Book Review: Private Crusades and Public Problems: The Sociological Heritage of Joseph Gusfield by S. Bernardin

Abstract

Why do some problems become public problems while others do not? What are the mechanisms that link the web of thematic details to public attention? These are deceptively easy questions to ask but very hard to answer. Revisiting the work of noted sociologist Joseph Gusfield, Stève Bernardin and his colleagues offer some answers in this erudite collection of essays. The main argument is that public problems are intentionally designed constructions of social narratives, meaning that public problems are never just social problems but rather someone’s ideas of pointing to and framing of specific issues. Moreover, intentionality implies purposeful actor behavior, which necessitates, in the public policy arena, contests for meaning, social standing, and political power. The authors derive three mechanisms from Gusfield’s work that link social problems to public attention. They use them in a series of vignettes drawing on mainly French cases, but also European and American ones, to explore how campaigns for public attention unfold across a highly diverse tapestry of issues from drugs and the abolitionist movement to protection of animals and the use of pesticides. It is an impressive array of research, well organized thematically, that makes interesting theoretical arguments. But it should have perhaps embedded the findings more explicitly into the broader public policy literature to attract the attention of a wider scholarly audience. The book is divided into three parts which correspond to the three thematic mechanisms linking private campaigns and public problems. The first is dramaturgy, the idea that constructing public problems fosters what Gusfield calls symbolic crusades. Groups aiming to publicize their cause do so by creating narratives with heroes and villains and by linking what may often be private behavior, such as alcoholdrinking, to an adverse social outcome, drunk-driving. To do so, they rely less on rational conversations about causes and effects and more on affect-priming epithets. For example, they are not “drunk drivers,” they are “drunk driving killers.” Once the epithet sticks, it makes no difference whether it’s true or not. It’s a public issue that has to be addressed because society cannot allow killers on the loose. In this way, language and morality are two very important tools in the arsenal of successful crusading groups. True to Gusfield’s conceptualization, the authors reinforce the point that status politics rather than social class is the main source of success. For example, it is not enough to be a member of the elite to raise attention to the issue of slavery. One also has to have close links and impeccable credentials with the community of the predominant religion if slavery is to be addressed as a moral issue. The second mechanism is problem ownership. It is perhaps the most original contribution from a political science point of view, even if it is written by a sociologist!! Most policy groups struggle mightily to claim ownership of specific issues, such as treatment of animals, quality of air in interior spaces, drugs in schools, etc. The political benefits of such appropriation of issues are twofold. First, “owning” a problem means one gets to define its characteristics, framing its limits and narratives in a way that advances a group’s agenda. Second, appropriation of a problem by a specific group implies the group also gets to define, to an extent, the solution and the actors to be involved. In other words, owning a problem by a private, non-governmental, group, biases the policy process in favor of that group by giving a non-public entity the power, if not moral authority, to shape the public agenda. The third mechanism is distancing, which is a relational concept. It encapsulates the idea of shaping the dominant discourse in one’s favor. It is about fragmenting the opposition and positioning the narrative in a favorable light. If dramaturgy is about the nature of ideas and issue ownership about the appropriation of ideas, distancing is about the battle of ideas. Behind this concept hides a simple point: winning a policy argument depends as much on the argument’s strength as it does on the opposition’s weakness. Such weakness can be shaped politically when issues move from one area to another, for example, when the use of pesticides moves from being an agricultural to becoming a health issue. Fragmenting the opposition and redefining the problem space enables some groups or institutions like the mass media to obstruct some events from becoming public problems or facilitate the emergence of others. Kudos to the editor for maintaining a tight theoretical framework around which the case studies are built. Even more appealing is the conclusion, which pulls everything together. Rare are those edited volumes that return back to Book Review