Plugging into the Body of the Leviathan: Proposal for a New Sociology of Public Interventions

Abstract

The main argument of this short essay is that the concept of intellectual, especially the somewhat redundant neologism of public intellectual, is too narrow to guide research on how interventions in public affairs are currently authored, crafted, and operated. Instead, I propose the concept of public interventions to inform a more comprehensive approach that broadens the analytical frame by multiplying relevant agencies, modes and targets of intervention. This approach is inspired by Foucault’s (2000) distinction between the “universal” and “specific” intellectual; Bourdieu’s (Corporatism) replacement of the latter by a “collective intellectual”; and the approach to the public sphere urged by the contributors to Making Things Public (Latour and Weibel).

Keywords

• Specific Intellectual
• Experts
• Expertise
• Opinion
• Public Sphere
• Public Intellectual