Carlo Tognato
I am currently Faculty Fellow at the Center for Cultural Sociology, Yale University. I have been for two years Research Fellow at the Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies at the University of Minnesota and before that Senior Policy Fellow at the Center for the Study of Social Change, Institutions and Policy (SCIP) of the Schar School of Policy and Government at George Mason University for another two years. Before moving back to the US at the end of 2019, I was for over a decade Associate Professor at the Department of Sociology of the National University of Colombia, Bogotá and for four years Director at the Center for Social Studies at the same university. Since 2014 my research has almost exclusively focused on civil reconstruction and civil degradation and has taken a more interventive and public turn. I have published a book on the influence of culture in central banking (Central Bank Independence: Cultural Codes and Symbolic Performance, Palgrave-Macmillan, New York, 2012). I have edited another on the influence of culture in urban policy (Cultural Agency Reloaded: The Legacy of Antanas Mockus, The President and Fellows of Harvard College, 2017). I have coedited with Jeffrey Alexander a third one on the cultural foundations of democratic life in Latin America (The Civil Sphere in Latin America, Cambridge University Press, 2018), a fourth one with Nelson Arteaga on cultural sociology in Latin America (Sociedad, cultura y esfera civil: Una agenda de sociología cultural, FLACSO Mexico, 2019), and a fifth one (The Courage for Civil Repair: Narrating the Righteous in International Migration, Palgrave-Macmillan, New York, with Nadya Jaworsky and Jeffrey Alexander, 2020).
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Books by Carlo Tognato
while often deeply compromised and fragmented, Latin American civil
spheres have remained resilient, institutionally and culturally, generating
new oppositional movements, independent journalism, rebellious
intellectuals, electoral power, and critical political parties. In widely
different arenas, dissidents have employed the coruscating language of
the civil sphere to pollute their oppressors in the name of justice. In the
1970s and 1980s, political thinkers heralded the resurrection of Latin
American civil society, envisioning a new world of freedom and stability.
Corruption, inequality, racism, and exclusion become pressing and
urgent “social problems,” not despite the promises of democracy, but
because of them. The premise of this volume is that Latin American civil
spheres are powerful, even as they are compromised, creating challenges to anticivil culture and institutions that trigger social reform. It is the first of three volumes that place civil sphere theory in a global context.
ENDORSEMENTS
“In his new book Carlo Tognato suggests that in order to better understand the way that central banks operate, we also have to take culture into account, in the form of symbols, rituals, national values and more. The result is a very intelligent and creative book, which will hopefully be read not only by economists and other social scientists but also by central bankers.”
Richard Swedberg, Professor of Sociology, Cornell University
“The European Central Bank and the euro have recently come under question. Can they survive? For a thoughtful rebuke of conventional wisdom, you must read this book. Tognato exposes the symbolic dimensions of money, the dramatic performances of central bankers, and the cultural dynamics of international markets. These ideas are worth grappling with in a time when our old ideas have failed us.”
Frederick F. Wherry, Associate Professor of Sociology, Columbia University, and author of “The Culture of Markets”
“Carlo Tognato boldly goes where no economist has gone before. If recent decades favored the depoliticization of monetary policy as well as central bank autonomy, the outlook for the future includes repoliticization and political accommodation. Once we understand, with the help of Tognato's analytical framework, how stability cultures enabled central bank independence in the first place, we are forewarned as to how Europe's cultural malaise might lead to its unravelling.”
Susanne Lohmann, Professor of Political Science and Public Policy and Director of the Center for Governance, University of California, Los Angeles
“Tognato shows well why we can not leave the study of money to economists. Money has not just economic meaning but also deep political and cultural significance. His analysis of the importance of stability cultures for the legitimacy and functioning of central banks is both fascinating and extremely timely for anyone interested in the political management of modern money.”
Eric Helleiner, CIGI Chair in International Political Economy, University of Waterloo, Canada and co-editor of the Series Cornell Studies in Money
Excerpt from the Series Preface:
"Central Bank Independence continues the cultural turn in economic sociology, connecting it more centrally with market logic than it has ever been before. A work of theoretical imagination and rich empirical texture, it is extraordinarily relevant to the crisis that capitalist economies are facing today." Jeffrey Alexander, Lillian Chavenson Saden Professor of Sociology, Yale University
Chapters by Carlo Tognato
Colombia and then turn to the narrative repertoires employed by participants in debates on petroleum sector management. I identify which actors have been at the forefront of civil society engagement relating to petroleum sector issues, thereby setting the stage for my argument in the following section. Basically, I hold that broad civil society engagement is not sufficient for civil society to achieve its full potential. The way that the public sphere works, or fails to work, in Colombia has a crucial mediating effect on the potential influence of civil society actors. My analysis builds on a systematic ethnography of the social text of public debates over the petroleum industry that took place between 2010 and 2016 in the country’s main mass media.
while often deeply compromised and fragmented, Latin American civil
spheres have remained resilient, institutionally and culturally, generating
new oppositional movements, independent journalism, rebellious
intellectuals, electoral power, and critical political parties. In widely
different arenas, dissidents have employed the coruscating language of
the civil sphere to pollute their oppressors in the name of justice. In the
1970s and 1980s, political thinkers heralded the resurrection of Latin
American civil society, envisioning a new world of freedom and stability.
Corruption, inequality, racism, and exclusion become pressing and
urgent “social problems,” not despite the promises of democracy, but
because of them. The premise of this volume is that Latin American civil
spheres are powerful, even as they are compromised, creating challenges to anticivil culture and institutions that trigger social reform. It is the first of three volumes that place civil sphere theory in a global context.
ENDORSEMENTS
“In his new book Carlo Tognato suggests that in order to better understand the way that central banks operate, we also have to take culture into account, in the form of symbols, rituals, national values and more. The result is a very intelligent and creative book, which will hopefully be read not only by economists and other social scientists but also by central bankers.”
Richard Swedberg, Professor of Sociology, Cornell University
“The European Central Bank and the euro have recently come under question. Can they survive? For a thoughtful rebuke of conventional wisdom, you must read this book. Tognato exposes the symbolic dimensions of money, the dramatic performances of central bankers, and the cultural dynamics of international markets. These ideas are worth grappling with in a time when our old ideas have failed us.”
Frederick F. Wherry, Associate Professor of Sociology, Columbia University, and author of “The Culture of Markets”
“Carlo Tognato boldly goes where no economist has gone before. If recent decades favored the depoliticization of monetary policy as well as central bank autonomy, the outlook for the future includes repoliticization and political accommodation. Once we understand, with the help of Tognato's analytical framework, how stability cultures enabled central bank independence in the first place, we are forewarned as to how Europe's cultural malaise might lead to its unravelling.”
Susanne Lohmann, Professor of Political Science and Public Policy and Director of the Center for Governance, University of California, Los Angeles
“Tognato shows well why we can not leave the study of money to economists. Money has not just economic meaning but also deep political and cultural significance. His analysis of the importance of stability cultures for the legitimacy and functioning of central banks is both fascinating and extremely timely for anyone interested in the political management of modern money.”
Eric Helleiner, CIGI Chair in International Political Economy, University of Waterloo, Canada and co-editor of the Series Cornell Studies in Money
Excerpt from the Series Preface:
"Central Bank Independence continues the cultural turn in economic sociology, connecting it more centrally with market logic than it has ever been before. A work of theoretical imagination and rich empirical texture, it is extraordinarily relevant to the crisis that capitalist economies are facing today." Jeffrey Alexander, Lillian Chavenson Saden Professor of Sociology, Yale University
Colombia and then turn to the narrative repertoires employed by participants in debates on petroleum sector management. I identify which actors have been at the forefront of civil society engagement relating to petroleum sector issues, thereby setting the stage for my argument in the following section. Basically, I hold that broad civil society engagement is not sufficient for civil society to achieve its full potential. The way that the public sphere works, or fails to work, in Colombia has a crucial mediating effect on the potential influence of civil society actors. My analysis builds on a systematic ethnography of the social text of public debates over the petroleum industry that took place between 2010 and 2016 in the country’s main mass media.
La decisión del Procurador General ha desatado varios pronunciamientos sobre el sentido y el estado de la autonomía de la universidad pública en Colombia y ha llevado al despliegue de un amplio repertorio de acciones que han sido llevadas a cabo con el propósito declarado de defender dicha autonomía. En particular, varios observadores han argumentado que la intervención del Procurador General constituye una interferencia externa en la vida académica de la Universidad y que dicha interferencia choca contra el principio de autonomía universitaria que la cobija.
Considero que este punto merece mayor reflexión porque tiene implicaciones generales que van mucho más allá de la definición del principio de autonomía. Quiero argumentar que también tienen que ver con la posibilidad de desarrollar prácticas orientadas hacia el fortalecimiento de la sociedad civil en Colombia y al mismo tiempo con la posibilidad de introducir y de fortalecer aquellas garantías que podrían permitir a la esfera pública de este país transitar desde una pragmática de la guerra civil, que actualmente la regula, a una pragmática de la paz.