Download Habitus, Field , and Capital. Elements for a

Habitus, Field , and Capital.
Elements for a General Theory of Political
Capital
Alfredo Joignant
Full professor in Political Science, Diego Portales University (Chile)
Oral presentation prepared for the session on Political Inequality Outside of
the West for the Joint Session of RC09 Social Transformations and Sociology
of Development and RC18 Political Sociology of the International
Sociological Association
Second ISA forum in Sociology, Buenos Aires, Argentina,
August 1-4, 2012 (isa 2012)
Towards a Theory of Resources in
the Political Field
• My proposal is set as opposed to the approaches which explain the
power of agents in the political field by appealing to “skills”, “abilities”
and “strategic intelligence” languages.
• However , this proposal is also far from the approaches which get
satisfied by detecting
institutional mechanisms for candidate
selection or recruitment of powerful political agents: these
mechanisms obviously exist, but they mean the allocation and
devoting of resources which are necessary to classify and understand.
• For this purpose, Pierre Bourdieu’s sociological theory provides the
grounds for the power sources of agents in the political field.
• Those power sources result in capital, which has no intrinsic value: the
power of agents in the political field is explained in light of the
relationships between habitus, field and the capital held by them.
Elements on the Sociology of Capital in
Politics: Premises and Assumptions
• The distribution of capital among individuals who inhabit political
field originates deeply unfair success and competition between areas
in the field: parties, congress or parliament and the government.
• With the purpose of accounting for this distribution of resources, it is
important:
- to define the concept of “capital”.
- to explain the logics of resource accumulation.
- to show how the resources value fluctuates according to the
agents’careers, which may be upwards or downwards.
- methodologically, the analysis must start with initial capital
allocations, i.e. at time in which individuals access the political field
holding a position having formal political power.
Species of Capital in Politics
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Let’s start with a statement: in the political field there is not only one resource
by means of which individuals compete to access positions either by election
or by nomination.
In the event of existing only a single type of resource, this would mean that the
struggle in the political field is won according to capital volumes.
Different species of capital converge in the political field, their relevance
depends on the historical status of the field: for instance, “militancy” capital
was historically relevant during the 60’s and 70’s in countries such as Chile,
France or Uruguay, being no longer important during subsequent periods.
From the above it is concluded that so as to access the political field in any of
the positions , it is necessary to hold any of the species of capital relevant to
this field, which in turn gives origin to forms of political competition which is
possible to detect in “styles” of doing politics and in different ways of playing
political roles: hence the importance of the “habitus” concept and of the
practical sense of agents by means of which they express themselves.
Political Capital in Pierre Bourdieu’s
Research Program
• Bourdieu distinguished three species of capital being typically
political:
- personal capital consisting of “notoriety” or “popularity”
- personal capital of “charismatic” nature, which originates in critical
junctures (in the sense of extra-ordinary situations)
- “capital delegated from political authority”, which is controlled by an
institution.
Consequently, this capital is incorporated (literally “embodied” )
or objectified, and it may be generated outside the political field
(for example notoriety capital) and more frequently inside the
political field.
Social Origins of Political Capital
• The relevant capital in the political field is usually originated in other
spaces and after social trajectories: that relevant capital is specified in
species.
• The number of relevant species is variable, but not infinite.
• This means that the political value of the different capital species is
historically variable: it depends on the status of the field at any given
time.
• Therefore, the political species of capital (the one originated inside the
political field, for instance in militancy in a party or in the inheritance
of resources inside political dynasties) is only one of the possible
• Since the political capital has social origins, then it is necessary to
study the “restructuring” work on the resources, with the purpose to
access and hold power positions in the political field: for instance the
business capital during early years of Putin’s Russia.
Capital Dynamics
• The initial capital stock, which enables to access the political field in a
lasting way is subject to transformations depending on the agent’s
career in the field and on the positions held.
• This primitive accumulation of capital may deeply vary in volume and
structure and along with it the type of agent holding the resources.
• Capital accumulation implies to perform investments in the political
field, starting from the agent’s interested and strategic behavior.
• The above compels us to empirically identify the initial capital stock,
which comprises one or more species, and to explain the agent’s
mutations in the context of struggles and competitions for the control
of the field that suppose investments.
The Research Program: From the Initial Capital
Allocation to the Agents’Metamorphosis
• From the systematic analysis of the theoretical and
empirical literature regarding elites and political
professionalization, it was possible to identify 9
theoretical species of capital and the same number of
agents.
• These species and types of agents were tested based on a
survey applied to 386 members of the Chilean political
elite, from 1990 until 2010:
presidents, ministers,
undersecretaries, congressmen, etc.
Theoretical Species of Capital and
Types of Agents
Some Results and Tentative
Conclusions
• The survey verifies the existence of different species of
capital
• These different species specify various types of agents.
• An agent’s initial capital stock may comprise one or
various species of capital
• Depending on the number of species of initial capital, the
agent will access more or less important positions.
• When there is more than one species of initial capital,
then it is necessary to focus specifically on the structure of
the resources.
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