1.1 Explaining the Turn
We bet notable macroeconomists, Alan Blinder and Charles Wyplosz, never heard of the ‘performativity of economics’ when they stated that ‘the main purpose of central bank talk is to help markets “think like the central bank”’ (2004, 7). It is, however, striking, that so many different aspects of what is commonly called ‘performativity’ are entangled in discussing central bank communication—a theme which is currently at the heart of macroeconomic debates. All our intuitive notions—to be explained below—are here: the context of economic governance, the inherent sociality of language, the role of explicitness, the importance of signification, and the enactment of ideas and theories. For successful performance of a central bank, successful communication is crucial. To govern, one has to use the resources of language, to create a community of those who comprehend one’s message, to make explicit one’s commitments, and, finally, in and through communication, to enact the very economic theory stating that central bank communication is essential for channeling economic agents’ expectations and eventually for the proper functioning of this institution.
This is of course only one example of economics not merely describing or explaining, but also actively shaping the economies—this is how performativity is most commonly understood. The recent emphasis on economics in the performativity debate is not surprising: many studies document how a very—perhaps, the most—influential social science participates in building up social reality. The performative move thus refers to the venerable epistemological question of the relation between ‘reality’ and ‘theory,’ but goes beyond the traditional idea of economics describing more or less adequately some supposedly ‘real’ processes.
This performative turn took place at the beginning of the new millennium and culminated in books such as An Engine, Not a Camera (MacKenzie 2006) and Do Economists Make Markets? (MacKenzie et al. 2007). Afterwards, the performativity research proliferated. However, these new studies were not a replication of the essential work on performativity: We could clearly observe the drift toward a new understanding of the concept. In this new—‘after-the-turn’—research, the focus has been shifted from the investigation of the one-way link ‘theory → reality.’ The search for a general proof that this link exists—in more or less strong form—was recognized by many as futile. Today, the performativity concept moved from the theoretical debate about the link between abstract theories and economic reality toward empirical studies of how this link works in various applied fields. There was a drift toward investigations of performative practices.
This shift had consequences. On the one hand, the proliferation of empirical studies diluted the term ‘performativity’ often reducing it just to a ubiquitous catch-all concept. One might deplore the limited theoretical advancement in the field. On the other hand, what we can state with certainty is that, in the last years, performativity became a part of the DNA in the social studies of economic phenomena. The performativity program delivered a framework for the discussion of what economic professionals do and, more generally, of what happens in economics.
In fact, it is now well established that economic theories of various kinds define standards of rationality and categories of risk, determine the rules undergirding investment decisions, influence macroeconomic expectations, and formulate microeconomic incentives. The performativity perspective also pertains to the phenomena of marketization, indoctrination, diffusion of theoretical knowledge via expertise, creation of new languages and ideologies. Economists formulate the norms for reconfiguring markets (Garcia-Parpet 2007; Holm and Nielsen 2007) and set criteria of efficiency (Breslau 2011, 2013); manage identities and produce subjectivities—be it through business education (Ghoshal and Moran 1996; Ghoshal 2005) or consumer testing (Muniesa 2014); they also specify policy agendas and generally play a crucial role in institutional design both by directly intervening and by providing a relevant ‘cognitive infrastructure’ (Ferraro et al. 2005; Friedman 2010; Hirschman and Popp Berman 2014). Choosing a pension plan in the US pension system with the mechanism of choice devised by experimental economists (Thaler and Sunstein 2008); taking part in the auctions following the rules formulated by the teams of game theorists and economic experimentalists (Guala 2001; Nik-Khah 2008; Boldyrev 2012, 2013); investing in index funds as embodiments of efficient market hypothesis in financial economics (MacKenzie 2006); establishing incentive systems inspired by microeconomic theory (Dix 2014; Herrmann-Pillath, this volume); confronting people with questions they never thought of before and thus constructing their preferences (Kahneman and Tversky 2000; Muniesa 2014); using a micro-credit scheme in Bangladesh or India on the terms proposed by experimental development economists (Banerjee and Duflo 2011; Favereau and Brisset 2013; Davis 2013)—all these actions suggest the ways economics helps in creating its own realities and attempts to make the agents, material infrastructures, and knowledge converge and mutually stabilize each other. Small wonder that in the postcrisis neoliberal era, the role of economists in facilitating (or neglecting) major economic instabilities sparks controversies (Krugman 2009; Hodgson 2009; Caballero 2010; Mirowski and Nik-Khah 2013).
The interest of performativity lies precisely in its radical stance: in blurring or at least questioning the boundaries between research and its object, in focusing on knowledge and its pragmatic realizations, we both challenge traditional epistemology and address the very texture of social life. That is why clarifying the meaning of performativity eventually matters for understanding the social. The studies on various ‘performative practices’ imply that the link between ‘theories’ and ‘economic reality’ cannot be understood in terms of a mechanical, one-way influence. It could be empirically demonstrated that clear distinction of this kind is often not possible. ‘Realities,’ while being theoretically assembled, also shape theories (via statistical data or observations).
This volume brings together sociologists, philosophers, and economists to investigate these recent developments in the performativity program. On the one hand, the volume’s contributions continue theoretical work and discuss conceptual issues underlying the performativity of economics. On the other hand, some chapters follow more closely the empirical development in performativity studies. Overall, the texts scrutinize the concept’s potential within the range of various disciplinary and empirical contexts. We hope that contributions in this book give an idea about what has happened in the performativity research in the last years.
Our task here is to introduce these contributions by providing some more context for them. In our overview (which remains necessarily selective!), we will name more explicitly the novelties recently brought about by the performativity program, the main critical arguments against performativity, and the perspectives opening up in this volume and beyond. Given the importance of the topic and the insightful debates over performativity so far, it is now high time to take stock.
1.2 Some Prehistory and Basic Ideas
There is no such thing as the performativity, for the idea of performativity travelled across various disciplines and theoretical discourses. While travelling, the concept changed its meaning. Performativity originated in the linguistic philosophy of John Austin (1962) who suggested a pragmatist account of language as something going beyond the mere description of the world ‘out there’ and, in fact, discovered the whole region of performative linguistic practices.1 Subsequently, the idea of performativity was debated within the philosophy of language (Searle 1969; Derrida 1988) and was reappropriated in the political philosophy of gender (Butler 1990, 1997). Importantly, the discussion transcended the domain of linguistics, and the concept of performativity migrated into the sociology of scientific knowledge.
Many different lines of thought came together in this new movement. We can trace its inspiration back to Karl Marx (and, more recently, perhaps, Pierre Bourdieu), claiming that social knowledge is historically situated and always already a weapon in social conflicts; we can think of Max Weber’s and Karl Polanyi’s theories of rationalization prefiguring modern ideas of economization, with the economic as both a social force and an epistemological resource in the overarching historical process of modernity; we might refer to pragmatist ideas of reality/action happening and being justified only in its practical consequences and not in its factors that precede actualization, the ‘role’ being real only in its performance, with no backstage behind, as Judith Butler would claim; we can recall the work of Michel Foucault who, in his studies of neoliberalism, reconstructed the idea of governmentality and demonstrated the decisive role played by economic knowledge in making society and subjectivity amenable to the rule of economic calculation and governance; and we should not forget many important constructivist accounts in the sociology of knowledge and science studies (Knorr-Cetina 1981; Barnes 1983; Pickering 1995; Bloor 1997) as an immediate precursor.
In fact, science and technology studies (STS), particularly in its specific tradition of the actor-network theory (ANT) (Latour 2005; Licoppe 2010 for an overview), formed the context for the major statements of performativity (Callon 1998a, 2007b; MacKenzie and Millo 2003; MacKenzie 2006). With its ideas of sociotechnical agencements—that is, arrangements endowed with agency—and performation (Callon 2007b), ANT reconfigured debates around the performativity of economics. For ANT scholars, economic knowledge does not merely ‘construct’ its own reality; it is not simply the production of the mind existing prior to its sociotechnical embodiment. Rather, many intermediaries and hybrids are at work in the process and the struggles of performation; it is a complex interaction of human and non-human technical entities that makes it possible for economists to act as social engineers and for e...