Abstract The influence of theoretical discourse on the corresponding field of study is an important feature of social science: social scientists shape the world by describing it. This phenomenon has been studied in several ways. Some recent economic sociology studies have focused on the fact that the economy is part of the economic theory used … Continue reading Two Approaches to the Influence of Economic Discourse on Social Phenomena
Tag: performativity
From one convention to another: When rationality “performs” the real
This article deals with the idea of the performativity of economics. We use the notion of convention in order to emphasize a necessary condition for performativity of the scientific conventions. We show that performativity could be seen as the translation of a scientific convention into the social world. We demonstrate that such a translation needs the scientific concept to take a peculiar form: an empirical one. We study the example of the performativity of economic rationality, which is now a central concept of a new kind of public policy: “nudge” economics.