David Sciulli

Constructing the social system

Barber constructs a provisional, generalized, substantive theory of the social system, which he uses as the starting point and focus of his specialized researches. In this collection of his major writings in social system theory, Barber shows how he has used and developed such a framework over the last fifty years and demonstrates the application of social system theory and its contribution to these areas.

Corporate power in civil society : an application of societal constitutionalism

The corporate mega-mergers of the 1980s and 1990s raise many troubling questions for social scientists and legal scholars. Do corporate globalism and the new, streamlined corporation help or hinder the development of civil society? Does the new power that increasingly deregulated businesses wield undermine the rights of citizens, or is this threat being exaggerated? Who has the authority to get things done in a corporations name and who can be held legally responsible for a corporations misbehavior? What role, if any, should the courts play in strengthening the rights of individuals who challenge the actions of big business? David Sciulli maps the legal limits of corporate power in our democratic society, and explores the role of the corporate judiciary in creating public policy. He argues that the judiciary must be more vigilant and act to curb corporate abuses. He demonstrates that when corporations exercise their private power in civil society, they are just as capable as the state of exercising it in ways that are dangerous, arbitrary, and challenge the basic institutional arrangements of society. Finally, Sciulli calls for sociologists to involve themselves more deeply in issues of corporate governance and commit their discipline to influencing the decisions of the courts.

Professions before Professionalism

For over seventy years the sociology of professions has revolved around empirical generalizations drawn from four modern exemplars of nineteenth century Britain and United States: law and medicine, science and engineering. We identify qualities constitutive of professionalism in an occupation during the ancien regime , on the Continent, and in a field unrelated to the four just noted: seventeenth century French painting and sculpture. These constitutive qualities point to the significance of a distinctively structural and institutional approach to the sociology of professions.

Why Professions Matter: Structural Invariance, Institutional Consequences, Bias

Received wisdom in the sociology of professions employs two approaches, a narrow socio-economic approach (largely in the Anglo-American world) and a much broader cultural and social-psychological approach (largely on the Continent). Both approaches agree on two points. First, professions cannot be distinguished at a conceptual level from other occupations. Second, whatever consequences either successful or failed professionalism introduces into civil society or state administration are confined to the occupational order and stratification system. They do not and cannot affect the direction of social change. The alternative approach outlined and discussed here is structural and institutional. With this approach we distinguish professions proper analytically from other occupations and we identify consequences of professionalism proper that uniquely reflect or anticipate notable shifts in the direction of social change.

Professions and Burgertum : Etymological Ships Passing, Night into Day

None of the continental languages, either historically or during postwar decades, developed indigenously synonyms for professions or roughly equivalent terms. Even today, instead of studying professions in particular, continental sociologists typically study much broader socio-economic and socio-cultural formations. Thus, when Anglo-American sociologists were developing the sociology of professions before and after World War II, European sociologists had difficulty envisaging the point of the exercise. We review the evolution of the Anglo-American sociology of professions, the etymological divide just noted, and how the Continents received Burgertum approach to middle class occupations differs from a professions approach.

Preface to Professions Today: Received Wisdom, Case Challenges, Contributor Issues and Questions

The vast majority of contributors to the sociology of professions literature fail to distinguish professions from other occupations, and it sees this as a virtue, not a noteworthy gap at a conceptual level. Talcott Parsons’ most methodical treatment of professions which earlier opposed this position has gone unread, and today has largely disappeared from the literature. Two cases, one historical (the Paris Academie de Peinture et de Sculpture), the other contemporary (the governance of publicly traded corporation as overseen by Delaware courts), challenge the majoritarian position as its core, at a conceptual level. They compel a more abstract, analytical, approach to profession and professionalism. We conclude by presenting the issues and questions presented to all contributors in preparation for this special topic.

Painting, Law and Professions, I: Paris Visual Academie and English Law

One consensus in the sociology and history of professions is that law, not medicine, pioneered the first professionalism projects in Western history. English law is typically cited as the exemplar. We challenge this consensus by demonstrating that visual academies, led by the Academie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture of Paris, preceded along a professionalism project centuries in advance of English law.

Painting, Law and Professions, II: Paris Visual Academie and French Law

Aside from English law being cited as pioneering the first professionalism project, French law is also frequently treated as an exemplar of early professionalism. We challenge this consensus by demonstrating that the Academie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture of Paris preceded along a professionalism project centuries in advance of French law. Using this comparison, we also provide alternative explanations for questions and issues which remain troubling in the literature of French law.

Corporations vs. the court : private power, public interests

This text looks methodically at corporate law, corporate governance, and judicial practice from the perspective of social theory. The author explores whether there are identifiable limits - legal or normative - to corporate power in any democratic society.