American sociology, as I point out elsewhere (2013; 2006), has undergone considerable disciplinary and subdisciplinary specialization and segmentation over the last thirty years.Footnote 1 Various fields and subfields with strong scholarly (theoretical and methodological) boundaries have emerged creating a fragmented array of sociological inquiry. Neil Fligstein and Doug McAdam (hereafter FM) offer in A Theory of Fields an integrative response to this balkanization of American sociology due to subfield proliferation, specialization, and segmentation. In their book FM attempt to rectify the centrifugal forces of specialization by identifying concerns common to several subfields, which they are able to gather under one conceptual umbrella—strategic action fields. They see emerging across the literatures of social movements, political sociology, organizations, economic sociology, and institutional theory in sociology and political science common efforts to grapple with the creation, institutionalization, and transformation of “mesolevel social orders” where actors compete for material and status rewards. In what resembles an unacknowledged variation of Robert Merton's famous idea of multiple independent discoveries, FM believe they have one; namely, this “surprising discovery of fields” (209) across numerous disciplines and subdisciplines to account for these mesolevel social orders. In lieu of calling them just markets, organizations, networks, systems, or institutions, FM contend that the language of “strategic action field” is more appropriate. Moreover, this framework would correct for the one-sided-material-interest focus in economic sociology, the lack of agency in institutional analysis, and the insufficient attention to durable structures in social movement research.
For FM, a strategic action field (SAF) is
A constructed mesolevel social order in which actors (who can be individual or collective) are attuned to and interact with one another on the basis of shared (which is not to say consensual) understandings about the purposes of the field, relationships to others in the field (including who has power and why), and the rules governing legitimate action in the field (9).
Fields emerge when actors (individuals and collectivities) construct shared meanings around four issues: a common understanding of what is at stake to struggle for/over, who other relevant players are, the rules of the game, and a “broad interpretative frame” of what is going on in the field (10-11, 88-89, 170). SAFs, FM stress, are formed by collective efforts through shared understandings that involve cooperative as well as competitive efforts.
The concept of field is increasingly being used in North American sociology as well as in Europe. The concept is commonly associated with and inspired by the work of Pierre Bourdieu. While field analysis does not originate with Bourdieu––there is a variety of uses of the language of field in the social sciences as John Levi-Martin (Reference Martin Levi2003) has pointed out––still it is the Bourdieusian concept that dominates in sociology today.
This book represents the first major effort by two widely recognized American sociologists to outline a general field analytical perspective drawing inspiration from Bourdieu. In particular it points to the usefulness of the concept for social movements, organizations, and economic and political sociology. In Bourdieusian terms their efforts attempt to introduce a new kind of conceptual capital into well-established if diverse intellectual subfields of the social sciences. It is a book that is receiving considerable attention and likely to have a significant impact on how field analysis will be oriented among American sociologists. Moreover, this influence is being felt not just in the American context since the authors, particularly Fligstein, have made numerous efforts to disseminate the book in Europe (such as the UK, Germany, Denmark, and France) among social scientists who engage English speaking social science. In short, this is not just another book drawing on some of Bourdieu's work. While it may not be quite as significant as the authors claim, the book does represent a widely-discussed work that will likely shape how Bourdieu’s concept of field will be incorporated into North American social science.
Borrowings from Bourdieu
While clearly not Bourdieusians, FM draw inspiration from elements of Bourdieu's thinking that move beyond the stereotypical assessments that continue to plague much American sociology in spite of the growing familiarity with his work. In contrast to Richard Jenkins (Reference Jenkins2000), they do not stereotype Bourdieu as simply a social reproduction theorist, even though they stress the possibilities for social change much more than Bourdieu does. Nor do they set up Bourdieu as a straw figure as does, for example, Howard Becker (Reference Becker2006), to distinguish the originality and superiority of their own views. However, FM make little attempt to probe in depth the conceptual world of Bourdieu by identifying the strengths and weaknesses of his concept. Their work is neither exegetical nor critical. It is a selective importation of features they find agreeable for their purposes of proposing a mesolevel conceptual framework that stresses change, inter-organizational relations, and cooperation.
FM see “substantial affinity” between Bourdieu’s conceptualization of fields and their own: “His main theoretical contribution was proposing the concept of field and combining it with a theory of action” (24). They see Bourdieu as one of the first to creatively address the agency/structure problem by offering a novel conceptual language that integrates actors into structural analysis and to do so in a way leading to empirical research. They see their own work as extending that conceptual enterprise by drawing insights from work in social movements, organizations, and economic sociology. On pp. 24-26 they identify three areas where they see their work extending beyond that of Bourdieu and they venture the claim that Bourdieu would likely agree with the direction of their proposed extensions.
The first would offer “more systematic focus on collective actors”. They see their focus and extension of Bourdieu’s thinking as centering on the problem of collective action within and across fields. In contrast to the individual level focus they attribute to Bourdieu (two notable exceptions they acknowledge in his oeuvre being The Rules of Art and The State Nobility), they specify that “our focus is on how people cooperate, how groups get things done, and how we are to understand the interaction that goes on between groups” (25). They see Bourdieu’s actors as fundamentally concerned with their own self interests associated with the positions they occupy in fields. While acknowledging that actors pursue their individual interests within the constraints of fields, as Bourdieu stresses, FM emphasize that “fields also turn more centrally on coordinated action, which requires actors not to simply focus on their position in a field but to seek cooperation with others by taking the role of the other and framing lines of action that appeal to others in the field” (25).
The difference here, however, despite their claim, lies less on a collective rather than individual level of analysis than on the primary dynamic they see animating action in fields: cooperation and coordination versus differentiation. “Our focus is on how people cooperate, how groups get things done, and how we are to understand the interaction that goes on between groups” (25). Here they see themselves echoing central concerns of action in the social movements and organizations literatures in American sociology. Moreover, they neglect to engage Bourdieu’s thinking on group formation and the role of symbolic labor in constructing collective identities that become operative in fields.
Second, they would “focus on the emergence or transformation of social spaces by collective actors” (25). They contend that with few exceptions (The Rules of Art being one of them) that Bourdieu paid little attention to the emergence of new fields or the transformation of existing ones. He focused on field structure and how that impacted action. They do acknowledge that one place where Bourdieu does consider field transformation or dissolution is when the doxa is successfully challenged. But this seems to be a narrow and selective reading of Bourdieu's work. While not developing a comprehensive theory of change, Bourdieu does consider field change through the dynamics of struggle between incumbents and challengers, the introduction of new forms of capital, and external shocks as well as challenges to the underlying doxa. Nevertheless, FM are right in calling for an increasing exploration of the conditions promoting field change and transformation.
Third, FM note that, with the notable exception of The State Nobility, Bourdieu “rarely theorized the linkages between fields and the dynamics that could result from the interactions between fields” beyond calling attention to structural homologies between fields. For FM “these linkages are fundamental to an understanding of stability and change in existing fields” and they devote an entire chapter to this topic (26). Compared to Bourdieu they focus much more on how fields are embedded in other fields (like Russian dolls) rather than on the internal logic of any individual field. Action in individual fields can be shaped by proximate relations to other fields, whether other fields are dependent, interdependent, or independent in terms of networks and flows of valued resources. This seems to be a useful elaboration as inter-field relations are becoming a matter of considerable attention among some International Relations scholars in their efforts to move beyond the nation-state as the only unit of analysis for the study of transnational social spaces.
Several other elaborations of Bourdieu’s thinking are also worth noting. FM provide a useful specification of entities specialized in maintaining field structures and defending field interests from external threats. There are “internal governance units”. Field struggle is not just between incumbents and challengers but is mediated by groups, organizations, and institutions that work to maintain field order though, as FM admit, these units usually represent disproportionally the interests of the incumbents.
The idea of internal governance units is not absent in Bourdieu's thinking for he sees this role played by many bureaucratic state agencies as regulatory bodies wielding statist capital. FM provide a useful elaboration of this regulatory idea by extending it to cover a wider range of entities, particularly non-governmental agencies, such as trade associations, professional groups, interest group lobbies, and unions for representing the field to outsiders, defending field interests, and maintaining order within the field.
FM grasp the importance of the historical context which informs Bourdieu’s field analysis and this is an improvement over much American sociology (with notable exceptions particularly in the growing current of comparative historical work) that focuses on today’s structures and processes rather than understanding their genesis and development over time. FM see fields as historical constructions.
Like Bourdieu FM conceptualize the modern state as an ensemble of bureaucratic fields rather than as a unitary actor that can be adequately grasped through a rational actor or public choice framework. FM also connect fields to the important role played by governmental agencies; indeed, they consider the state itself as an array of fields that play significant roles in influencing non-governmental fields and in fact stimulating their growth. One of the important implications they draw from this view of the state is that it “is definitely not a unified actor” (74). This is a welcomed implication but not a new one. The image of the unified state actor has been called into question in recent years not only by Bourdieu but also by the growing constructionist current in International Relations. Finally, FM bring a social movement concern for change to field analysis. Even in stable fields there is always some degree of contention and jockeying for position. Fields are ever changing sets of arrangements––at times those changes are dramatic but, usually, they are incremental. And FM give considerable emphasis to the importance of external events in provoking change within fields.
Problematic transformations
Now I want to turn to how FM have transformed Bourdieu’s language of fields in problematic ways.
Bourdieu’s broader conceptual program
This book does not offer a probing analysis of Bourdieu's conceptual corpus. FM adopt the language of field and some of the features Bourdieu sees in fields but neglect to engage the overall conceptual framework that informs Bourdieu’s concept. For Bourdieu, field is an abstract concept—a heuristic tool—that permits one to construct methodologically a space of activity that emerged historically and is structured by opposing positions in function of specific types of capital (power resources) and by a dynamic of struggle between the occupants of those positions. The positions are defined relationally by structured oppositions that distribute across different types of capital. Bourdieu’s concept field draws its full significance within a broader conceptual program that includes the ideas of habitus, capital, social space, field of power, doxa, and illusio. Embedded in the concept is a critical methodology, a view of action, a view of power, and a political vision for sociology absent from the SAF framework proposed by FM. I will group my criticisms of their work around these four points.
A critical methodology
First, Bourdieu brings to all of his sociology a critical structuralist constructionism focused on debunking the mechanisms of power that link individuals and groups in inegalitarian social relations. Bourdieu’s concept of field is a constructed concept, one created by the researcher to draw attention to certain power relations in a social space. It is guided by an “epistemological break” with received everyday and scholastic folk concepts of the social world. For Bourdieu this is a first and crucially necessary step (and ongoing vigilance) for attacking the legitimation of power relations.
FM proceed rather differently and one can see that difference in the methodological outlook embedded in their definition of field. As apparent in the definition quoted above, FM offer a definition ready for operationalization in terms of already constituted social entities and intersubjective awareness of participants. Their starting point does not break with received lay or scholastic wisdom but builds on the intersubjective awareness of actors. While this conception of field suggests a tool for easy operationalization, it also restricts the range of applicability of the concept by hinging it on actor awareness, purposive goals, and already constituted groups. Bourdieu offers a more structural version of field that asks critically why fields come into existence in the first place. Moreover, the purpose of fields may not always be clear, particularly in their early phases of development, and can be highly contested by actors, as Tom Medvetz’s (Reference Medvetz2012) seminal analysis of think tanks shows. As Medvetz (Reference Medvetz2013) points out, by defining strategic action fields in terms of actor consensus on objectives, FM narrow consideration by excluding those cases where fundamental identity questions persist in being debated. Further, their methodological conceptualization also excludes those fields where symbolic stakes replace material stakes. It is noteworthy that FM do not discuss fields of religion, science, art or literature––that is, explicitly symbolic fields. FM's definition begins with already constituted groups whereas Bourdieu would stress that fields themselves are formative of groups; indeed, fields can exercise a group-making function. Fields form groups just as groups can form fields, and one needs a conceptual frame that is broad enough to include both.
Bourdieu’s concept of field does not start with already constituted social groups with awareness of fellow participants in the field. Rather, a Bourdieusian starting point is a constructed social space in terms of a network of positions and their opposing relations as they struggle over valued resources. Those who occupy positions in close proximity in social space are more likely to interact but there is no built-in assumption that they form a group with a given identity let alone engage in collaboration. That is an empirical question to investigate. By defining fields in terms of inter-subjectively shared goals and purposes, FM provide a restricted image of who can participate in fields and who is affected by them. It misses the potential “field effects” where the structure of the field can shape the actions and outcomes without explicit awareness by actors.
At times FM present their concept as a heuristic tool. At other times they seem to suggest that it reflects mesolevel social realities created by social groups. The epistemological status of fields is not clear. Are these construed by actors themselves or as analytical models by social scientists? FM seem to lean toward the former when they define fields as “constructed mesolevel social orders” (9) that are “based far more on subjective ‘standing’ than on objective criteria” (10). At the same time, FM note, for the benefit of “more historically oriented scholars”, that their “theory can be seen as a set of orienting concepts” (185). FM seem willing to wander back and forth across epistemological lines where others would want a clearer understanding of who is doing the constructing here. For Bourdieu, however, the epistemological status is clear: fields are a conceptual tool for constructing the object of research.
A view of action
Second, FM build their concept of field on a view of action that is more narrow than Bourdieu’s and one that highlights more conscious calculation rather than the tacit or unconscious propulsion of habitus. FM see Bourdieu’s concept of field as usefully bringing power and struggle into consideration, which, they charge, is neglected by much neo-institutional scholarship of organizations. But, in contrast to Bourdieu, they also see much more cooperation at work. At some points they seem ready to suggest that the dynamics of field can involve both cooperation and contention, and that which dominates is simply an empirical question. But they subscribe to an anthropology (view of human nature) that is rooted in a Meadian view of sociability and the idea that humans are driven by an existential function to make sense of the social world rather than just pursue material interest. Combined, these stress the importance of human cooperation and meaning making. So FM try to mesh the concept of field with a view of action that stresses more cooperation than differentiation. Though they claim that they are open to both, their borrowing from Mead’s foundational ideas of sociability clearly places them at odds with Bourdieu.
“Social skill” is their key concept in conveying this type of cooperative agency, which in Median terms is the “ability to take the role of the other in the service of cooperative behavior” (202). Social skill refers to “a complex mix of cognitive, affective, and linguistic facilities that render individuals more or less effective as skilled strategic actors supremely well adapted to the demands of collective action” (46). Through the idea of social skill, FM are critical of views that reduce action to one’s position in social structure or to the enactment of a social role. Exercising social skill permits actors to grasp the significance of social signals, set agendas, frame issues, broker differences––in short to transcend to some extent the limitations of current positions in order to create and mobilize collective behavior for alternative sets of arrangements. Most remarkably and quite questionably, social skill is an “innate ability” (203) and therefore presumably cannot be skewed by an unequal distribution of cultural or social capital, which Bourdieu would emphasize. As problematic is their claim that “we view social skill as an individual capacity and assume that it is distributed (perhaps normally) across the population” (17). Strikingly absent are the weight of past experience and the unequal distribution of valued resources that give Bourdieu’s concept of habitus and theory of action more predictability to human activity.
The existential quest for meaning and purpose––to believe the world is meaningfully ordered––is “microfoundational” for FM and often overrides the pursuit of self-interest. They juxtapose this capacity for strategic action against alleged materialist accounts of action such as Bourdieu’s. A Bourdieusian will read this with surprise since the opposition seems rooted more in a caricature of Bourdieu’s thinking on the “interest” orientation of action than a full appreciation of his nuanced position. For Bourdieu, actors are interest oriented provided one expands the sense of “interest” beyond its usual economistic connotations. And Bourdieu’s later shift to the language of “illuso” rather than interest stresses the point that he is not only considering “materialist” concerns. Where they really do seem to differ is on the degree to which action follows patterns of social differentiation versus a need for social accommodation (Bourdieu stressing the former and FM the latter) and on how much action involves conscious strategizing (considerable for FM) versus tacit recognition through practical action (Bourdieu).
Lack a Robust View of Power
Third, the social world for FM can appear as an infinite array of embedded fields but this does not lead to a robust analysis of stratified power in modern society as does the sociology of Bourdieu. Like FM, Bourdieu employs the imagery of Russian dolls to suggest the importance of looking at inter-field relations. But for Bourdieu these appear against the bedrock of the “field of power” where modern societies are organized around the structuring axes of economic and cultural powers that compete, correlate, differentiate, and accumulate in distinct patterns. Moreover, incumbents and challengers within fields are themselves seldom homogeneous units but often vary in the composition of their capital holdings, an idea stressed by Bourdieu but not sufficiently appreciated by FM.
A Political Vision: Field Analysis for What?
And fourth, we might ask with Robert Lynn (1986 [1939]) the “knowledge for what?” question. What is the purpose of field analysis? Bourdieu clearly sees a political objective to his sociology. Field analysis is not intended just for the scholarly gaze. It is also intended to be a project advancing the cause for greater equality by revealing hidden processes and structures of power and their legitimation. For Bourdieu, field analysis figures centrally in his vision for a critical sociology that debunks the underpinnings of symbolic power. It is to be a public sociology.
In contrast, FM limit their theorizing ambitions to creating greater conceptual unity within the profession. Here they make a striking claim: “we are agnostic as to the ultimate ends of sociological research” (186). An interesting self-imposed limitation given their indebtedness to social movement research and the call of their colleague, Michael Buraway, for a public sociology. Their book would be an expression of what Buraway calls “professional sociology” that is an intellectual strategy confined to the academic field. And they have borrowed selectively from Bourdieu's public sociology to do that.
Empirical applications
The usefulness of a conceptual language and framework emerges when it challenges widely held views by offering a more comprehensive understanding of some particular slice of human action too narrowly defined by folk wisdom or scholarly common sense. One of the compelling strengths of A Theory of Fields is that it offers not only a conceptual framework but illustrates how it works across two case studies: the 1955-1970 civil rights struggle and the mortgage crisis and great recession of 2007-2008 in the US. The authors rightly ask what benefits this conceptual language brings to the popular narrative or to the complexity of the theses two cases. Their efforts offer positive if mixed results.
For the civil rights struggle, a SAF perspective shifts attention from a social movement story that highlights specific events, such as Rosa Parks on the bus or Martin Luther King’s assassination, to a much broader view of racial politics that underscores not only core beliefs of white supremacy or specifically Southern arrangements such as Jim Crow but a distinctly “national racial policy field” that extends back to the end of Reconstruction (1877) and forward to 1980. This national field pitted pro- and anti-civil rights forces against each other with the former prevailing only during two periods: reconstruction and the 1960s modern civil rights struggle. The field was dominated largely by elected federal officials, occasionally by federal jurists (particularly the Supreme Court), national interest groups and unions, influential journalists, and movement and countermovement groups. But much of the decisive rupture and change in that field was shaped by changes occurring in proximate fields, such as “the Democratic Party after 1932, the international system of nation-states after World War II, [and] the field of constitutional law after 1938” (137). The social movement for civil rights in the 1960s is cast within a broader and national racial politics field that offers a wider lens on specific events and periods of racial turmoil in US history by connecting them to the Cold War, national political party coalitions, the presidency and Congress, and the economy. This is insightful.
Yet, in spite of their conceptual program to hold agency and structure together, their presentation of the civil rights struggle is told largely in terms of broad historical shifts in national politics without much attention to agency. This they admit and add a postscript where they argue that the story would be impoverished if read through the lens of rational actor theory whereby both pro- and anti-civil rights activists were motivated largely by material gains. Rather “meaning, membership, and identity” as much as material interests and power shaped the civil rights movement (139). However, while compelling, this comes as an afterthought rather than as a central feature that animates their analysis of the national racial field.
For the US mortgage market and financial crisis of 1969-2011, much of the case reads as though it were an analysis of an industry and a set of markets in interaction with government agencies and financial firms. At times saf analysis seems conflated with an industrial sector analysis. Much of this account could be read in terms of rational action in the pursuit of profits, organizational aggrandizement, and regulatory power with the unintended consequences of conflicts and crises. Their summary of the mortgage and financial crisis largely restates the features of their proposed conceptual framework but does not sufficiently illustrate the distinctive contribution that SAF analysis could bring to alternative explanations. Presumably a key alternative framework would be network analysis that would focus on the internal mapping of an saf without taking into consideration the important effects that proximate fields can have on actors through inter-field links. By contrast, an saf perspective would bring into consideration a broader range of actors and institutions than one usually finds in analyses focused on particular markets, industrial sectors, or governmental policies and would explore their inter-connections. This seems to be a real contribution.
Little, however, is said of agency and the existential function reduces to perhaps the post-World War II desire to become middle class through home ownership—hardly the kind of response to the existential anxiety of human finitude that they define at the outset as the existential function!
In sum what the saf’s perspective permits FM to do is tell the civil rights story by focusing not just on the social movement of the 1960s, and tell the mortgage and financial crisis story by focusing not just on the savings and loan debacle, the machinations of Wall Street financial firms, or consumer greed. A broader array of organizations and actors are brought into historical perspective. In both of these quite different cases, and perhaps contrary to common American perceptions, government agencies, regulators, and legal authorities played a decisive role. And that would seem to point to the importance of field analysis for a public sociology that Bourdieu embraces and FM shy away from.
FM have tried to synthesize across several professional literatures with the objective of offering a framework for addressing mesolevel social orders that will be of use to many—positivists and realists alike. One can applaud their ecumenical effort. The work will appeal to researchers looking for analytical devices with which to characterize empirical material, whether quantitative or qualitative. Perhaps most importantly a strategic action field perspective challenges the researcher to look beyond a single unit or level of analysis to broader arrays of agents and levels where both interpersonal and structural linkages operate around something that is at stake. These insights are elaborations from selected ideas of Bourdieu but their work hardly represents the full force of a Bourdieusian perspective. For that one would need to also include Bourdieu’s critical methodology, his view of practical action, his probing analysis of power, and his vision for sociology as a form of politics.
