High-frequency trading,algorithmic finance and the Flash Crash: reflections on eventalization

The Flash Crash of 6 May 2010 has an interesting status in discussions of high-frequency trading, i.e. fully automated, superfast computerized trading: it is invoked both as an important illustration of how this field of algorithmic trading operates and, more often, as an example of how fully automated trading algorithms are prone to run amok in unanticipated frenzy. In this paper, I discuss how and why the Flash Crash is being invoked as a significant event in debates about high-frequency trading and algo-financial markets. I analyse the mediatization of the event, as well as the variety of eventalizations of the Flash Crash - the different ways in which the Flash Crash is being mobilized as an illustrative event. I critically discuss the impact often associated with the Flash Crash – and on that basis, inquire into why the event nonetheless attracts so much attention. I suggest that a key reason why the Flash Crash is widely discussed is that eventalizations of 6 May 2010 evoke familiar tropes about the fear of technology and the fear of herding. Finally, and given their emphasis on herding, I argue that the Flash Crash eventalizations may contribute to discussions within economic sociology about resonance in quantitative finance.     

京沪青年女性在民国时期的自杀问题

本文将集中讨论两大问题:其一涉及到法国社会学大师埃米尔·迪尔凯姆的自杀学说。笔者认为,迪尔凯姆的自杀学说在论及性别问题时带有浓厚的男权主义偏见,他的分析偏移了他所大力提倡的社会事实研究法;其二民国时期京沪两地的青年女性自杀格局。根据笔者的分析,京沪女性的自杀问题在当时非常严重,两性自杀死亡率相近;两地不同年龄段的女性的自杀已遂和未遂事件中女青年所占的比例最高;诱因多是家庭矛盾或情感纠纷。本文意在厘清古典社会学自杀理论的局限,也在将中国近现代的自杀问题纳入到社会性别分析框架中探讨。     

“Hidden Behind the Supplement”

Abstract

In contrast to functionalist explanations of themes of purity and impurity as an expression and affirmation of the social order (e.g. Emile Durkheim, Mary Douglas), Giorgio Agamben considers purity and impurity as comparisons of phenomena with their imputed essence. From the perspective offered by Agamben, judgements regarding purity and impurity can be seen as in part constructing the essence against which they supposedly simply measure phenomena. Agamben’s investigations suggest that on occasions when themes of purity or impurity are invoked within Western discourses on subjectivity, the full human subject tends to be placed as relatively pure: neither too close nor too distant from human essence. FollowingWalter Benjamin, he suggests that such a classification gives the full human subject a certain social protection and inviolability, separating relatively pure and protected human life from impure subjectivities unprotected by social or legal conventions.     

The Sacred,Social Creativity and the State

Abstract

This paper explores the specific contribution of a strand of contemporary French social theory founded by Cornelius Castoriadis and Claude Lefort to the under standing of human power. It formulates a conception of power that transcends its definitions in terms of physical coercion or institutionalised violence to reveal the way power is creative and institutes the social. Its reflection on the cultural nature of political power and it role in society is shown to extend the pioneering reflection of Durkheim's sociology, especially as regards the homology that exists between religion and politics. The social role performed by the state explored by Durkheim prefigures Gauchet's theory of the state, which builds on Lefort's work. Gauchet's theory can be said to elaborate a critical synthesis of the two stands of Durkheim's work: the sociology of religion and the sociology of the modern state. This synthesis raises questions on the role played by the European state in the development of individualism, in both its political and economic manifestations.     

Fragile States: A Donor-serving Concept? Issues with Interpretations of Fragile Statehood in Afghanistan

Abstract

The paradox of attempting to (re)construct state institutions without considering the socio-political cohesion of societies recurs throughout the world, most notably today in the Middle East, Africa and the Balkans. This essay tries to shed some light on the debate around the concepts of state and nation-building. Drawing on a sociological understanding of the modern nation-state, it contends that it is impossible to conceive of statebuilding as a process separate from nation-building. This essay identifies two different schools of thought in the discussion concerning the statebuilding process, each of which reflects different sociological understandings of the state. The first one, an ‘institutional approach’ closely related to the Weberian conception of the state, focuses on the importance of institutional reconstruction and postulates that statebuilding activities do not necessarily require a concomitant nation-building effort. The second, a ‘legitimacy approach’ influenced by Durkheimian sociology, recognizes the need to consolidate central state institutions, but puts more emphasis on the importance of socio-political cohesion in the process. Building on this second approach and demonstrating its relevance in contemporary statebuilding, this article concludes with a discussion of recent statebuilding attempts and the ways external actors can effectively contribute to statebuilding processes.     

迪尔凯姆的社会学研究方法管窥——以《自杀论》为视角

迪尔凯姆指出，社会学要想成为一门真正的社会科学，就必须与各种浅见划清界限，并将独立于行动者意识与意志的社会事实作为自己的研究对象。迪尔凯姆将这一指导思想运用在其著作《自杀论》中，以具有集体意向的自杀率为研究对象，对自杀进行了溯源分类，并通过用经验的结论反复进行比较以提出理论假设，进而用演绎鉴别方法检验得出的结论是否可信来验证理论。迪尔凯姆结束了社会学史上理论研究与经验研究相脱节的局面，《自杀论》则为社会学实证研究提供了经典范例，但其也存在定义不清晰和理论不具有证伪性的不足。     

Pierre Bourdieu: From Neo-Kantian to Hegelian Critical Social Theory

Abstract

This paper challenges the commonly made claim that the work of Pierre Bourdieu is fundamentally anti-Hegelian in orientation. In contrast, it argues that the development of Bourdieu's work from its earliest structuralist through its later ‘post-structuralist’ phase is better described in terms of a shift from a late nineteenth century neo-Kantian to a distinctly Hegelian post-Kantian outlook. In his break with structuralism, Bourdieu appealed to a bodily based logic of practice' to explain the binaristic logic of Lévi-Strauss' structuralist analyses of myth. Effectively working within the tradition of the Durkheimian approach to symbolic classification, Lévi-Strauss had inherited Durkheim's distinctly neo-Kantian understanding of the role of categories in experience and action—an account that conflated two forms of representation—‘intuitions’ and ‘concepts’—that Kant himself had held distinct. Bourdieu's appeal to the role of the body's dispositional habitus can be considered as a retrieval of Hegel's earlier quite different reworking of Kant's intuition-concept distinction in terms of distinct ‘logics’ with different forms of ‘negation’. Bourdieu commonly acknowledged the parallels of his analyses of social life to those of Hegel, but opposed Hegelianism because he believed that Hegel had remained entrapped within the dynamics of mythopoeic thought. In contrast, Durkheim and Lévi-Strauss, he claimed, by instituting a science of myth, had broken with it. This criticism of Hegel, however, relies on an understanding of his philosophy that has been rejected by many contemporary Hegel scholars, and without it, the gap separating Hegel and Bourdieu narrows dramatically     

Religion and the dualism of the social condition in Durkheim and Bataille

One important legacy of the Collège de sociologie is its development of certain Durkheimian themes, particularly those concerning religion. Both Durkheim and Bataille sought to understand religion and the sacred not as mere cultural phenomena but as defining features of personal, social and economic life. The members of the Collège, and especially Bataille, sought to subject both society and sociology to a radical form of interrogation. Like Durkheim, if in different ways, they sought to situate and address the commitments of social inquiry at the centre of their work rather than at its margins. This article suggests how Bataille can be said to have adopted and radicalized a Durkheimian emphasis on a dualism central to both personhood and society, while rejecting a Durkheimian faith in an evolving sociological enlightenment.     

浅析政府公共危机管理中的社会学因素——以出租车行业罢运事件为例

政府公共危机是指在政府管理国家事务中,突然发生的如地震、流行病、经济波动、恐怖活动等对社会公共活动与社会秩序造成重大损失的事件。在公共危机管理中,政府最难处置的就是群体性突发事件。目前中国社会正进入一个特殊的社会转型阶段,社会矛盾激烈,由于利益问题导致的社会冲突不断,群体性重大事件频发。按照法国社会学家杜尔克姆的理论,就是社会整合机制中的社会团结因素没有调整、处理好。以2008年11月重庆发生的出租车罢运事件为例,要防止公共危机事件的发生,处置好突发的群体性事件,政府应该在社会学的因素上多下工夫,依靠社会权威,强化社会集体意识,厘清政府机构的职能,注重社会团结,按照社会学理论层面整合、调解国家、社会、集体、个人的良好互动关系,确保政府的公信力。     

‘Off with their heads’: public executions with Klossowski,Caillois and Foucault

In this article there is both theoretical argument and historical analysis. The main substantive focus is the ancien régime and the French Revolution. Foucault’s work has contributed greatly to the understanding of the nature of these, but the concepts, categories and historical accounts of Caillois and Klossowski are here deployed to enrich, and to some significant extent, displace his analyses. A primary concern is with contributing a further sociological dimension to the debates concerning the execution of Louis XVI/Louis Capet.