Rethinking Licensure Beyond Social Closure

• In Event: Organizations, Occupations, and Work Section Open Call Paper Session

Abstract

Licensure is often viewed as a mechanism of social closure, used by occupational groups to restrict entry and establish monopolies. This interpretation, however, obscures the broader strategic uses of licensure in specific historical contexts. Focusing on mid-nineteenth-century America, this paper argues that licensure functioned as a flexible legal instrument that actors employed to achieve a range of goals beyond exclusion. As cultural and legal constraints hindered the formation of Weberian-style monopolies, actors turned to licensure to gain recognition, assert authority over their peers, manage internal divisions, and recruit new members. By demonstrating how legal instruments such as licensure can reinforce or recalibrate hierarchies, this analysis contributes to theories of stratification and inequality and underscores how symbolic and institutional forms of advantage do not always result in material exclusion but nonetheless affect unequal access to power, prestige, and influence.

Author

• Heba Alex, University of Chicago