Arlie Hochschild's "Feeling Rules" and International Hierarchy

Our subjective worlds often have a taken-for-granted feeling in the sense that they are perceived to be natural, right, normal, and essential. Emotional patterns, impressions of the external world, perceptions of our relationships, and the opinions that form from these processes often feel like they emerge from inside of us. Sociologists have long recognized that broader macro-structural factors, such as markets, politics, and institutions, impact our internal worlds whether or not agents recognize it.  

This insight on the link between macro-structure and internal subjectivity has interested me for the past year. I began thinking about it because of a puzzle I encountered in my investigations of the politics of the euro. One of my discoveries in the course of that research was that perceptions of inter-state hierarchy correlated with support for Europe generally and the euro specifically. Persons in Southern European countries who believed their country was “inferior” in some fundamental way (e.g. the quality of citizens, institutions, etc) to other countries were more likely to support Europe (often because they saw it as the solution to their country’s perceived defects). I documented these perceptions in my book Eurozone Politics, and in one of the chapters I elaborate by distinguishing between perceived and objective inter-state hierarchy. The former has been mentioned, and the latter refers to those objective and measurable variables that determine a nation-state’s place on the pecking order, such as population, military assets, and economic size + performance. In the same chapter I argue that, in Europe’s inter-state pecking order, the last on the list matters relatively more: it is economic size + performance that helps to explain Germany’s dominance despite its military weakness (in contrast, regions characterized with intense hostility, like the Middle East, are more likely to be hierarchically organized around military capacity).


From this argument on hierarchy a question was identified: why is economic performance part of the equation? I think I may have found a partial answer in the work of sociologist Arlie Hochschild. She is not an expert on European or international politics, but her insights may be relevant to those realms. In this post I will try to elaborate on how, but first it is necessary to explore Hochschild’s ideas within the context of her discipline, sociology.


Her main contribution is that a culture’s “feeling rules” rather than internal subjective processes determine how we actually feel. She deftly uses two metaphors to illuminate the mechanisms: “dictionary” and “bible”. The first refers to the labels we give to emotions, which influence the demarcation of emotional states. It is not clear, for example, that, at least physiologically, there is much difference between, say, contempt and hate, but the different labels have implications for how they are experienced and communicated. In addition, the fact that we typically label these emotions “negative” impacts how they are felt. The second metaphor, “bible”, refers to the normative assumptions that surround emotional expression, which is another way of saying the culturally determined rules that influence the kinds of emotional reactions that are publicly allowed or prohibited. To use an example I am familiar with as a bi-cultural Italian-Canadian, in Southern Italy, open displays of “negative” emotions like grief or anger are more likely to be perceived as normal than, say, in English Canada, where the Anglo-Saxon tradition of emotional reservedness frowns upon such displays. Hochschild’s theory sheds light on how neither rule or modality is “natural” even though humans in both cultures share the same physiology. Rather--whether the persons are aware of this or not--their emotional lives are strongly influenced by the labels (dictionary) and normative values (bible) that are unique to individual cultures.


In other work Hochschild applies the framework of “feeling rules” to the realm of romantic relationships. Specifically, she asks how the structures of capitalism create rules that influence our emotions vis-à-vis dating, sex, and marriage. Her conclusions are that the shift to neo-liberal capitalism, defined as the increase in short-termism—contract work, capital mobility, rapid technological change, etc.—has impacted our “emotional investment” strategies in the realm of romance, which are now also increasingly determined by the logic of short-termism and mobility. As capital becomes mobile and short-term, romantic commitments become similar as persons shift from partner to partner, looking for the highest return, avoiding highly risky long-term commitments. In a similar vein, the de-regulation of capital and markets lead to a kind of de-regulation of romantic life, where the freedom to maximize value (profits in the market, pleasure in romance) replaces a regulatory regime that constrains freedom for some greater good that is not immediately perceived. The short-termism and non-committal hook-up culture, for example, may be the mirror, or even the consequence, of the short-termism of neo-liberal capitalist relations. 


Hochschild’s argument is compelling. Previous forms of economic organization were undoubtedly associated with different emotional relationships. More stable economic systems, from feudalism to the mature industrial economies of the post-war era in the West, were also characterized by more stable emotional investments in sexual relations. Thus there certainly is a strong correlation, but I can think of two critiques of the theory. The first is that correlation is not necessarily causation, which suggests other possibilities. It may be that emotional relations are the cause, not consequence, of economic organization, or it could be that a third and unidentified variable is causing both the distinct emotional patterns and economic organization. The second criticism is that, even if we accept Hochschild’s thesis, it leaves unexplained the fact that not all emotional investments are short-term; currently perhaps half of romantic relationships are stable and permanent (in fact, marriage retention rates are increasing, but at the higher income ladder). These couples presumably face the same economic pressures as everyone else, and yet they have formed durable partnerships. Why? Hochschild’s response might be that not all actors react in the same way to a system’s feeling rules, and few arguments can withstand such a high test. To be valid, we would need to show that actors are more likely to act in a certain way, not that all of them will. Lastly, other variables or feeling rules, like religious ones, may, in some cases, override the short-termism that inheres in romantic relationships under neo-liberal capitalism.


Although Hochschild’s conclusions can be critiqued on many grounds, it remains the case that she was on to something when she recognized that our economic structure enters our consciousness and impacts our emotions and perceptions. And this is the insight that I’d like to apply to the puzzle mentioned above, i.e., about the constitution of inter-state hierarchy. Accordingly, following Hochschild, I’d like to advance two arguments: 1) capitalism’s emphasis on performance for profit-maximization enters our consciousness so that we confer status and prestige to performance in political life, including the realm of inter-state hierarchy, and 2) those who reach the top of the pecking order are able to confer status to those on the lower end. In this model, then, the constitution and reproduction of hierarchy has two stages: the capitalist criterion of performance enters our consciousness in a way that impacts our perceptions of the external world, so that we confer value to groups that seem to perform in the market better than others; those who reach the top are, through acts of volition or omission, able to confer value and status to secondary states on the pecking order.



I will try to apply this concretely to Europe. The hierarchical system on that continent is characterized with Germany at the apex, France and the UK just below, or secondary, and Italy even lower, perhaps just slightly above Spain and Poland but undoubtedly below the secondary level. The evidence for this system can be seen whenever a major decision has to be made: Germany usually has the final say. What is more, whenever there is a global crisis, Berlin is usually the first to receive a phone call from world leaders. Curiously, this hierarchy is present even though the UK and France are militarily stronger than Germany. The reason is that war is no longer a real possibility in Europe. Other criteria are, in this context, more influential. Population, economic size + economic performance matter everywhere, but perhaps more in Western Europe. Needless to say, Germany scores highest here: its dynamic economy, based on high-value industrial goods, is the envy of the world. Germany’s dominant place on the hierarchy is ultimately reproduced by the subjective value we confer on performance, but although this value-ascription is subjective, it does not derive from inside of us. Rather, the source is the “bible”, or rules, of capitalism that value performance, which enter our consciousness and orient our perceptions of the external world, including the realm of inter-state politics. In the second stage, Germany, as leader, has the power to reproduce hierarchy by conferring value and status to those lower on the pecking order.


The implication is that economic systems impact, not only romantic and sexual relations, but also the organization and reproduction of political relations including international hierarchy. This may be demonstrated via a comparison with pre-capitalist economic forms, like feudalism, which operated on the basis of different rules that seeped into human consciousness and impacted the organization of hierarchy between political units. Under feudalism, other institutions, like religion and the military, mattered more than the market. Accordingly, virtues associated with them, like devotion, honour, sacrifice, bravery, courage, and chivalry, were more influential in determining value-ascription than the economic performance associated with capitalism.


Assuming this reasoning is valid, the next question is: so what? I can think of a few implications that are relevant. The first is theoretical. Realists argue that hierarchy is produced by objective factors like population, military, territory, and economy, while constructivists assert that it is constituted inter-subjectively. The argument of this piece, by honing in on one aspect of hierarchy (economic performance) suggests a middle way. Economic size, in so far as it reflects actual productive capacity and value creation, is objective. But the ascription of status and prestige to the criteria of performance is not an inevitable result. It rather is a consequence of the dominance of capitalist economic relations; the rules from this system enter our consciousness and orient our perceptions towards valuing economic performance more than, say, bravery. This qualifies the realist notion of the universality and objectivity of power by showing it’s socially constructed elements. But it does not completely confirm the constructivist position either insofar as economic relations are not completely reducible to inter-subjectivity.


Another implication is predictive. The shifts of political units on the hierarchy will probably mirror perceptions of their performance, or lack thereof. To continue the example above: Germany’s place at the top of Europe’s pecking order could collapse if, say, it experienced a severe recession that significantly damaged its banking system or industrial capacity. If this were to happen contemporaneously as France entered a period of rapid industrial, technological, and economic growth, the argument above predicts that their positions on the pecking order would reverse. In this scenario, Paris, not Berlin, would be the first capital to be called in the event of a crisis, and France, not Germany, would have the power to confer status and prestige to lower states, including Germany, by deciding to include or exclude them from major decisions. This would happen even though the military balance between them remained unchanged.


Another prediction is that, under capitalism, hierarchies will be less stable than in the past. Previous international hierarchies, like previous romantic commitments, were more durable, at least in part, because their economic systems and associated institutions were more stable. Contemporary capitalism is characterized by rapid shifts in technology and value creation that rapidly lead to the creation and destruction of entire industries. The fate of a nation’s place on the international hierarchy will be strongly influenced by these processes.