ISRF Senior Research Fellow

Centre for Social Ontology, École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL)

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Dr Ismael Al-Amoudi

Authority and Normativity in a Morphogenetic world

September 2011 – August 2013

This project interrogates the nature and significance of authority in a morphogenetic society. It considers authority both as a relation of power that is legitimated and as a relation of power that legitimises – that is, a relation of power that makes acceptable social forms that are otherwise unacceptable and vice versa.

In line with realist social theorising, this work will attend to authority as a relation that is both structured by and structuring of social and cultural structures. A significant implication of this approach is that, in times of unbounded morphogenesis, authority may have a tendency to become more complex and fragment across heterogeneous social and cultural structures. If this hypothesis is right, then it is a common mistake to diagnose the end of authority rather than its fragmentation across heterogeneous social and cultural structures.

This project will be mainly theoretical – as it will propose a realist conception of authority. It might encompass, however, an empirical dimension, for example through a limited number of illustrative case studies borrowed from professions or from proto-professions.

The first year will be dedicated to start designing a monograph on authority while finishing a number of articles on the following themes:

• The ontology of conventions
• The consequences of the decline of the Welfare State on corporate governance
• The persistence of coercive power in an Indian factory
• The paradoxes of critical management education for would-be managers

The second year will be wholly dedicated to writing the monograph project proper.