Philip Balsiger
Biographic Data
| ID | 254498 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Philip Balsiger |
| GIVEN NAMES | Philip |
| FAMILY NAME | Balsiger |
| SIGNATURE | BALSIGER P |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Neuchâtel |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-9399-7230 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 23 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 43 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 21 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 2 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2009 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 4 |
The Transformation of Banking and Finance
This introduction to the special issue highlights how the challenges from regulation, digitalization, and sustainability transform banking and finance in the 21st century. Following a short review of the sociology of finance and banking within Swiss economic sociology, it presents the main contributions of the articles of the special issue, which examine changing financial elites in Switzerland, digital platforms’ and cryptocurrencies’ social eff…
Morality in Times of Uncertainty
This paper analyses the moral discourse of contemporary “caring capitalists” through a Geneva-based study of impact asset managers seeking to generate measurable social and environmental results alongside a financial return. The discursive analysis reveals how strongly impact investing is grounded in the worldview of finance, in spite of its claim to transcend it. In a context of uncertainty about impact, we also show that principle-based deontol…
Varieties of Impact Investing
Issue translation and issue valorization
Assetization is a process through which social and environmental 'goods' are transformed into financial assets. Scholars of assetization have described how this process requires decontextualization of localized entities in order to make them abstract and globally tradable assets. While the spatial dimension of this process has been widely studied, less attention has been paid to how actors overcome the problem of linking these global and local sc…
When Platforms Challenge Professions
The sociology of professions has begun to study how digital platforms impact the status and skills of professionals. Our article expands on this line of research by exploring how platforms challenge professions and how professionals react by advocating different types of professionalism. Based on a case study of hoteliers in Switzerland, we look at how the rise of online travel agencies (OTAs) has affected this professional group. Drawing on an a…
What is Digital Valuation Made of? The integration of valuation poles on a reservation platform and its effects on the hotel industry in Switzerland
Digital platforms act as new powerful intermediaries challenging existing market orders in many sectors. Algorithmically producing ratings and rankings often built from online consumer reviews, platforms are important players in the digitizing of valuation. This article asks how these new platform-generated valuations relate to other forms of valuation. It presents a qualitative case study of valuation in the hotel sector in Switzerland, drawing …
Dépeindre la finance comme une « force pour le bien »
Cet article s’intéresse au discours de l’industrie de l’investissement d’impact à travers le cas du Global Impact Investing Network (GIIN), l’une des plus importantes organisations à faire la promotion de cette approche à travers le monde. À partir d’une analyse documentaire, nous décrivons le concept flou d’« investissement d’impact » qui se trouve au cœur de ce discours. Afin de favoriser la diffusion de ce concept et de son discours, le GIIN f…
Commercialization
This chapter describes the environmental movements’ varied views of capitalist markets and its positions regarding the commercialization of the environmental cause. It distinguishes between “adaptive environmentalism”, which seeks to address environmental change within capitalism and has built on a variety of market-related tactics and instruments to do so, and “transformative environmentalism”, which sees capitalism as a systemic cause of enviro…
The dynamics of 'Moralized Markets
This article describes the distinctive features and structural properties of 'moralized markets', that is, markets in which producers set higher moral standards than those governing conventional market practices, and consumers buy products that respect those higher moral standards. Starting from a critical discussion of existing theoretical conceptualizations in terms of conventionalization/co-optation, quality conventions and resource partitioni…
Un numéro « précaires » pour quoi faire
Ce numéro du BMS est toutà fait spécial, et pas seulement pour avoirété préparé et finalisé pendant la crise du COVID-19. Il aété conçu en février, alors que la double mobilisation des revues françaises de sciences sociales-contre le projet de réforme des retraites alors présentée au parlement et le projet de loi de programmation pluriannuelle sur la recherche-battait son plein 1. Il prend acte de ce que la précarisation des métiers de l'enseigne…
Why a special issue on ‘precarity’
International audience
Moral Struggles in and Around Markets
Moral struggles in and around markets abound in contemporary societies where markets have become the dominant form of economic coordination. Reviewing research on morality and markets across disciplinary boundaries, this introductory essay suggests that a moral turn can currently be observed in scholarship, and draws a direct connection to recent developments in the sociology of morality. The authors introduce the chapters in the present volume “…
Political Consumerism in Northwestern Europe
This chapter uses quantitative measures to assess the spread of political consumerism, confirming not only its well-established status in Northwestern Europe (NWE) but also important regional variations. It then reviews case studies that show that political consumerism is practiced in various social movements in very diverse ways, far beyond the boycotts/buycotts and ethical products typically measured in quantitative data. While some occasionall…
The Contested Moralities of Markets
Highlighting the sources, processes and outcomes of moral struggles in and around markets, this volume advances our current understanding of markets and their contested moralities
La philanthropie
Les recherches portant sur la philanthropie s’intéressent principalement à l’articulation entre action étatique et action privée d’utilité publique, voyant dans l’action philanthropique tantôt un possible soutien à l’action étatique, tantôt une concurrence à l’État. En revanche, peu d’études se sont intéressées aux limites entre tiers secteur et marché. Pourtant, cette interrogation semble particulièrement pertinente aujourd’hui, à l’heure des ré…
How Do Ordinary Swiss People Represent and Engage with Environmental Issues? Grappling with Cultural Repertoires
This paper studies how ordinary people in Switzerland represent and engage with environmental issues in daily practices. Bringing together conceptual developments in cultural sociology and social practice theory, the paper argues that cultural repertoires strongly shape how representations and forms of engagement play out. It identifies two main repertoires of social and environmental change: adaptation and transformation. The adaptation repertoi…
Moral Struggles in Markets
Practices within markets are widely regulated and sometimes contested on the basis of moral judgments. Moral entrepreneurs challenge markets and market practices while firms and industry actors defend them, leading to moral struggles opposing different orders of worth. Based on an historical case study, this paper develops a theoretical framework to study moral struggles in markets as social and political processes around commensurability. It ide…
The Consequences of Social Movements
Social movements have attracted much attention in recent years, both from scholars and among the wider public. This book examines the consequences of social movements, covering such issues as the impact of social movements on the life course of participants and the population in general, on political elites and markets, and on political parties and processes of social movement institutionalization. The volume makes a significant contribution to r…
Corporations as Players and Arenas
Food, Farms & Solidarity. French Farmers Challenge Industrial Agriculture and Genetically Modified Crops
Food, Farms & Solidarity. French Farmers Challenge Industrial Agriculture and Genetically Modified Crops." Social Movement Studies, 14(5), pp. 629–630
Between shaming corporations and promoting alternatives
Ethical consumption can take different forms, some more contentious like boycotts or public campaigns, some aiming at the establishment or promotion of alternative consumption practices (buycotts). This study looks at how these tactics are articulated by analyzing the development of an “ethical shopping map,” an action situated in the latter category of “supportive” actions. In 2007, a Swiss nongovernmental organization published this map as part…
Making Political Consumers
Several recent studies have shown an increase in political consumerism (boycott and buycott) and a tendency towards a new ‘politics in the supermarket’. These developments are usually seen as a transformation of forms of political action towards more individualized participation forms. Little attention has focused on the role of social movement activity in this transformation. In this contribution, which is based on a case study of political cons…
Pourquoi se mobilise-t-on ? Les théories de l’action collective, D. Cefaï
L’ouvrage de Daniel Céfaï est un objet rare. Au-delà de sa prétention à être « une cartographie de l’état des savoirs sur l’action collective, à partir de tout (sic) ce qui a été écrit sur le sujet depuis plus d’un siècle, sur les deux rives de l’Atlantique » (quatrième de couverture), il est le lieu de la mobilisation d’une somme de littérature et de références impressionnantes, argumentée et articulée, en vue d’un projet particulier, celui d’un…
The dynamics of 'Moralized Markets
This article describes the distinctive features and structural properties of 'moralized markets', that is, markets in which producers set higher moral standards than those governing conventional market practices, and consumers buy products that respect those higher moral standards. Starting from a critical discussion of existing theoretical conceptualizations in terms of conventionalization/co-optation, quality conventions and resource partitioni…
Moral Struggles in Markets
Practices within markets are widely regulated and sometimes contested on the basis of moral judgments. Moral entrepreneurs challenge markets and market practices while firms and industry actors defend them, leading to moral struggles opposing different orders of worth. Based on an historical case study, this paper develops a theoretical framework to study moral struggles in markets as social and political processes around commensurability. It ide…
Making Political Consumers
Several recent studies have shown an increase in political consumerism (boycott and buycott) and a tendency towards a new ‘politics in the supermarket’. These developments are usually seen as a transformation of forms of political action towards more individualized participation forms. Little attention has focused on the role of social movement activity in this transformation. In this contribution, which is based on a case study of political cons…
How Do Ordinary Swiss People Represent and Engage with Environmental Issues? Grappling with Cultural Repertoires
This paper studies how ordinary people in Switzerland represent and engage with environmental issues in daily practices. Bringing together conceptual developments in cultural sociology and social practice theory, the paper argues that cultural repertoires strongly shape how representations and forms of engagement play out. It identifies two main repertoires of social and environmental change: adaptation and transformation. The adaptation repertoi…
Between shaming corporations and promoting alternatives
Ethical consumption can take different forms, some more contentious like boycotts or public campaigns, some aiming at the establishment or promotion of alternative consumption practices (buycotts). This study looks at how these tactics are articulated by analyzing the development of an “ethical shopping map,” an action situated in the latter category of “supportive” actions. In 2007, a Swiss nongovernmental organization published this map as part…
Issue translation and issue valorization
Assetization is a process through which social and environmental 'goods' are transformed into financial assets. Scholars of assetization have described how this process requires decontextualization of localized entities in order to make them abstract and globally tradable assets. While the spatial dimension of this process has been widely studied, less attention has been paid to how actors overcome the problem of linking these global and local sc…
Why a special issue on ‘precarity’
International audience
Pourquoi se mobilise-t-on ? Les théories de l’action collective, D. Cefaï
L’ouvrage de Daniel Céfaï est un objet rare. Au-delà de sa prétention à être « une cartographie de l’état des savoirs sur l’action collective, à partir de tout (sic) ce qui a été écrit sur le sujet depuis plus d’un siècle, sur les deux rives de l’Atlantique » (quatrième de couverture), il est le lieu de la mobilisation d’une somme de littérature et de références impressionnantes, argumentée et articulée, en vue d’un projet particulier, celui d’un…
Making Political Consumers
Several recent studies have shown an increase in political consumerism (boycott and buycott) and a tendency towards a new ‘politics in the supermarket’. These developments are usually seen as a transformation of forms of political action towards more individualized participation forms. Little attention has focused on the role of social movement activity in this transformation. In this contribution, which is based on a case study of political cons…
Corporations as Players and Arenas
Food, Farms & Solidarity. French Farmers Challenge Industrial Agriculture and Genetically Modified Crops
Food, Farms & Solidarity. French Farmers Challenge Industrial Agriculture and Genetically Modified Crops." Social Movement Studies, 14(5), pp. 629–630
Between shaming corporations and promoting alternatives
Ethical consumption can take different forms, some more contentious like boycotts or public campaigns, some aiming at the establishment or promotion of alternative consumption practices (buycotts). This study looks at how these tactics are articulated by analyzing the development of an “ethical shopping map,” an action situated in the latter category of “supportive” actions. In 2007, a Swiss nongovernmental organization published this map as part…
The Consequences of Social Movements
Social movements have attracted much attention in recent years, both from scholars and among the wider public. This book examines the consequences of social movements, covering such issues as the impact of social movements on the life course of participants and the population in general, on political elites and markets, and on political parties and processes of social movement institutionalization. The volume makes a significant contribution to r…
Moral Struggles in Markets
Practices within markets are widely regulated and sometimes contested on the basis of moral judgments. Moral entrepreneurs challenge markets and market practices while firms and industry actors defend them, leading to moral struggles opposing different orders of worth. Based on an historical case study, this paper develops a theoretical framework to study moral struggles in markets as social and political processes around commensurability. It ide…
Moral Struggles in and Around Markets
Moral struggles in and around markets abound in contemporary societies where markets have become the dominant form of economic coordination. Reviewing research on morality and markets across disciplinary boundaries, this introductory essay suggests that a moral turn can currently be observed in scholarship, and draws a direct connection to recent developments in the sociology of morality. The authors introduce the chapters in the present volume “…
Political Consumerism in Northwestern Europe
This chapter uses quantitative measures to assess the spread of political consumerism, confirming not only its well-established status in Northwestern Europe (NWE) but also important regional variations. It then reviews case studies that show that political consumerism is practiced in various social movements in very diverse ways, far beyond the boycotts/buycotts and ethical products typically measured in quantitative data. While some occasionall…
The Contested Moralities of Markets
Highlighting the sources, processes and outcomes of moral struggles in and around markets, this volume advances our current understanding of markets and their contested moralities
La philanthropie
Les recherches portant sur la philanthropie s’intéressent principalement à l’articulation entre action étatique et action privée d’utilité publique, voyant dans l’action philanthropique tantôt un possible soutien à l’action étatique, tantôt une concurrence à l’État. En revanche, peu d’études se sont intéressées aux limites entre tiers secteur et marché. Pourtant, cette interrogation semble particulièrement pertinente aujourd’hui, à l’heure des ré…
How Do Ordinary Swiss People Represent and Engage with Environmental Issues? Grappling with Cultural Repertoires
This paper studies how ordinary people in Switzerland represent and engage with environmental issues in daily practices. Bringing together conceptual developments in cultural sociology and social practice theory, the paper argues that cultural repertoires strongly shape how representations and forms of engagement play out. It identifies two main repertoires of social and environmental change: adaptation and transformation. The adaptation repertoi…
Un numéro « précaires » pour quoi faire
Ce numéro du BMS est toutà fait spécial, et pas seulement pour avoirété préparé et finalisé pendant la crise du COVID-19. Il aété conçu en février, alors que la double mobilisation des revues françaises de sciences sociales-contre le projet de réforme des retraites alors présentée au parlement et le projet de loi de programmation pluriannuelle sur la recherche-battait son plein 1. Il prend acte de ce que la précarisation des métiers de l'enseigne…
Why a special issue on ‘precarity’
International audience
Commercialization
This chapter describes the environmental movements’ varied views of capitalist markets and its positions regarding the commercialization of the environmental cause. It distinguishes between “adaptive environmentalism”, which seeks to address environmental change within capitalism and has built on a variety of market-related tactics and instruments to do so, and “transformative environmentalism”, which sees capitalism as a systemic cause of enviro…
The dynamics of 'Moralized Markets
This article describes the distinctive features and structural properties of 'moralized markets', that is, markets in which producers set higher moral standards than those governing conventional market practices, and consumers buy products that respect those higher moral standards. Starting from a critical discussion of existing theoretical conceptualizations in terms of conventionalization/co-optation, quality conventions and resource partitioni…
What is Digital Valuation Made of? The integration of valuation poles on a reservation platform and its effects on the hotel industry in Switzerland
Digital platforms act as new powerful intermediaries challenging existing market orders in many sectors. Algorithmically producing ratings and rankings often built from online consumer reviews, platforms are important players in the digitizing of valuation. This article asks how these new platform-generated valuations relate to other forms of valuation. It presents a qualitative case study of valuation in the hotel sector in Switzerland, drawing …
Dépeindre la finance comme une « force pour le bien »
Cet article s’intéresse au discours de l’industrie de l’investissement d’impact à travers le cas du Global Impact Investing Network (GIIN), l’une des plus importantes organisations à faire la promotion de cette approche à travers le monde. À partir d’une analyse documentaire, nous décrivons le concept flou d’« investissement d’impact » qui se trouve au cœur de ce discours. Afin de favoriser la diffusion de ce concept et de son discours, le GIIN f…
When Platforms Challenge Professions
The sociology of professions has begun to study how digital platforms impact the status and skills of professionals. Our article expands on this line of research by exploring how platforms challenge professions and how professionals react by advocating different types of professionalism. Based on a case study of hoteliers in Switzerland, we look at how the rise of online travel agencies (OTAs) has affected this professional group. Drawing on an a…
Morality in Times of Uncertainty
This paper analyses the moral discourse of contemporary “caring capitalists” through a Geneva-based study of impact asset managers seeking to generate measurable social and environmental results alongside a financial return. The discursive analysis reveals how strongly impact investing is grounded in the worldview of finance, in spite of its claim to transcend it. In a context of uncertainty about impact, we also show that principle-based deontol…
Varieties of Impact Investing
Issue translation and issue valorization
Assetization is a process through which social and environmental 'goods' are transformed into financial assets. Scholars of assetization have described how this process requires decontextualization of localized entities in order to make them abstract and globally tradable assets. While the spatial dimension of this process has been widely studied, less attention has been paid to how actors overcome the problem of linking these global and local sc…
The Transformation of Banking and Finance
This introduction to the special issue highlights how the challenges from regulation, digitalization, and sustainability transform banking and finance in the 21st century. Following a short review of the sociology of finance and banking within Swiss economic sociology, it presents the main contributions of the articles of the special issue, which examine changing financial elites in Switzerland, digital platforms’ and cryptocurrencies’ social eff…
Political science (17 works) · Sociology (13 works) · Law (7 works) · Politics (7 works) · Community Development and Social Impact (6 works) · Business (5 works) · Economics (5 works) · Environmental ethics (5 works) · Global trade, sustainability, and social impact (5 works) · Philosophy (5 works)