Matthew Norton

Mechanisms and Meaning Structures

This article proposes a model of cultural mechanisms based on the premises of structuralist cultural sociology and symbolic interactionism. I argue that the models of cultural mechanisms provided by the developing analytical sociology movement are inadequate, while the dominant theories of culture in action from cultural sociology are limited by their adoption of the individual as the primordial unit of analysis. I instead propose a model of culture in action that takes social situations as its primordial unit and that understands culture as a system of meanings that actors laminate into the situations they face through interactive processes of interpretation and performance. I then illustrate and develop the model through an analysis of the Great Stink of London in 1858, a sewerage crisis that triggered significant institutional transformations.

Principal Agent Relations and the Decline of the Royal African Company

Abstract Several explanations for the Royal African Company’s failure around the turn of the eighteenth century have been suggested. The paper argues that these reasons can be integrated into a more comprehensive account of the company’s failure through the introduction of a modified version of principal-agent theory. Instead of focusing on abstract, dyadic relationships, the paper proposes a model that accounts for the meaningful character of principal agent interactions and for the complex networks and multiple role identities of actors within those networks that comprised principal-agent relations within the company. On the basis of this model the failure of the company can be seen as a result of contradictions between its dual role as both agent and principal. The symbolic importance of inefficient trading practices helps to explain why the company was unable to pursue alternative strategies or otherwise benefit from its monopoly.

Narrative Structure and Emotional Mobilization in Humanitarian Representations: The Case of the Congo Reform Movement, 1903–1912

The concept of empathy has played an important role in theorizing how humanitarian representations influence people. This article suggests that this focus on empathy in human rights theory is too limited and proposes “emotional mobilization” as a more flexible and satisfactory alternative to the empathy thesis. An analysis of the Congo reform movement in Britain at the beginning of the twentieth century showcases the utility of this more inclusive concept. The Congo reform movement developed a narrative structure for representing the situation in the Congo, its history, and the possibilities for improvement that appealed to various emotions including empathy, guilt, and fear of pollution. It linked these emotionally-laden interpretations to a call for action through a clear definition of options and the manipulation of genres. The narrative structure of the Congo reform movement significantly exceeds the analytical limits of the empathy thesis, further demonstrated in the article through an analysis of a 60 Minutes segment on the Congo from 2009 that appeals only to empathy, closing off other emotional registers through limiting narrative techniques. The article concludes by proposing that the combination of the concepts of emotional mobilization and narrative structure provide a powerful and flexible theoretical framework for the analysis of humanitarian representations of various kinds and their impacts.

Real Mythic Histories: Circulatory Networks and State-Centrism

In Mythologies, Barthes famously observes that a Paris Match cover photo of a West African military schoolboy in a French uniform saluting, presumably, the tricolor is a myth. It asserts as obviously true, “that France is a great Empire, that all her sons, without any color discrimination, faithfully serve under the flag,” and in doing so it asserts as a reality the image of an empire characterized by consensually shared transracial pride. Myth, Barthes (1972: xx) writes, “transforms history into nature ... Myth ... purifies [things], it makes them innocent, it gives them a natural and eternal justification, it gives them a clarity which is not that of an explanation but that of a statement of fact.” The work of justification and naturalization that Barthes ascribes to the photo occurs on a foundation made of more basic myths: amongst these are the myth of an entity called France, and the myth of an empire.

Temporality, Isolation, and Violence in the Early Modern English Maritime World

Semiotic and institutional developments relating to the governance of the English oceanic empire during the second half of the seventeenth century significantly increased state agents’ power to control isolated, violent maritime encounters. The paper describes these developments in relation to piracy, privateering, and the control of seamen and argues that they have a common mechanism of social control: the manipulation of temporality. By creating capacities for the institutionalized reinterpretation of isolated acts of maritime violence, these developments reshaped the temporal horizons of such encounters by making future accountability to state agents, state categories of meaning, and state processes of adjudication more likely.

Standards: Recipes for Reality

mixed economy of welfare’’ (p. 134). The book also states that the incentivization of business ‘‘to show solidarity with other parts of society’’ (p. 48) is inimical to and distinct from conservative politics. The fact that Thatcherites consciously pursued this strategy to fill the gaps created by liberalization (Kinderman 2012) casts doubt on this claim. These quibbles do not suggest that Brejning’s book is not worth reading—it certainly is. It is above all interesting and empirically rich; and scholars are far from a consensus on these matters. The literature on CSR, like CSR itself, is in flux. Corporate Social Responsibility and the Welfare State is a very welcome, thoroughly researched contribution to this literature.