Three-Stage Legitimation of Informal Economic Brokerage: A Case Study of Moralized Transnational Illegal Drug Trade

• In Event: 118 - Section on Economic Sociology Refereed Roundtable Session and Business Meeting
  In Refereed Roundtable 60min: Table 03. Cognition, Categories and Contesting Categories

Abstract

How can informal economic brokerage gain legitimacy? Economic brokers can extract
returns from the buyer and the seller, but their brokerage may be morally and legally contested,
especially in informal economy. How are the morality and legality of informal economic
brokerage constructed and contested? Analyzing 17 interviews, over 1000 news articles, media
footage, and legal documents, this paper will unpack the legitimacy of informal economic
brokerage by examining the three-stage legitimation process of a transnational illegal drug
brokerage in China. In this controversial legal case which became a national sensation, charges
against a broker accused of selling fake drugs were ultimately dropped after his brokerage was
legitimated under considerable public pressure. Based on this in-depth case study, I attempt to
make two arguments. First, the full legitimation of informal economic brokerage proceeds
through three stages: pragmatic legitimacy, moral legitimacy, and legal legitimacy. In this case,
three classification struggles are crucial to achieving the full legitimation: 1) illegal fake drugs
versus illegal real drugs, 2) for-profit brokerage versus non-profit brokerage, 3) the broker as the agent of the seller versus the representative of the buyer. Second, the full legitimation of informal economic brokerage entails microfoundations at the interactional level and macroconditions at the institutional level, and it is the media that combine them together and present the moral necessity of the brokerage to the public, enabling and accelerating the legitimation process in each stage.

Author

• Lantian Li, Northwestern University