Form, robustness and authority

While language, time and space are important focal points for analysing the suborders, the suborders’ form, robustness and authority are equally as important. The form of each suborder implies an analytic focus on the size and density of socialization within the suborder. To estimate the size of an order is rather unproblematic. Analysing the robustness, I look for the depth of socialization, professional identity and deep frames.

Moreover, I study hierarchies, which are more robust when status and

standing overlap (Lebow, 2008).¹¹⁰ Robustness implies whether the hierarchies, in the eyes of the actors, are reasonable and functioning.

Thus, robustness is linked to perceptions. A widespread belief that an order is legitimate and robust contributes to the robustness of the order.

On the other hand, a belief that the order is near collapse or weak will, in a self-fulfilling way, endanger the order (Lebow, 2018:15). Because a robust order “is above all a state of mind” (Lebow, 2018:159). The perception of order also relates to emotions, like the general sense of pessimism and optimism. Crucial to the robustness of an order is how strongly these sentiments are held by actors in authority.

Authority implies the process of defining reality and having the influence to initiate directional change or to refrain from a directional change of an order. In more empirical terms, the elite “explains and justifies” the reality (Berger & Luckmann, 1991:79). These definers, legitimators and reality maintainers “not only [tell] the individual why he should perform an action and not another; [they] also [tell] him why things are what they are” (Berger & Luckmann, 1991:111). This process of legitimation can be seen as a transmission of the social world and contributes to the

“massivity” of the social reality (Berger & Luckmann, 1991:79). These elites have authority, i.e. legitimacy and status to define an order (cf.

Katsikas in Rengger, 2011:116; cf. Reich & Lebow, 2013:36). Ruggie distinguishes between having authority and being in authority and emphasizes the significance of the latter, which “command respect and deference” (1993:465). In this inquiry, I am primarily analyzing authority as being in authority.¹¹¹

Berger and Luckmann argue that some people have the elevated status of universal experts, as they “are not only experts in this or that sector of the societal stock of knowledge, they claim ultimate jurisdiction over that stock of knowledge in its totality” (1991:135). These experts do not

110 Studying the suborder’s hierarchies, I find it fruitful to differentiate between status and standing. Status applies to “those who attain honor by virtue of their accomplishments”, while standing “refers to a position an actor occupies in a hierarchy” (Lebow, 2008:66).

111 Relatedly, David Lake pictures a legitimate order, through a negotiated social contract which is always negotiated and always renegotiated (2010:592). The open and relational approach to authority in this inquiry takes us beyond statists’ views of authority privileging states, or what I term traditional or formal authority. Moreover, Lakes notes that the nature of authority “from the perspective of a collectivity, compliance with legitimate authority is voluntary, but from the standpoint of any particular individual, compliance is mandatory” (ibid.).

“claim to know everything, but rather […] they claim to know the ultimate significance of what everybody knows and does” (Berger &

Luckmann, ibid.). These universal experts appear to “exist in a sort of Platonic heaven of ahistorical and asocial ideation” (Berger & Luckmann, 1991:135). Because “as more complex forms of knowledge emerge and an economic surplus is built up, experts devote themselves full-time to the subjects of their expertise […] and may become increasingly removed from the pragmatic necessities of everyday life” (ibid.). One of the methods for the maintenance of reality is to suppress concurring interpretations by framing these like stupid or ridiculous (Berger &

Luckmann, 1991:175).¹¹² In short, these universal experts claim to define reality. Thus, when studying authority structures it is informative to pay attention to accounts about how the perceived reality hangs together and who has the right to explain this reality.

Language set is important for common objectification of everyday life (Berger & Luckmann, 1991:51ff). The ability to impose discourse “goes beyond setting the rules of the game and the agenda” and “includes the ability to influence people’s and collectives’ self-understanding (identity formation) and therefore their understanding of their wants and interests.

This includes the ability to influence the knowledge and ideas compromised within social structures” (Antoniades 2010:29). Hence, possessing knowledge and defining the ideas gives the power to influence the direction of the interactions and structures (cf. Antoniandes, 2010:29, 30 & 36). In the present study, this is referred to as authority. The problem of legitimation and authority arises when the self-evident character of an order can no longer be maintained.¹¹³ In a time of

112 Here I cannot refrain from mentioning Wendt and Duvall’s article about human anthropocentrism and how every sign of extra-terrestrial life is explained away (2008).

The article was perceived as odd and funny within social sciences, however, amongst astrophysicists and astrobiologists, the reaction would probably have been different – if they would ever encounter these journals.

113 Berger and Luckmann find that as long as competing definitions of reality can be conceptually and socially segregated “as appropriate to strangers” it is possible to have a fairly friendly relation with these strangers. The problems begin when the

“strangeness” is broken down and appears reasonable. Then the universal or traditional experts turn to the “fire and the sword” (Berger & Luckmann, 1991:140). They emphasise that “break down in the taken-for-granted acceptance of monopoly order accelerate social change” [my emphasis] (ibid.). Consequently, it is of interest to look for cracks in the taken for granted.

transition, the key is what actors perceive to be legitimate and illegitimate (Lebow, 2008:570).

In the field, I look for how authority surfaces and is used and expressed in different situations. I study the authority structures within the suborders by asking what kind of authority and knowledge seem to matter and how this shape the different communities and professional hierarchies. I also explore who are the elites, i.e., the formal and informal definers and legitimators. This focal point includes attentiveness to what counts as knowledge and truth, what is thinkable and unthinkable and what is legitimate. Thus, I will look for what is perceived as normal and right including what is the appropriate way of thinking and behaving.

Furthermore, I ask if the elites manage to uphold a discourse legitimating the current order and hence their elevated position (cf. Lebow 2018:11). I study the authority structure between the suborders by asking, what professional orders are in authority in relation to the other professional orders i.e., their relative position to the other projects in the diorama.

Concerning positions of authority, deep agency is possessed by the projects in authority and with possibilities to define the direction of a diorama. Thus, expressed even more condensed, deep agency is possessed by the units in the position to define the direction of a diorama.