Crisis, Status Legitimacy, and Sociological Theory
Author(s): Jón Gunnar Bernburg, Thoroddur Bjarnason
Friday 16 | 13:20-13:40
Room: TP53
Session: Sociological theories
The disruptive effects of crises on social order constitutes a classic topic of sociological inquiry. If empirical work has through the decades linked economic crises to consequences ranging from increased suicide (Durkheim 1897/2005) and crime (Kim & Pridemore 2005) to increased support for populist politics, protest, and rebellion (Bernburg 2016; Boswell and Dixon 1993; Davies 1960), sociological theory has long implied that crises can destabilize social order by temporarily undermine the tendency of individuals to sense their place in social hierarchy as “legitimate” (Oddsson and Bernburg 2018; Jost 2018; Ragnarsdóttir, Bernburg & Ólafsdóttir 2013). But different theory traditions imply different mechanisms. Conflict theory implies that when crises cause “legitimacy crises” (Habermas 1984), that is, reveal how state institutions favor ruling classes, they weaken ideologies that normally make most people accept their place. In contrast, functionalist theories (Davies 1960; Durkheim 1897/2005) and constructionist theories (Snow et al., 1998) see crises like abrupt changes that can rupture the social fabric (disrupt the balance of goals, expectations, and opportunity, or the taken-for-granted character of routine social life), and thus undermine the authority of institutions. We address these ideas with survey data allowing us to compare subjective experiences across two very different crises in Iceland, that is, 1) the 2009-2010 financial crisis, which spurred unprecedented political and social conflict, and 2) the 2020 COVID crisis, which spurred political-social consensus. The findings indicate that perceptions of status legitimacy were less prevalent in the 2009-10 crisis, apparently because of lower trust in state institutions and stronger perceptions of normative disruption (anomie) and status loss. The findings provide novel support for classic propositions.
Original file: 1161.docx