The Impossible Task: The Fate of Public Hearings in Risk Society

• In Event: 114 - Section on Altruism, Morality and Social Solidarity Refereed Roundtable Session and Business Meeting
  In Refereed Roundtable 60min: Table 01. Thicker Concepts in Altruism and Social Solidarity Research

Abstract

Formal governmental public hearings in the aftermath of social crisis combine a public need for sensemaking and renewing legitimacy of state actors with the need to enact moral outrage and so to reaffirm social boundaries and values. This article outlines how these aspects played out in the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission’s public hearings upon the Great Financial Crisis in 2009/2010. Focusing on the orders of worth, which underline claims about moral and cognitive failures, grounded theory analysis of 16 testimonies by financial and governmental leaders revealed the reconceptualization of what Boltanski and Thévenot ([1991] 2006) call the industrial order of worth. While in the past a ‘worthy person’ in the industrial order was able to “determine the future accurately in order to control it” in times of risk society worthy individuals realize that they face ‘fundamental uncertainty’ and worthy behavior cannot be seen in controlling the future but in preparing for the worst. The article discusses two main problems that follow from this shift: First. the risk society narrative of the industrial order of worth undermines the moral function of public hearings and therewith might leave venues for public outrage exclusively to non-governmental organizations and the media; And second, the achieved compromise between financial and governmental leaders allows to frame the crisis in terms of socio-technological failure and so to promote governmental regulation as a common ground. It so provides legitimacy to the actors, but it neglects the paradox that every regulation by experts will again produce ever new uncertainty.

Author

• Jascha Wagner, University of Delaware