain since the last
decades of the 20th century, due to familiar developments like the denationalization of
class, the decentring of sovereign authority, and financial globalization. In addition,
Boltanski emphasizes the correlative diminishing ability of national resources of docu-
mentation to encompass these major contemporary social developments. This is partic-
ularly significant because the contiguity of society and the national inflected the
categories of Bourdieus critical sociology. Its descriptions of the hierarchical distribu-
tion of social relations in social space depend on relatively stable perimeters and it uses
much the same social scientific information as that which informed the post-war policies
of the welfare state and national planning (Boltanski 2011).
Despite Bourdieus persistent claims for a reflexive sociology, this variant of critical
sociology could be challenged on the basis of its own major insights (Bourdieu and

Browne 25
Wacquant 1992). It is possible to consider Boltanskis recourse to pragmatism as

motivated by critical sociologys internal contradictions. Indeed, Bourdieu (1988,
1990b) acknowledged the bind of criticizing the scholastic point of view and the
dynamics of the academic field while drawing on the authority of the social sciences and
working to institutionalize critical sociology. Boltanski suggests that the power of post-
war critical sociologies derived from the claims to comprehend the social totality and to
represent a more encompassing perspective than that of social actors. Bourdieus critical
sociology supposedly perceived something that the social actors did not themselves and
disclosed mechanisms of domination that are concealed to subjects. In other words, crit-
ical sociologists claim to reveal and criticize the doxa of the field, the mystifications of
the social context, and those sources of domination that social actors misrecognize.
Naturally, these contentions consolidate the asymmetrical relationship between critical
sociology and social actors. In fact, one can even draw analogies between critical
sociology and the metapragmatic register of the legitimation of institutions and dom-
ination. Boltanski (2011: 9) argues that domination derives from the power to establish
the relationship between symbolic forms and states of affairs and to define the what-
ness of the what is. According to Boltanski, relating symbolic forms and states of
affairs entails the fixing of the properties of beings and determining their relative
worth. Its establishment involves interpretative devices, such as rituals, narratives,
typologies, codes, definitions and descriptions; and owing to the dependence on these
semantic means, the qualification to constitute the whatness of the what is generally
goes together with its establishment.
Boltanski certainly considers that the critique of domination involves the interroga-
tion of the connection between symbolic forms and states of affairs, but he finds that
Bourdieus version of critical sociology somewhat replicated the mechanisms of dom-
ination that it criticized. Critical sociology supposedly engages in the methodological
objectification of the illusio to which subjects are attached and accesses the reality of
reality. However, this framework of explanation attenuates critical sociologys position
as a theory of practice, because it emphasizes the prior dispositions of individuals
compared to the processes of action. According to Boltanski (2011, 2013a), the category
of action can only be meaningfully applied to situations in which actors can potentially
pursue different options and alternatives. Similarly, the semantic form of domination
means that critique has to resist the tendencies for closure that is intrinsic to definitions of
reality. Even though Bourdieu substantially revealed the domination implicated in the
fixing of reality and the allocation of values, Boltanski is undoubtedly right to highlight
the manner in which Bourdieus version of critical sociology is compromised by its
construction of reality. Moreover, the distinction between the perspectives of critical
sociology and social actors has changed. Boltanskis empirical investigations, especially
those into management and organizations, revealed how social actors appropriate the
findings of social scientific research (Boltanski 1987, 2013a). This implies a potentially
greater degree of symmetry between the perspectives of social actors and those of critical
sociology.
Bourdieu demonstrated, to be sure, the competition and struggles that occur within
and between social fields, yet his version of critical sociology seems to permit only a
highly qualified conception of social contestations potential to enact change. Namely,

Bourdieu highlighted how subordinated groups struggle to change the rules or categories
that structure the fields hierarchical organization and how the outcomes of change were
mainly modifications within the class composition. Boltanski believes that this quali-
fying of the potential and implications of social change derives from the major question
that Bourdieus critical sociology sought to address. That is, the post-war constellations
purported amelioration of class divisions demanded an explanation of the interpenetra-
tion of social solidarity and social subordination. In a sense, Bourdieu considers that this
interpenetration is constitutive of institutions; still, this core problem is indicative of how
Bourdieus critical sociology depends on a normative conception of justice that it never
fully explicated. Bourdieus desire to avoid any confusion of social scientific reasoning
with that of the earlier traditions of moral and political philosophy no doubt contributed
to this deficiency. Similarly, critical sociologys conception of domination is difficult to
reconcile with an explication of the normative dimension of social actors own practices,
since normative claims are largely treated as either conditioned by interests or evidence
of actors delusions about the social order. Despite its apparent critical power, this ana-
lytical perspective creates a substantial problem for critical sociology, because emanci-
pation is ultimately contingent on the participatory standpoint of social actors and the
sense of justice that informs their practices of transformation.
II
The pragmatist investigation of social actors critical capacities commenced precisely
from the explication of their sense of justice. In On Justification, Boltanski and Thevenot
(2006) aim to make explicit the political representations of the institution of society that
actors employ, particularly to resolve disputes and conflicts in social life. Drawing on
various conceptions to be found in the history of political philosophy, Boltanski and
Thevenot originally described six cites or polities that constitute worlds or general
frameworks of justification: domestic, industrial, inspired, market, civic, and fame
(Boltanski and Thevenot 2006). In their opinion, each of these cites or polities provide a
kind of grammar that enables social actors to produce justifications and they each contain
principles that legitimate some version of hierarchy through defining the conditions for
the attribution of worth or value, such as esteem in the fame cite, grace in the inspired
cite, rank in the domestic cite. At the same time, cites are constructed in a way that
makes it possible for agreement to be founded on the incipient sense of justice that they
contain. Boltanski and Thevenot argue that cites involve some fabrication of equivalence
and a higher common principle. Where there are breakdowns in social interaction and
disputation, these principles are appealed to in order to advance justifications and reach
agreement.
There is undoubtedly some exaggeration to Boltanski and Thevenots assertion that
the higher common principles may thus be said to constitute the basic political
equipment needed to fabricate a social bond (Boltanski and Thevenot 2006: 71). Even
so, Boltanski and Thevenot were able to explicate significant features of actors capa-
cities and aspects of how order is produced out of situations of conflict. The cites are
meant to represent not just a set of abstract normative prescriptions about the conditions
of a just and well-ordered polity, but competences that enable social actors to coordinate

Browne 27
their actions and to meet each others expectations of justification (Boltanski and
Thevenot 2006: 66).
Similarly, Boltanski and Thevenot show how disagreements result from the con-
frontation of cites and the importance of actors categorization of situations. Cites clarify
the rules or conventions of different strands of criticism and the critical matrix of
disputations. The industrial world, for example, criticizes the domestic world in terms of
the criteria of efficiency, progress and generality, whereas the domestic world criticizes
the industrial world according to standards like the perpetuation of traditions and
patrimonial models of inheritance and giving. A domestic being gives according to
what he is given, in proportion to the domain that contains it (Boltanski and Thevenot
2006: 246). Although this matrix of criticisms reveals a large degree of predictability to
disputes, Boltanski and Thevenot highlight, at the same time, how the uncertainties that
actors encounter shape their justifications. These uncertainties include that of a cites
application to a situation and the way that justifications deriving from a cite open up
individuals to other social actors judgement about their competence or normality. The
latter is something that Boltanskis analyses of denunciation foreground and it con-
stitutes one of the connections that his pragmatism has to Goffmans studies of social
interaction (Boltanski 2013a; Goffman 1971, 1972).
The underlining of uncertainty enables, on the one hand, an appreciation of the
creativity of actors and their interpretative capacities. On the other hand, it leads
Boltanski and Thevenot to focus on the application of tests and, as discussed later, the
category of tests is integral to Boltanskis subsequent depiction of the nexus
between critique and institutions. It is worth recalling that North American pragmatism
perceived a strong connection between experimentation and creativity. Boltanski and
Thevenot likewise introduce actors deployment of tests to achieve common under-
standings as an alternative to critical sociologys model of systematic deception or
misunderstanding. In Boltanski and Thevenots opinion, people learn to behave natu-
rally through the experience of testing (Boltanski and Thevenot 2006: 147). Tests
confirm the actuality of the cite and its adjustment to the situation. Social actors deploy
tests in situations where the relationship between values and things appears not to be
stabilized and tests enable agreement to be reached about how diverse beings (persons,
machines, tools, and so on) are coordinated and arranged. Once this is done through
some agreed upon sense of equivalence and on the basis of a higher common principle
then the situation hangs together (Boltanski and Thevenot 2006). For this reason, there
is a close relationship between tests and critique, because the way that things hang
together amounts to something like a naturalization of reality. In fact, in On Critique,
Boltanski partly defines the notion of reality as that which hangs together and con-
tends that reality is robust to the extent, firstly, that the what is appears to be total or
covers an entire field. And, secondly, when the means of representation of reality seem
to be able to connect forces and causes that shape not just what occurs but also what
might happen (Boltanski 2011: 34). Simplifying somewhat for the moment, Boltanski
distinguishes between tests that confirm reality and those that put it radically into
question or render it unacceptable.
It should be apparent that the pragmatic sociology of critique seeks to foreground the
capacities of social actors to create order and to enact change through the exercise of

judgement. For this standpoint, the contingencies of coordinating action and reaching
compromises are of considerable significance. These presuppositions enable actors
perspectives on morality to be reconstructed from their practices of justification and the
uncertainty that threatens social arrangements to be underlined. Boltanskis explication
of the notion of institution sustains these features of the pragmatic approach while
resulting from an assessment of this standpoints limitation. He states that pragmatism
stops half-way when it places too much confidence in the ability of actors to reduce this
uncertainty (Boltanksi 2011: 54). Institutions provide a semantic security that supple-
ments common sense understandings. In Boltanskis opinion, institutions have a two-
sided character; they are sources of both semantic security and symbolic violence.
However, this dual character is not a simple binary and the critique of institutions has
to take into account the imbrication of symbolic violence and semantic security. Like
John Searle and Castoriadis, Boltanski develops a version of the thesis that institutions
enable practices that lead to their consolidation (Searle 2005; Castoriadis 1987). The
institution of signs, words, or means of calculation stabilizes meaning and creates a
dependence on institutions. There has to be an institution for, in effect, there to be insti-
tutions. Yet, institutions are never complete and Boltanski wants to show that critique
does not just disclose antinomies but is compelled by the hermeneutic contradictions
that beset institutions.
The specification of hermeneutic contradiction is undoubtedly one of the most
important components of Boltanskis reconstruction of critique. Boltanski claims that
institutions purpose harbours a hermeneutic contradiction. The stating of the whatness
of the what is can awaken a sense of how reality is open to disputation and is not simply
given. It can invite an exchange of points of view and thereby contradict the power to
define, which owes to the institutions assemblage of an array of apparatus and quali-
fication (Boltanski 2011). The process of stating what is likewise entails the problem of
delegation or representation. Institutions are, according to Boltanski, bodiless beings and
semantic security derives from institutions seeming independence from corporeal sub-
jects particular standpoints. At the same time, the stating of what is requires
spokespersons and therefore bodily beings. This leads to the dilemma of whether
statements represent the position of the institution or that of the social actor making
them. Boltanski emphasizes that these dimensions of hermeneutic contradiction reveal
themselves less as a matter of knowledge and more in terms of practices, especially in
relation to the interpretations adapting practices to situations. Now, this is why Boltanski
considers that the distinction between the semantic and the pragmatic is a deeper source
of hermeneutic contradiction and why the kind of unease that can be created by the
articulation between the bodiless being of the institution and the corporeal being which
gives it a voice is merely the tangible manifestation of a difficulty rooted in the rela-
tionship between language and the situations of enunciation wherein it is realized
(Boltanski 2011: 87). In short, the semantic power of the institution is never able to
completely enclose the pragmatic and this incongruence reflects the distinction between
reality and world. The world is, to paraphrase, Wittgenstein, all that is happening,
and it is incessantly changing (Boltanski 2011: 578).
Boltanski argues that critique latches onto aspects of the world and from this fashions
alternatives to the reality presented by institutions. In my opinion, the depiction of

Browne 29
hermeneutic contradiction draws attention to genuine antinomies. The critique that it

initiates intersects with contemporary radical democratic modes of political contestation.
Notably, segments of the protests against globalization and austerity regimes have
sought to reject the hierarchical implications of delegation and political representation.
The Occupy and Indignados movements slogan that nobody speaks for anyone else
evidences an awareness of institutions hermeneutic contradiction (Castells 2012). Even
so, Boltanskis conception of how critique draws on aspects of the world is framed in a
very general way. It undoubtedly discloses an important connection between critique and
the limitations of institutions, yet a comparison with relevant alternative interpretations
of critique suggests that this manner of contesting domination requires specific social-
historical preconditions and practical orientations.
The social theory of Jurgen Habermas implies that the capacity to bring critique to
bear on the hermeneutic contradiction of institutions is a product of the long-term histor-
ical process of communicative rationalization. Communicative rationalization includes
what Habermas terms the linguistification of the sacred and the increasing reflexivity
that is necessary to make distinctions like that between reality and world (Habermas
1987a). Boltanski likewise considers that the closest approximation of semantic and
pragmatic is to be found in rituals, especially because in ritual the act of saying is itself
meaningful and enunciation produces effects. Similarly, Boltanski argues that mythical
and religious rituals are often totalizing and appear to exhaust all possibilities by endow-
ing everything with meaning and powers of signification. Despite endorsing Claude
Levi-Strausss view that myth is able to somewhat reconcile contradictions and make
social life work, Boltanski believes that the institution of myths and religions can never
entirely succeed in assimilating the world (Boltanski 2011; Levi-Strauss 1980, 2001).
Instead, the pretence of encompassing everything means that even small discrepancies
or random events represent possible antinomies and potential challenges to institu-
tions. For Habermas, by contrast, these experiences of hermeneutic contradiction con-
stitute the context of critique, but critique itself is founded on the communicative form
of argumentation and the opportunities argument provides for refutation or negation.
On Habermass analysis, the differentiation of practices of argumentation was a cause,
as well as an effect, of the rationalization of mythical and religious systems of mean-
ing, and which resulted in the disenchantment of rituals and magic (Habermas 1984,
1987a). In a similar vein, it would be possible for the social-historical manifestations
of hermeneutic contradiction to be more precisely delineated. Even though Habermas
seeks to demonstrate the rationality and emancipatory implications of communicative
action, he proposed a schema of the symbolic violence of mythological, religious and
ideological forms of mutual understanding that could be relevant to this social-
historical disaggregation of hermeneutic contradiction (Habermas 1987a).
In one sense, Boltanskis emphasis on public justification supports the importance of
argumentation. In Love and Justice as Competences, Boltanski even states that the work
of justification is rooted in the need to respond to a critique (Habermas 1984). Apart from
situations involving critiques, justification is useless (Boltanski 2013a: 34). However,
there are several reasons why Boltanski does not make critique conditional on com-
municative rationality. First, while Boltanski (2013a: 33) does somewhat privilege the
capacities for argumentation in reconstructing social actors competences, his

conception of competences gives considerable weight to pragmatic social skills. As a

consequence, the rationality of argumentation is depicted as an extremely important part
of disputation, but it is balanced against other considerations, such as the tendency to
relativize the significance of argumentation in order to sustain something like a working
consensus in Goffmans terms, which involves the suppression of disagreements rather
than agreement (Goffman 1971, 1972).
Second, Habermass conception of communicative rationality is based on a distinc-
tion between the empirical pragmatic, that is, the analysis of the actual contingent
conditions of acts of communication, and the formal pragmatic analysis of the abstract
rules of communicative action. The latter is not tied to any particular context and con-
cerns the general rules and structural properties of reaching understanding through
speech acts, such as the distinction between the validity claims to factual truth, nor-
mative rightness, or sincerity (Habermas 1984). Boltanskis pragmatism can be read, on
the one hand, as mainly concerned with empirical pragmatics and the contingencies of
actors interpretations of situations and contexts. On the other hand, it can be viewed
as providing a radically different version of formal pragmatics in its reconstruction
of actors competences and practices of justification; one that details the grammars of
different cites and does not specify the transcendental conditions of action. In the case
of either interpretation, Boltanskis position constitutes an alternative to Habermass
formal pragmatic conception of communicative rationality and a different way of con-
figuring the normative justification of critique. Even so, Boltanski considers that his and
Thevenots model of justification does indeed support a claim to universality because
justified agreements involve reference to a principle that transcends the situation
(Boltanski 2013a: 45).
It could be said that Boltanski does not deny the possibility of communicative
rationality or the salience of argumentation to the practices of critique, but rather that he
considers communicative rationality to be a contingent possibility. Its existence depends
less on the formal conditions of communication and more on its institutionalization.
Moreover, Boltanski implies that modern institutions are not completely rational and the
expectation that institutions could be entirely rational contradicts the fact that they are
always incomplete. In particular, Boltanski and Chiapello (2005) propose that the new
spirit of capitalism involved the prior creation of a new mythology and aspects of
capitalist organization were then reconstituted in its image. These facets of Boltanskis
conception of institutions have definite affinities with Castoriadiss interpretation of the
imaginary institution of society (Castoriadis 1987). Boltanski similarly conceives of
institutions as instituted in double form, as in the case of the reformation of the spirit of
capitalism and institutions construction of reality through semantic means and various
apparatus. Castoriadis argued that the major source of heteronomy is the independence
of instituted society in relation to processes of its instituting. Boltanskis conception of
hermeneutic contradiction is intended to disclose equivalent processes of domination and
occlusion. The problem of alienation is central to both Boltanskis and Castoriadiss
conceptions of critique. Boltanski and Chiapello (2005: 53) note that their analysis of the
major contradiction of capitalism is an updating of Castoriadiss interpretation. Cas-
toriadis argued that capitalism depends on the creativity of workers whilst excluding
them from real control. Similarly, Boltanski and Chiapello contend that capitalism is

Browne 31
dependent on motivations that it is unable to generate; and this assessment exemplifies

Boltanskis assertion that institutions are always incomplete (Boltanski 2011; Boltanski
and Chiapello 2005; Castoriadis 1987).
Boltanskis reformulation of critique has, then, substantial connections to Castor-
iadiss conception of the closure that instituted society appears to enact upon reality and
the resistance that institutions present to the possibility of their autonomous instituting.
Although Boltanski has probably emphasized the fragility of institutions to a greater
extent than Castoriadis, they agree that institutions possess semantic defences against
challenges, like those deriving from natural calamities, discontent emanating from the
social order, social creativity and social destructiveness (Castoriadis 1997a; Boltanski
2011). Boltanskis distinction between reality and world effectively captures these
threats to institutions, but Castoriadiss theory suggests that this distinction constitutes
only a potential for critique. In Castoriadiss opinion, the critique of domination is bound
to the social-historical project of autonomy, and autonomy is an imaginary signification
that has to be explicitly posited. It is the project of autonomy that distinguishes critique
from the critical practices that seek to advance particular interests and to only reorder
domination.
The project of autonomy, Castoriadis (1991, 1997a) argues, originates in Ancient
Greek democracy and it subsequently undergoes a revival around the 12th century in
Western Europe with the emergence of self-governing city-states. In positing the signif-
ication of individual and collective self-determination, the project of autonomy rejects
extra-social interpretations of the institution of society and partly recognizes the signifi-
cance of instituting practices. For Castoriadis, these aspects of the project of autonomy
are antithetical to those tendencies that have historically consolidated heteronomous
institutions, including the attachment of individuals to the social order that has fabricated
them and the theological justifications of the necessity of existing social arrangements.
These considerations may suggest that Boltanskis distinction between reality and
world does not convey the cathecting of the signification of autonomy that the critical
interrogation of institutions presupposes and the depth of the social-historical cleavage
of the background social imaginary that generates the possibility of critique. For exam-
ple, Castoriadis argued that the image of the world presented in tragedy informed the
Ancient Greek conception of autonomy, because tragedy undermined the idea of a coin-
cidence between how things are and how they should be (Castoriadis 1991).
One potential criticism of Castoriadiss interpretation of the project of autonomy is
that it is fairly restricted in its social-historical institution. Boltanskis pragmatism is
open to the possibility of multiple versions of the project of autonomy, although his con-
ceptions of critique and justification are undoubtedly framed within the horizon of the
same social-historical imaginary as that of the project of autonomy. The more significant
point of division between Castoriadis and Boltanski may be their respective conceptions
of institution. The differences in their formulations of critique and autonomy probably
ensue from this contrast. From the shifts in terminology, it may already be apparent that
Castoriadiss conception of institution is more overarching and arguably homogeneous
(Klooger 2012). Boltanskis notion of institution is more pluralistic and the various cites
assume a diversity of practices of justification. By contrast, Castoriadis (1997b) defines
the first-order imaginary institution of society and the second-order institutions, like the

family, state, law, economy, that are animated and orientated by this instituted imagin-
ary, like those of the capitalist imaginary and religious visions of the world. Castoriadis
does not presume that the deployment of the instituted imaginary in different domains is
free of tensions and conflicts between them, however; Boltanskis pragmatic explication
of critical capacities is possibly more attuned to these tensions and he has empiri-
cally demonstrated how social creativity is related to conflict and critique. For
instance, Boltanski (1987) showed how the industrial disputes of the 1930s stimu-
lated the creation of category of cadre and the ensemble of elements that were
brought together in order to institutionalize this managerial position.
Boltanskis and Castoriadiss concern with the semantic character of domination
introduces considerations that are less present in the standard conceptions of institutions,
like those emphasizing material foundation, legal codification and function (Boltanski
2011). The broad background horizon of meanings, irrespective of whether it is defined
as imaginary or world, is considered important because institutions are always framed in
relation to it and, in certain respects, institutions are constituted by the fixing of this
division. Semantic conceptions of institutions generally reflect a strong sense of the
creation or social construction of reality and some openness with respect to the orga-
nizational form of institutions. Instituted forms are considered to be composed of an
assemblage of elements that are linked by meaning and significations. On the one hand,
this perspective points to the contradiction of particular institutions appearing necessary
while being in many respects contingent. In Boltanskis opinion, a corollary of this
contradiction is that institutions generate expectations that they are unable to satisfy. No
institution, he argues, can measure up to itself (Boltanski 2011: 157).
On the other hand, the flexibility of organizational arrangements is relevant to how
institutional domination sometimes deals with challenges and critical contestation. That
is, institutions have redrawn the relation of symbolic forms and states of affairs in order
to shift antagonisms and institute dimensions of organizational change. How this hap-
pens in concrete terms is evident from Boltanski and Chiapellos analysis of the new
spirit of capitalism. In short, they argue that the new spirit or ideology displaced some
preceding conflicts by appropriating and modifying aspects of the normative aspirations
of the critique of capitalism, like the demands for flexibility and individual self-
expression (Boltanski and Chiapello 2005). Boltanski and Chiapello recognize, of
course, that the claim that the new network organization resolves the former conflicts
of capitalism is a myth. Practices that genuinely aimed to realize the values that the new
spirit of capitalism assimilated from its critique would readily expose the contradictions
of this institution and the distorted institutionalization of these values.
Before examining Boltanskis analysis of the modification of capitalist domination in
response to critique, a few implications of the comparison of his reformulation of cri-
tique with some salient theoretical alternatives will be underlined. Despite the significant
disagreements between the theories of Habermas and Castoriadis, their respective
conceptions of critique contrast in two similar ways with that of Boltanski. First, these
two theorists define the potential and orientation of critique in terms of a property that
they consider constitutive of autonomy: rationality in the case of Habermas and the
imaginary in the case of Castoriadis. It is possible, as we have seen, to identify certain
parallels with these positions in Boltanskis conceptions of justification and institutions,

Browne 33
yet there is no equivalent category to those of rationality and imaginary in his refor-
mulation of critique. Now, this may be simply because Boltanskis work with Thevenot,
On Justification, sought to demonstrate how such categories are aligned with particular
cites and regimes of justification (Boltanski and Thevenot 2006). No doubt delimiting
categories in this manner is of considerable value to empirical investigations, but it may
be one of the reasons why pragmatism has had difficulties, as Boltanski (2011) admits, in
developing a critical sociology from its sociology of social actors critical practices.
Similarly, the French pragmatist category of cite is illuminating, yet its original for-
mulation was deficient with respect to questions that are critical to critique, that is, those
of change and historical institutionalization. Boltanskis later work on the new spirit of
capitalism represents a sustained response to these questions.
In my opinion, Boltanski (2011) points to how critique involves some discordance
with reality, but notions like rationality, imaginary and reflexivity have generally been
taken to give experience particular forms and orientations. It appears that Boltanski
appreciates this formative component of critique but wants to resist the potential closure
that ensues from the equating of critique with it. He argues that critique is not grounded
in the practical register of actors immersion in situations of habitual doings and that
the metapragmatic moments are marked by an increase in the level of reflexivity during
which the attention of participants shifts from the tasks to be performed to the question of
how it is appropriate to characterize what is happening (Boltanski 2011: 67; emphasis
in original). Nevertheless, Boltanski considers that critique has to be open to various
possibilities and that the constitutive properties, like rationality, reflexivity or imagi-
nation, represent different potentialities. These properties can become moments of a
reality that may be disputed and Boltanski describes the task of the project of
emancipation as precisely that of reinforcing the conditions of critique (Boltanski
2011). In his opinion, the general nucleus of critical disputation is the experience of
indignation, as this has the power to compel the expression of discord and discontent.
However, indignation does not seem to possess formative properties equivalent to
those Habermas attributes to rationality and Castoriadis identifies in the imaginary.
The experiences of indignation correspond to actors understandings of justice. This
conception has certain affinities with Honneths interpretation of struggles for rec-
ognition and it probably equally exhibits a commonly perceived limitation of
Honneths theory (Honneth 1995; Fraser 2003a, 2003b; Deranty 2009). Despite
Honneth convincingly demonstrating how struggles for recognition expand moral
grammars, his theory has been faulted for the difficulties it has in adequately
adjudicating between the normative potential of different expressions of experiences
of disrespect (Honneth 2007; Fraser 2003b).
The second contrast with Habermas and Castoriadis is their specification of the
social-historical origins and conditions of critique. On the one hand, Boltanski has sim-
ply not explicated the social-historical background of the project of emancipation in
equivalent detail and it could be argued that that he simply presumes its historical actu-
ality. In a similar manner, Boltanski and Thevenot described their approach as recon-
structive and claimed that the six cites that they detailed were operative in their
society. On the other hand, Habermas and Castoriadis are concerned with the social-
historical specificity of critique because they seek to continue broadly conceived projects

of historical transformation. Although Boltanskis overall position is probably not that

different, his investigation of the historical vicissitudes of critique raises questions about
the contemporary relevance of its historical sources. In various works, Boltanski basi-
cally claims that the institution of critique is a significant feature of modernity and that
the practical extension of critique goes together with the historical development of mod-
ernity. He has, to be sure, refined this claim in stating that the expansion of critique refers
to the idealistic mode rather than the analogical critique that had been applied to myth
and ritual prior to modernity (Boltanski 2011). At the same time, Boltanski and Chia-
pello describe the purpose of The New Spirit of Capitalism as that of opposing the con-
temporary fatalism regarding critique. In particular, they want to explain how earlier
critiques of capitalism had been disarmed by the metamorphosis of this institution.
Although this assessment probably applies less to Habermass and Castoriadiss
endeavours to renew critique and more to standard critiques of political economy, it is
not irrelevant to their projects intentions and how they sought to recast critique through
expanding its categorical framework. Despite the frameworks of communicative
rationality and social imaginaries providing critique with alternate foundations and new
dimensions, the relationship of these phases of Habermass and Castoriadiss theories to
practical projects of transformation appears more attenuated. Habermas and Castoriadis
certainly recognized the challenge that the resurgence of capitalism posed, but the
theoretical innovations of communicative action and social imaginaries can be inter-
preted as responses to how social reality was changing in ways that were inconsistent
with their earlier social models. For different reasons, Habermas and Castoriadis each
turn away from the notion that critique is based in the disclosure of a strong connection
between historical development and emancipation. In fact, Boltanski and Chiapello
contend that one of the distinguishing features of most contemporary critiques is their
renunciation of large-scale historical arguments for progressive change. In Boltanski and
Chiapellos (2005: 531) opinion, never before in the history of modernity has the notion
of history without a subject been as strongly embraced. This position somewhat con-
verges with the view that there are no substantial alternatives to capitalism and the reduc-
tions of social agency to the actions of individual, rather than collective, subjects. By
contrast, the classical sociological perspectives on modernity had all grounded their
descriptions in a historical tendency and the projection of a historical future was a pre-
condition for macro-descriptions, since this anticipation was necessary for selecting
what was relevant in the present that is to say in this perspective, the vector of the
future (Boltanski and Chiapello 2005: 325).
III
The decline of critique during the last two decades of the 20th century may be only a
momentary interlude and there is certainly evidence of critiques contemporary revival,
particularly with strands of the alter-globalization movements contestation. However,
Boltanski and Chiapello consider that capitalism has entered a third phase and this
has changed the complexion of capitalist domination. The new spirit of capitalism
undercut much of the critique that inspired the former struggles against domination.
Boltanski and Chiapello detail how critique played a substantial role in precipitating

Browne 35
the re-organization of capitalism and how changes in this institution resulted from social
agency. Of course, the changes in capitalism were not those that the critique of the period
from the mid-60s to the mid-70s intended. The implications of notions like self-
actualization and flexibility were altered in the process of their institutionalization. In
particular, these types of ideals of liberation and fulfilment were rendered compatible
with the semantics of the market and this obscures these ideals previous radical chal-
lenge to capitalist organization. In this way, paradoxically, the third phase dismantling
of the social protections of labour and the ensuing experience of insecurity are part of
the long-term consequences of capitalisms response to its critique. This does not mean
that the ideals of critique were even in a distorted form simply adopted by capitalist orga-
nizations without resistance. Boltanski and Chiapello (2005) document the changes in
managerial discourses that undermined the former organizational models legitimacy;
for instance, large, hierarchized, planned organization was criticized from the stand-
point of being inconsistent with innovation and producing standardized products that are
insufficiently attuned to the differentiated character of market-demand.
It is important to emphasize that even though Boltanski and Chiapello demonstrate
how elements of the ideals of emancipation were transformed into an ideology that
disguised social domination, they argue that the industrial disputation and conflicts of the
late 60s and 70s led to modifications in capitalist organization. In this sense, their
account of the new spirit of capitalism exemplifies the interconnection that Boltanski
proposes between institutions and critique. The critique of capitalism generated a more
reflexive system of managerial domination and a revision in the justifications of this
institution. Boltanski and Chiapello (2005: xliii) argue that the displacement of conflicts
led to disarray in the opposition to capitalism and critical thought seemed unable to
track the changes under way. This is because the only critical resources available were
built up to denounce the kind of society that reached its zenith just before the transition
to capitalisms new phase. The capitalist institution refashioned its combination of
semantic security and symbolic violence through adapting aspects of its former critique;
specifically, the reformist element of critique appears in an inverted way in capitalisms
use of tests and the managerial admission of the constructed character of organizational
reality perversely becomes an instrument of domination. The objectives of these mod-
ifications were those of raising productivity and increasing capitals profit-share, both of
which had been the subject of normative challenge and had declined during the preced-
ing capitalist phase, especially during the period of social contestation and industrial dis-
putation (Boltanski and Chiapello 2005).
Boltanski and Chiapellos description of the undermining of the post-war capitalist
compromise overlaps many other accounts in highlighting market deregulation and
developments like subcontracting and outsourcing, alterations in the balance of the state
and the market, and the new expectation that the state should operate like a business
enterprise (Boltanski and Chiapello 2005). What is distinctive about their interpretation
is Boltanski and Chiapellos interest in the justifications and semantic coding of
these changes, the role they attribute to critique and characterization of conflicts, and,
naturally, their relating institutional reforms to alterations in the spirit or ideology of
capitalism. For these reasons, the weightings that they give to other features of the
social-historical context differ from intersecting interpretations of capitalism. Dumenil

and Levy (2004, 2011), for example, contend that neoliberal reforms were more a prod-
uct of capitalisms systemic problems and specifically a response to inflations eroding
the value of existing capital. Similarly, there are many explanations of a new phase of
capitalism in terms of technological change, the fiscal crisis of the welfare state and glo-
balization (Castells 1996; Hardt and Negri 2000; Streeck 2011). It should be clear that
Boltanski and Chiapello accept the empirical salience of these developments; however,
they consider that these tendencies do not unfold independently of social struggles.
Rather, they claim that references to fiscal crises, globalization, new technologies and
the like, play a part in disputations and the semantic stabilizing of the new institutional
reality of capitalism.
In my opinion, one element of their analysis interconnecting these various tendencies
could be developed with even greater precision. That is, Boltanski and Chiapello suggest
that developments like economic globalization and technological innovations con-
tributed to the outflanking, so to speak, of the conflicts and critiques that were based on
the organizational forms of the preceding phase of capitalism. To my mind, deepening
the analysis of this aspect of displacement would strengthen their claims about how the
dismantling of the defenses of the world of work prevailed against resistance and it may
clarify the pressures that were brought to bear in the process of incorporating (and
distorting) the normative aspirations of critique. As Boltanski and Chiapello appreciate,
claims about how external developments were undermining immediate situations were
integral to how contingent and contested changes were justified as necessary, inevitable,
and irresistible (Boltanski and Chiapello 2005; Boltanski 2011).
The institution of critique in modernity has always contained a variety of tensions,
including those anchored in contrasting political philosophies or cites. These tensions
enable the extraction of meanings from their background in the world, and Boltanski
proposes that institutions stabilize these fragments by combining them in new ways. This
process was central to the new spirit of capitalisms consolidation and its displacement of
conflicts deriving from the contradictions of capitalism. Boltanski and Chiapello argue
that two major types of critiques have challenged capitalism: first, the social critique that
has been primarily associated with the working class and labour movement. It criticizes
the injustice of capitalist exploitation and class inequalities. The second critique is the
artistic, although it would be more accurately described as a combination of artistic and
radical intellectual. The artistic critique espouses Bohemian values and ideals like self-
expression, creativity, and authenticity. It primarily contests capitalist dehumanization
and alienation. The distinction between the two critiques is ideal-typical in Webers
sense, but there are differences in their semantic content, underlying values, and causes
of indignation (Boltanski and Chiapello 2005; Chiapello 2013). There are equally impor-
tant overlaps, and the contestation of the 60s and 70s brought these two critiques of
capitalism closer together. The Frankfurt School could be considered to offer a synthesis
of these two critiques and, to varying extents, this synthesis was articulated by the other
theoretical circles that influenced the student revolts and radical movements of that
period, like Socialism or Barbarism and The Situationist International (Castoriadis
1987, 1988; Lefort 1986; Debord 1995). The transition to the third phase of capitalism
fractured some of the connections between these two critiques and the economic reces-
sion of the 70s highlighted the differences between the social critiques primary

Browne 37
commitment to the value of security and the artistic critiques primary commitment to
autonomy (Boltanski and Chiapello 2005).
It is possible to envisage how the social and artistic critiques of capitalism can be
combined in different ways with regimes of justification. The social critique could draw
on justifications from the civic cite, with its strong commitment to the collective
interests, or it could embrace aspects of the industrial cite and propose that efficiency is
the condition of a fair distribution of resources. The artistic critique could similarly be
related to the inspired citeand its valuing of creativity, although the inspired citetends to
emphasize the singular subjectivity of the artistic genius or the isolation of the saint
rather than the quite different relational ideas of creativity that are associated with recent
network models, self-organizing systems and rhizomes (Roberts 2012). However, the
consolidation of the new spirit of capitalism resulted in the institution of another cite:
the project cite. The project cite is associated with the network organization and its
image of a reticular, connexionist world (Boltanski and Chiapello 2005). Although
the contradictions of capitalism compromise the practical institution of network organi-
zation, the network model has parallels with the critiques of capitalism that were based
on images of autogestion, self-organization, open communication, and self-management
(Castoriadis 1987; Habermas 1984; Deleuze and Guattari 1987). Networks are suppo-
sedly horizontal and based on the principles of voluntary participation rather than coer-
cion. Self-control is meant to replace external authority as a key principle of
management. Now, this paradoxical inversion indicates why Boltanski and Chiapello
argue that the actual fate of the artistic critique and the social critique was very differ-
ent: whereas themes from the artistic critique were integrated into the discourse of capit-
alism, so that this critique might seem to have been partially satisfied, the then current
versions of the social critique found themselves nonplussed, bereft of ideological props,
and consigned to the dustbin of history (Boltanski and Chiapello 2005: 346).
The relative appeal of the new capitalist values of self-direction and flexibility compared
to those of hierarchical control and monotony is readily comprehensible, even though these
values are largely ideological in their institution, in the sense of their concealing the actuality
of circumstances that contradict them. Perhaps a more profound reason why critique needs
to be reconstructed is the less rigid form of the project cite and network organization com-
pared to the bureaucratic industrial capitalist order. The project citesignifies a more flexible
and impermanent structure; agents combine for the duration of a project and then move on to
the next project. Boltanski and Chiapello note that one of the reasons for the efficacy of the
notion of project as a device of legitimation is precisely that it transcends capitalism whilst
being applicable to it. The notion of project can refer to a variety of activities, from raising a
child and planning a vacation to putting together a mission to the moon. Indeed, the connec-
tion that the notion of project has to the assumption that critique is a condition of future
change is even evident in Castoriadis speaking of the project of autonomy and Habermass
defence of the project of modernity (Castoriadis 1991; Habermas 1987b). Critique typically
reveals how the existing order does not fulfil its potential, but the projective capitalist orga-
nization reframes this perspective and applies it in a manner quite opposed to that of the cri-
tique of capitalism; for example, management employs it as a standard for assessing
individuals and their work. Projects are formative processes and the solidifying of practices
can signify the end of the project. Naturally, these characteristics of the project cite invite

critiques of new capitalisms transience and limited commitments (Sennett 1998, 2006). Yet
these criticisms have proven less effective than they probably warrant, because they have
been interpreted as valourizing some of the less desirable features of bureaucratic capital-
ism, on the one hand, and, on the other hand, these critiques revelatory quality is diluted
by the fact that the project cites justifications are based on its embracing of the transitory
and opportunistic.
Boltanski and Chiapello define the higher common principle that enables the con-
struction of equivalence in the project cite as that of activity. Given that activity is a
rather general category, additional criteria are necessary for it to constitute a conception
of justice and a means of ranking. Activity is valued in the connexionist world in terms
of its links to networks and expansion of networks. This partly explains why the social
critique of capitalism underwent something of a categorical revision during the period of
new capitalisms consolidation. Boltanski and Chiapello argue that there was a shift from
the denunciation of inequality to the opposition to social exclusion and its consequences.
For similar reasons, social critiques that contrast the circumstances of the mobile and
immobile share certain assumptions with the connexionist value system of network
organization; immobility represents a situation of being disconnected. One of the less
remarked upon features of Boltanski and Chiapellos analysis is its survey of new
formations of critique. Yet it is difficult not to gain the impression that they consider
that much of critiques new formations contest certain details of the third phase of
capitalism but neither effectively critique its spirit nor its contradictory dynamics.
The problem is not that injustices cannot be identified but that critiques new for-
mations seem unable to combine explanations of substantive developments and nor-
mative formulations of injustice. Boltanski and Chiapello (2005) argue that, in terms of
public prominence, humanitarian action increasingly displaced the preceding critique of
class inequality and work organization. It can supposedly involve individual responses to
the immediacy of suffering and the inhumane conditions of catastrophic poverty, star-
vation and refugees. Humanitarian actions appeal is in large measure due to the dis-
crediting of the social critiques former organizational expressions, like political parties,
trade unions and welfare bureaucracies. In my opinion, Boltanski and Chiapello are
undoubtedly right to claim that the reasons for humanitarian actions appeal are equally
sources of its deficiencies as a mode of critique: its less complex framework of social
analysis and its often apolitical qualities. It is much the same in the case of the discourse
of social exclusion. Social exclusion is presented as something that benefits nobody, but
the other side of this position is a lack of specification concerning the institutions and
dominant classes that are accountable for it. In this way, the concept of exclusion is
substantially different from the critiques of the capitalist exploitation of wage-labour
(Boltanski and Chiapello 2005).
There are many grounds for the internal critique of the project cite and network
organization, particularly the tendencies they promote which violate the collective good
and reinforce the social pathologies of individualism and anomie. Even though network
organization appears more flexible and less delimited than bureaucratically organized
capitalism, the project cite institutes elements of constraint and closure. Boltanski and
Chiapello (2005: 523) contend that the cite appears as a self-referential critical mechan-
ism, internal to and immanent in a world that is in the process of coming into being, and

Browne 39
must limit itself if it is to last. Networks are of potentially unlimited extension and they
draw strength from being open to new connections. The project cite defines the relevant
linkages for a specific duration and establishes connections between individuals, tools,
things, legislation, and so on, in terms of a purpose. These processes are similar to those
constitutive of reality and what Boltanski has elsewhere described as conventions that
establish agreements about objectivity (Boltanski 1999; Boltanski and Thevenot 2006).
Cites are not just cultural values and representations; the institution of a cite requires the
creation of an alignment and resonance between practices and the material, as well as
immaterial, environment. This is why tests are necessary to confirm that reality hangs
together and why Boltanski argues that critique seeks to reconstitute the relationship
between reality and world. The relationship between tests and critique is complex,
because it is possible for one to be either an expression or a denial of the other. In con-
crete terms, this complexity can be seen in how the project cite applies tests to refute
bureaucratic capitalism, such as in contesting the value of seniority and work classifica-
tions, but uses tests to manage potential critique and conflict, such as through audit-
ing the implementation of policies on discrimination and equal opportunity. In fact,
the reflexivity that the project cite displays about the processes of its assemblage
constitutes a major challenge to critique and it is integral to new capitalisms com-
plex mode of managerial domination: governance through change (Boltanski 2011;
Boltanski and Chiapello 2005).
Despite the presence of tests throughout social life, there is a strong connection
between tests and the third phase of capitalism, as is evident from the pervasiveness of
phenomena like benchmarking, rankings, and auditing (O tsch et al. 2013). The project
cites construction of equivalence in terms of activity makes tests integral to its jus-
tifications and results in tests with some different orientations to those of capitalisms
preceding phases. The new tests seek to incorporate actors subjectivity, and this is a
component of management through actors own involvement and self-control; for exam-
ple, tests like the alleged self-selection of goals and self-evaluation of performance are
meant to incorporate subjectivity. By focusing on subjects involvement and participa-
tion, these tests are in certain respects more intrusive than earlier tests, even though they
bear traces of critiques aspirations of autonomy and self-actualization. In terms of their
underlying principles, the tests of third phase capitalism differ from those based on the
positivist separation of subjectivity and objectivity. The positivist mentality was consis-
tent, as the Frankfurt School and Castoriadis emphasized, with organized capitalisms
social relations of domination and hierarchical management, especially the Taylorist dis-
tinction between the direction and the execution of activities. Boltanski and Chiapello
(2005: 495503) consider that the social critique did for a period lead to the institution
of tests that produced greater fairness. One response to this development has been the
action of elites to circumvent these tests. The tests of the project cite contribute to the
displacement of contestation but they do not resolve the contradiction that capitalism
is unable to generate the motivations that it presupposes.
It may be because tests are a major part of the project cites management through
change that Boltanski proposes that the critique of institutions can involve an inde-
terminate process of dislocating reality. These existential tests represent a more radical
version of critique than that of the reality tests which deploy the contrast between

the existing normative potential and the actual limited institutional reality, or, as it is
sometimes described, the critique that reveals the difference between how things are and
how they could be. Reality tests seek to determine the capacities and potentials of
beings and they can serve either the confirmation or critique of reality. When Boltanski
(2011: 106) states that critique can also find in reality itself elements that facilitate
challenges to the confirmed representations of reality, he is virtually reiterating the
distinction Marxian critical theory drew between itself and utopian critiques. However,
in his opinion, critiques that take the form of reality tests are primarily reformist:
But in none of these operations is reality as such challenged and it can even be said that, in
some respects, these critical operations can help to reinforce the reality of reality. When a
person or group motivated by critical dispositions engages in a reality test, it is indeed to get
others (and invariably, in principle, everyone) to recognise the validity of their claims and
the factual character of the injustice they have suffered. But, in so doing, the plaintiff
acknowledges what might be called the reality of reality that is to say, the validity of the
forms of organization that are at once guaranteed, at least in principle, and reproduced by
the established test formats, as is the case every time someone appeals to social justice, the
rules, respect for established procedures, and so on. (Boltanski 2011: 107)
Boltanski (2011: 156) believes that the major source of domination today is the
closure of reality on itself. It is not surprising then that he highlights how critique that is
based on reality tests is qualified by its dependence on the semantic security of
institutions. The complications of this position will be remarked on later but it is clear
that Boltanski considers that the critique of contemporary capitalism entails the critique
of its tests. For this reason, existential tests potentially constitute a resource for critiques
renewal. Existential tests have not undergone the same institutionalization and they
seek to reveal injustices that have not been recognized. Boltanski is right to claim that
existential tests are regularly given expression through the creative works of artists and
musicians, since these can deploy alternatives to constructed forms and they are often
sensitive to individuals unique situations and experiences.
When critique, by seizing on existential tests, undertakes to share and publicize unhappy
experiences like contempt or denial, hitherto lived in solitude and privacy, it assigns itself
the task of undoing the generally accepted relations between symbolic forms and states of
affairs. (Boltanski 2011: 109)
The critique deriving from existential tests reveals how domination involves mis-
categorization and unmasks the incompleteness of reality (Boltanski 2011: 113). In my
opinion, although the revelatory component of existential tests is undoubtedly signifi-
cant, the critique deriving from it still confronts the conundrums of institutionalization.
Indicative of the tensions involved are Boltanskis contentions that critique should
exploit the contradictions of institutions and that to assert itself by establishing new
forms of the relationship between critical instances and instituted instances is to proceed
in the direction of the eternal road of revolt (Boltanski 2011: 158; see Fabianai 2011).
It is worth underlining the preceding analyses delineation of the major components of
Boltanskis development of the framework of critique before exploring its tensions in the

Browne 41
context of a comparative assessment with critical social theory. Boltanski has undertaken
major investigations of the connection between disputes, justifications, and critical prac-
tices. Similarly, he has explored the contemporary dynamics of the conflicts of the capi-
talist system and their connection to critique, especially with respect to the changing
relationships between labour and management. Boltanski has shown how critical practices
draw on different formats of argumentation and that there are established grammars or
regimes of justification. In other words, he has explicated some of the conventions and
rules that shape critical practices and their moral-political conceptions of justice. The prag-
matist approach provides insights into social practices moral character and how the prac-
tices of criticism and justification engender conflicts and compromises. It is an open
question whether the diverse critical practices that Boltanski and Thevenot sketched con-
stitute genuine or authentic forms of critique, since it is not difficult to perceive that many
of the critical practices they survey are context-dependent even though they apply justifi-
cations that transcend situations, express moral conventions more than principled commit-
ments, and deploy values that are to varying degrees compatible with the injustices of the
social order. In my opinion, Boltanski has not resolved the relationship between critical
practices and critique. However, he has clarified different registers of critical practice and
developed considerations relevant to assessing the continuities and discontinuities between
critique proper and those more general critical practices that are part of the fabric of social
interaction, like disputes, denunciations, tests and assessments.
At the same time, Boltanski has proposed that the same format of reality tests can
function either as a means of confirmation or critique, though he delineates from them
the existential tests or challenges that accept less of reality and function more on the
order of resistance. Significantly, Boltanski has endeavoured to clarify the difference
between the critique that is based on the distinction between the actual and the potential
of reality and the critique that derives from the existential tests that seek to expose the
institutionalized complicity of semantic security and symbolic violence. However, his
comment that the question of critique seems to me inextricably bound up with that of the
institutions it leans on indicates the rather paradoxical character of the latter critique and
why it is strongly connected to actors sense of indignation (Boltanski 2011: 51). This is
one of a number of components of Boltanskis reformulation of critique that illuminates
the processes of the denaturalizing of reality. He has equally contributed to explanations
of how reality, as something given and taken-for-granted, is created, particularly clarify-
ing how this happens through the relating of the semantic and the pragmatic, the reflex-
ivity of institutions in relation to critique, and the workings of the metapragmatic register.
Reality is far from a rational order that is free of contradictions; institutions are always
incomplete and in tension with their own self-definition. What this also means, in effect,
is that challenging reality, in Boltanskis conception, is always incomplete and that cri-
tique draws on the world without being able to circumscribe its dimensions.
IV
Boltanskis reformulation of critique is undoubtedly innovative and provocative,
although there are inevitably tensions and deficiencies in its elaboration. Boltanski has
likewise provided significant insights into capitalist modernitys field of contention, and,

with Chiapello, he has shown how social conflicts resulted in changes in the legitima-
tions of capitalism and the values that underpin the motivations necessary for this
institutions reproduction. No doubt other perspectives would dispute Boltanskis
assumption that capitalism requires justifications that are based on interpretations of the
common good. Neo-Marxists might consider these justifications are less significant than
material constraints, implicit coercion and ideological blockages to critique. In my opin-
ion, these theoretical disagreements with Boltanskis pragmatism are significant, but his
framework is sufficiently complex to take into account the empirical tendencies that are
typically referenced by neo-Marxists and other approaches that subordinate cultural
interpretations, like standard political economies and historical sociologies of power
(Mann 1986). Even so, Boltanskis conception of domination can be readily criticized
for its inadequacies with respect to some of the most significant dimensions of power.
As we have seen, Boltanski highlights the semantic role of institutions and he distin-
guishes this from two types of entities: on the one hand, administrations, which per-
form policing functions; and on the other, organizations which perform coordinating
functions (Boltanski 2011: 79; emphasis in original). Yet he admits that institutions
semantic character is invariably associated with administration and organization. It
would be hard not to conclude that a full appreciation of power depends on explicating
the interrelationships between them. This is particularly because Boltanski remarks that
administrations and organizations refer, if you like, to the means with which institutions
must be equipped in order to act in the world of bodies (Boltanski 2011: 79).
There are several reasons why Boltanski sustains the distinction of the semantic role
of institutions from administrations and organizations. The first would seem to be that
the embodiment, so to speak, of administrations and organizations means that they tend
not to possess the same generality as that of the reality-defining character of institutions,
hence the correlation that is regularly drawn between their instrumental functions and the
particular interests that they serve (Boltanski 2011). Second, although it is not quite
stated in these terms, it would appear that Boltanski considers that the common equation
of institutions with these two entities results in the concealing of instituting practices. In
my opinion, this intuition is broadly correct, as the tasks of policing and coordinating
generally function within the parameters of an instituted reality. The assimilation of
institutions to administration and organizations may obscure the semantic quality of
institutions: the relating of symbolic forms and states of affairs. Of course, organizations
and administrations significantly contribute, in their own ways, to reducing uncertainty.
Boltanski would seem to have in mind a distinction similar to that Castoriadis makes
between the infrastructural power of the social imaginary in its creation of meaning,
orientation, purpose, legitimation, and so on, and the explicit power of those institu-
tions with the authority to use force and coercion (Castoriadis 1991).
There seems to me to be another reason why Boltanski conceptualizes institutions in a
manner that appears deficient with respect to power. Rousseaus notion of the general
will is something of a template for Boltanskis notions of cites and institutions (see
Boltanski 2013a). The general will, as Boltanski and Thevenot noted, is a disembodied
being and it should not be derived from administrations or organizations (Boltanski and
Thevenot 2006). The general will contrasts with embodied sovereignty or, to use
Kantorowiczs (1957) terms, the kings two bodies. Rousseau had contrasted the

Browne 43
general will with the concrete embodiment of the combination of discrete individuals in
the will of all (Rousseau 1968). The general will is something that is constructed through
the practices of social actors without being entirely reducible to these individually
embodied practices and, in this respect, it is similar to Durkheims conception of society
(Durkheim 1984). As discussed earlier, Boltanski considers that the disembodiment of
institutions is a source of hermeneutic contradictions and precipitates the critique of
domination. Institutions fabricate some semblance of a general will in obliging partic-
ipation and involvement, but their failure to realize the expectations of equivalence and
the common good that this generates is a source of alienation.
The pragmatist objective of deriving critique from actors critical practices remains of
considerable importance and a feature of democratizing critique. It represents an alter-
native to those critical standpoints that are based on the model of the discontinuity of
science with everyday social actors understandings. Whether Boltanski has succeeded
in developing this insight into the pre-theoretical basis of critique to the same extent as
the most relevant contemporary comparison that of Honneths theory of struggle for
recognition is a difficult question to answer (Honneth 1995). It is certainly the case that
Boltanski has clarified to a greater extent the contingencies and uncertainties of critical
practices. Boltanski has arguably more effectively conveyed how critique destabilizes
instituted reality. Of course, his conception of the fragility of reality and its construction
is different from Honneths position. In Honneths model, the dynamic of redefining
reality stems more from the challenging of the distortions or violations of the normative
expectations of justice that are developed through processes of intersubjective recogni-
tion (Honneth 1995). For this reason, recognition represents something like the common
nucleus of the sense of justice that receives expression in different cites (Boltanski and
Honneth 2009). The struggles for recognition that are motivated by violations of norma-
tive expectations lead to changes in conceptions of justice and the enlargement of moral
grammars, for example, through increased sensitivity to the damages to particular iden-
tities of social inequalities and the extension of rights to groups that were formerly
excluded from them. As a consequence, the relationship between the struggles for rec-
ognition and critique appears relatively more straightforward in the case of Honneths
framework. In a similar vein, Honneth considers that the senses of identity and morality
that are acquired through the socializing experiences of recognition enable social actors
to answer the questions that Boltanski considers that they necessarily confront in their
practices, that is, whether their conceptions of justice are actually justified and appropri-
ate to the situation.
The fact that Honneth draws on George Herbert Meads pragmatist interpretation of
the development of identity through symbolically mediated interaction means that there
are some intersections between Boltanskis conception of critique and Honneths
account of struggles for recognition. Mead (1934) had already developed a definition
of institutions in terms of their semantic function and his notion of society as the
generalized other is based on subjects practically acquired interpretations of the
common good. Like Mead, Boltanski considers that the metapragmatic register of
institutions reduces uncertainty and that language is a medium of its own reflection.
Mead recognized that disputation is a major part of social practices and important to
innovative learning. However, Boltanski has much more explicitly explored the formal

properties of disputation and substantive conflicts. Boltanskis account of reflexive

modes of domination is the second way in which he considerably expands on Meads
intuitions. Mead appreciated the capacity of critique to initiate changes in institutions but
I have suggested that Boltanski has shown how reflexive domination can involve the
deployment of the immanent contradictions of institutions in a way that displaces cri-
tique. In particular, the project cite defines active participation in a manner consistent
with the new spirit of capitalism and thereby partly undermines critiques of capitalisms
reliance on passive acceptance through instituting processes of governance through
change. The conclusion that Boltanski drew from this analysis of reflexive domination is
that critique needs to contest not just the moral injustices that derive from denied rec-
ognition but also the categorization of reality. In fact, the two components of contestation
are generally part of the same critical practices, since revising categorization is typically
a means and objective of subordinate groups struggles for recognition, or existential
critique. Even so, Boltanskis distinction between reality and world implies that critique
discovers potentials and alternatives in a more indeterminate domain. Now, the impli-
cation of this perspective would seem to be that struggles for recognition are one of a
multiplicity of components that shape the challenging of the semantic reflexivity of
institutions. In effect, struggles for recognition draw on world horizons of meaning that
go beyond them.
The connection that Boltanski draws between critique and categorization has certain
continuities with Adornos critique of identity thinking and Bourdieus exposures of the
symbolic power of classification (Adorno 1973). Critical social theory and critical sociology
each claim that their reflexivity about the social context of their genesis distinguishes them
from traditional or standard versions of the social sciences. Boltanskis pragmatist refor-
mulation of critique refines the conditions of reflexivity and discloses how critique confronts
different registers of justification. In one sense, this could be regarded as a clarification of
known features of ideology and legitimation, yet it is important in grasping how the new
spirit of capitalism incorporated aspects of the normative ideals of critique and complex
modes of domination. One could suggest that if the notion of the project citeis correct, in the
sense of having been accurately characterized and that it is actually operative, then it is
necessary to interrogate the semantic expressions of the relationship between institutions
and their instituting, since reflexive domination legitimates itself less by way of reference to
its external authority and more by way of its instituting change. Of course, this does not
amount to the abolition of a contradiction but a modification of how it is manifested and
concealed. The Rousseauian model of the general will could then represent a standard for
assessing the discrepancy between the expectations institutions generate and their actuality.
Although critical social theory is an evolving tradition of thought, there are a number
of presuppositions and intentions that have given it its distinctive orientation. Boltanskis
reconstruction of critique interfaces with several of these distinguishing features and it is
possible to draw out the implications of this contrast in light of the preceding analysis. In
addition to the reflexivity about the social-historical conditions of its genesis and appli-
cation, critical social theory has been distinguished, firstly, by its synthesis of different
perspectives (especially indicative of this approach was the first generation of the Frank-
furt Schools incorporation of psychoanalysis) and, secondly, by the application of a dia-
lectical method (although it has been interpreted and developed in different terms, the

Browne 45
dialectical method is apparent in an interest in the conversion between the subjectivity of

social actors and the objectivity of institutions). Thirdly, the problem of rationality has
been central to critical social theory; rationality has been a basic justification of critique
and, as noted already, a basic determinant of progressive change, yet the predominant
versions of rationality in capitalist society have been an object of critique. Fourthly, crit-
ical social theory has sought to clarify the sociological translation of philosophical
categories and the practical function of philosophical ideals. Like the notions of reason
and rationality, philosophical notions were criticized as ideological legitimations of
domination and simultaneously understood to be normative aspirations to be practi-
cally realized. Fifthly, the sociological framework of critical social theory has been
shaped by theses about capitalisms historical evolution and the diversion from Marxs
predictions particularly significant were the assessments of the class compromise of
organized capitalism and the Weber-inspired view of the extension of bureaucratic
administration in modernity. Boltanskis conception of the third phase of the capitalist
spirit departs from the earlier critical social theory interpretation of capitalism and
somewhat delimits it. The reiteration of the implications of this analysis of capitalisms
third phase can serve as a starting point for detailing the contrasts with these orientat-
ing features of critical social theory.
Boltanskis depiction of how the third phase of capitalisms ideological justification
differs from those of the preceding phases is undoubtedly insightful and illuminating.
The notions of the project cite and network organization are likewise quite profound,
although Boltanski appears to recognize some of the limits of these notions
application and the sense in which these dimensions of the new spirit of capitalism
conceal contradictions. It is clear that the second spirit of capitalisms Taylorist
system of management has never entirely disappeared and that it has, to some
degree, even been extended, such as through the auditing of occupations formerly
less subject to managerial oversight (Boltanski 2011; Otsch et al. 2013). The per-
sistence of the forms of capitalist organization that the Frankfurt School critiqued is
even more apparent from a fully global perspective that takes into account industrial
production in modernizing nation-states like China and Bangladesh. In fact, these
are qualifications that Boltanskis analysis could readily embrace, because its inten-
tion is precisely to reveal the contradictions of capitalism. Boltanskis theoretical
framework is capable of dealing with the tensions intrinsic to institutions formation
and how institutions composition regularly involves the combining of juxtaposed
elements. The problem may be more that these intentions may not be fully appre-
ciated and this possibly has its source in Boltanski and Chiapellos synthesis of dif-
ferent approaches that are usually considered to have opposed implications, like that
of the sociology of economic conventions and historical sociology of the capitalist
system (see Boltanski and Chiapello 2005: xviii).
The most important difference of this analysis from that of the Frankfurt School
critical social theory is Boltanski and Chiapellos explanation of how critique and
conflict gave rise to changes in capitalisms spirit and organization. This would appear to
contradict the Frankfurt Schools claims about the exhaustion of resistance in the totally
administered society and the conformist tendencies of late-capitalist individuals. Of
course, the Frankfurt Schools theses were based on much more demanding images of

autonomy and emancipation than Boltanski and Chiapellos conception of agency. Simi-
larly, the Frankfurt School position is supported by the fact that capitalism appropriated
elements of its critique and it could be argued that changes in capitalism were more
apparent than real. No doubt there is an element of truth to these counter-critiques; how-
ever, Boltanski and Chiapellos account is significant in its restoring of social struggles
to the centre of the analysis of capitalism and exploring the long-term dynamic of the
dialectic of control. There is a certain irony in the fact that the Frankfurt School critiques
that mobilized opposition to capitalism represent another instance of critical sociologies
that negate agency seeming to have a greater critical power than those that presume it.
Nevertheless, Boltanski and Chiapellos contention that critiques like those of the Frank-
furt School were disarmed by changes in capitalist organization and its legitimation is
largely consistent with the positions developed by later critical theory. Honneth appears
to endorse Boltanski and Chiapellos conclusions in stating that in recent decades the
normative principles of earlier critiques seem to have lost their emancipatory meaning
or been transformed; in many instances they have become mere legitimizing concepts for
a new level of capitalist expansion (Honneth and Hartmann 2012: 169). As a conse-
quence, critical theorys former critical diagnostic model of the capitalist system consti-
tuting a structural restriction to processes of rationalization and emancipation seems less
compelling. In short, Honneth argues that what is required instead is a notion of paradox-
ical contradictions, whereby contemporary capitalist modernization generates normative
expectations that its actual organization undermines.
Boltanskis reconstruction of critique and analysis of capitalism enables a recon-
sideration of a problem that has remained dormant in critical social yheory. That is,
critical social theory has not sought to systematically deconstruct and rethink the basic
categories and framework of economics. Critical theory has always recognized the
social character of the economy and the delusion involved in considering it an
autonomous system. It did extend the theory of the value form in developing the
concept of reification, such as through analyses of the culture industry and positivist
conceptions of science. Yet, Habermass critical theory position on the theory of value
was that the increased state regulation and intervention in the market modified its
applicability and compromised the autonomy of the market system (Habermas 1976).
Boltanskis long-term concern with the attribution of worth and economic conventions
represents a means of questioning value, and various facets of his work challenge stan-
dard conceptions of the capitalist economy. In particular, Boltanskis notion of insti-
tution opens up the question of the ontological status of the economy and the
relationship that it establishes between reality and world. Capitalism represents, from
this standpoint, a constellation of various social components, including social actors,
material resources, property rights, and mentalities, and exists in relation to other
social forms, like the family, religions, the state. These are simultaneously distinct
from capitalism and combined with it. Now, this conception of institution is again
proximate to Castoriadiss conception of capitalism as involving an indefinite combi-
nation of social imaginary significations. According to Castoriadis, the core capitalist
imaginary of the unlimited rational domination and control of nature and society estab-
lishes connections between these significations in such a way that each aspect of the
institution of society presupposes one another.

Browne 47
In my opinion, Castoriadiss elucidation of the capitalist imaginary may be the more

theoretically original, but Boltanskis pragmatism provides means for advancing the
questioning of the ontological status of the economy. First, Boltanski has developed with
his collaborators empirical methodologies that are relevant to this interrogation, and it is
worthwhile noting that he also recognizes that the questioning of institutions cannot be
reduced to methodology. Second, Castoriadiss later writings on the imaginary institu-
tion of society never developed the conception of social action to the extent that would
appear to be presupposed by its notion of instituting. Boltanskis pragmatism contains a
theory of action that is highly relevant to the questioning of the institution of the
economy, even though the interconnections between practices and autonomy have not
been specified to the extent that critique probably demands. The comparison with
Habermass and Castoriadiss respective approaches to critique showed that Boltanski
tends to presume the existence of the norms and values that underpin critique. Even so,
what Boltanski has developed is convincing substantive accounts of how changes in
values produced alterations in institutions. The transition between phases of capitalism is
not equivalent, however, to the historical transformation from one social formation to
another, like the change from feudalism to capitalism, but it is highly consequential in
terms of the life experiences of individuals and the modifications in the forms of social
domination.
One of the defining considerations of critical social theory has been an interest in the
practical realization of philosophical notions of autonomy, emancipation and justice.
Marx and Engels (1976) originally proposed that these notions were generally false and
insubstantial because they were interpreted as ideas that were divorced from the practical
conditions of living. Yet, at the same time, these notions did have social functions as
ideologies and critiques role was to distinguish between the potential they represented
and their actual institution. Critical social theory is not simply the critique of false
representations; it is the critique of the social reality that gives rise to false representa-
tions. Boltanskis post-positivist reconceptualization of critique presumes the intertwine-
ment of reality and its representations. However, the meaning of philosophys practical
realization has different connotations in the work of Boltanski and Thevenot. It was their
intention to excavate social scientific conceptions of practices and to reconnect them
with their sources in moral and political philosophy. Social actors competences could
then be shown to give expression to philosophical visions of justice. The implication
of this approach would seem that radical change derives from actors instantiation of
a citethat challenges the injustices of the social order. Rather than presuming that certain
values are operative owing to socialization, pragmatist standpoints accentuate practices
and social interaction. Of course, this represents only an approach to the critical theory
problem of the actuality of philosophy rather than its resolution. It nevertheless has some
parallels with Habermass renewal of critiques normative foundations through the para-
digm of communication and the explication of competences (Habermas 1984). The
major deficiency of Habermass synthesis was that its focus on the formal properties
of competences meant that the characteristics of actual social action were obscured, the
tensions involved in confronting the social order with demands for justice insufficiently
elaborated, and the motivations for instigating change partly misrepresented as owing to
experiences of the precluding of the enactment of linguistic competences. In principle,

at least, Boltanski and Thevenots model should be more consistent with practices, and
they claim to try
to develop a theory of agreement and disagreement that does not merely entail an encounter
between arguments and principles; we shall attempt to present a theory that accounts for the
confrontation with circumstances, with a specific reality, that is, a theory that accounts for
the involvement of human beings and objects in a given action. (Boltanski and Thevenot
2006: 128)
Boltanski has certainly developed an approach to the critical social theory problem
of the conversion between the subjectivity of social actors and the objectivity of
institutions. The notion of institution that he has proposed constitutes another way of
conceptualizing this interrelationship and an alternative to simple binaries of sub-
jectivity and objectivity, action and structure, and semantic security and symbolic
violence. Even so, Boltanski and Chiapellos analysis highlights capitalisms depen-
dence on the actions of subjects and the simultaneous denial of actors real self-
determination. At the centre of their account of the new spirit of capitalism is the dis-
placement of the conflicts that ensue from this contradiction. Still, Boltanski does not
conceive of change in terms of the potential transformation by a history making sub-
ject. This would appear to be part of the legacy for him of the lefts longing for total
revolution, although his work reveals how social conflicts have resulted in transitions
to new institutional realities (Boltanski 2002). Boltanskis sociology of critical prac-
tices has not been organized by an overarching project in the manner of critical social
theory. He has rather explored the diversity of social actors critical practices and the
conditions of the formation of political projects of transformation, emphasizing the
deployment of justifications that appeal to the common good and the equivalence of
participants. Boltanskis approach can be interpreted as depicting critical practices
as flowing from various positions, whilst considering that there are primary forms of
domination and oppression, like class and gender. This feature of Boltanskis sociol-
ogy of critical practices has more in common with Bourdieus idea of the plurality
of social fields than the Frankfurt School theory of domination. As we saw, Boltanskis
perspective differs from that of Bourdieu in its explication of the moral dimension of
critical practices and in its rejection of the predetermination of critical practices
agency and justifications by the antecedent socialization of habitus and the position
occupied in the field. Nevertheless, Boltanskis reformulation of critique in conjunc-
tion with the category of institution does highlight the possible complementarity of the
sociology of critique and critical sociology.
In conclusion, Boltanski has undoubtedly explored the predicament of contemporary
critique and proposed a constructive response to diagnoses of the decline of critique. He
has demonstrated the connection that critique has to practices that disclose the fragility
of reality and the expectations of justifications. Boltanski relates the semantic character
of domination to these challenges that critique poses and the internal contradictions of
institutions. The constitution of institutions involves the instantiating of a distinction
between reality and world, but the world then forms both a part of the background to the
institution. The world is a somewhat unpredictable and never entirely enclosed source of

Browne 49
alternatives to institutions reality. One implication of this conception is that critique is

an ever-present possibility and that there are unrecognized sources of critique, since
these become explicit through the processes of challenging or testing reality. Boltans-
kis sociological analyses have traced the contrary processes of the partial appropriation
of critiques by the spirit of capitalism and the inverted application of critique to sustain
relations of domination. However, the comparison of Boltanskis reformulation of cri-
tique with those of Habermas and Castoriadis concluded that while the relationship
Boltanski proposes of reality and world may enable critique, it has no necessary or
logical claim to instigate critique rather than just challenges or provocations. For
Habermas and Castoriadis, effective critique presupposes some animating property
or orientation, like communicative rationality or the social imaginary of the project
of autonomy. Boltanskis reformulation of critique may appear incomplete in compar-
ison but his approach enables an appreciation of the complications of diverse critical
practices, especially the manner in which the tensions of institutions generate critique.
In his opinion, it is better to accept that critique has an indeterminate potential than to
risk institutionalizing a semantic closure through fixing on a specific dimension. For
Boltanski, emancipation involves the opening up of the question of the making of real-
ity to all those involved and not just those in a dominant position.
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Author biography
Craig Browne is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Sociology and Social Policy at
the University of Sydney. His current research interests are critical social theory, praxis

philosophy, social imaginaries, democracy, and modernity. He edited with J. McGill

Violence in France and Australia: Disorder in the post-colonial welfare state, Sydney:
Sydney University Press (2010). Recent publications include: Browne, C. Between
Creative Democracy and Democratic Creativity, in V. Karalis ed. Castoriadis and Rad-
ical Democracy, Leiden: Brill (2014); Browne, C. and Susen, S. Austerity and its
Antitheses: Practical Negations of Capitalist Legitimacy, South Atlantic Quarterly
113. (2) (2014). [email: craig.browne@sydney.edu.au]

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Thesis Eleven

The institution of critique and the critique of institutions

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The institution 2014, Vol. 124(1) 2052

of critique and the sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav

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theoretical reinterpretations of institutions properties, such as in terms of recognition,

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modes of communicating, the embodiment of an identity and the expression conveyed by

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Wacquant 1992). It is possible to consider Boltanskis recourse to pragmatism as

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hermeneutic contradiction draws attention to genuine antinomies. The critique that it

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conception of competences gives considerable weight to pragmatic social skills. As a

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dependent on motivations that it is unable to generate; and this assessment exemplifies

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of historical transformation. Although Boltanskis overall position is probably not that

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properties of disputation and substantive conflicts. Boltanskis account of reflexive

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dialectical method is apparent in an interest in the conversion between the subjectivity of

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In my opinion, Castoriadiss elucidation of the capitalist imaginary may be the more

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alternatives to institutions reality. One implication of this conception is that critique is

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Bourdieu P (2000) Pascalian Meditations, trans. Nice R. Cambridge: Polity Press.

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philosophy, social imaginaries, democracy, and modernity. He edited with J. McGill

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