Insurance as Governance - Softcover

Barry, Dean; Doyle, Aaron; Ericson, Diana

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0802085741 ISBN 13: 9780802085740

Publisher: University of Toronto Press, 2003

Synopsis

Insurance as Governance is the first major sociological study of the insurance industry. It examines how the industry controls our institutions and daily lives in ways that are largely invisible, and how it thereby functions as a form of government beyond the state. Drawing on extensive ethnographic research on industry practices, the work penetrates the complexities of the insurance industry and demonstrates why it is such a powerful and pervasive institution. The authors advance the concept of moral risk as they consider how insurance companies partner with governments and corporations in the negotiation of economic policy. In effect, Insurance as Governance documents liberal theory at work. It offers a major case study of liberal governance beyond the state and explores such larger issues as how insurance is increasingly liberal rather than welfarist in orientation, and how insurance is the vanguard of liberalization in governance throughout postindustrial societies. Wide-ranging in scope and original in approach, the text provides a sophisticated integration of empirical data and theoretical approaches relating to insurance, risk, governance, and security.

About this title

Synopsis:

This is a sociological study of the hidden world of the insurance industry. It examines how the industry controls our institutions and daily lives in ways that are largely invisible, and how it thereby functions as a form of government beyond the state. Drawing on extensive ethnographic research on industry practices, the work penetrates the complexities of the insurance industry and demonstrates why it is such a powerful and pervasive institution. The authors advance the concept of moral risk as they consider how insurance companies partner with governments and corporations in the negotiation of economic policy. In effect, "Insurance as Governance" documents liberal theory at work. It offers a major case study of liberal governance beyond the state and explores such larger issues as how insurance is increasingly liberal rather than welfarist in orientation, and how insurance is the vanguard of liberalization in governance throughout postindustrial societies.

About the Author:

Dean Barry is Policy Research and Development Officer, Citizenship and Immigration, Government of Canada. Aaron Doyle is an assistant professor in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Carlton University. The late Richard V. Ericson was Principal of Green College, University of British Columbia, a centre for interdisciplinary scholarship and graduate education.

About this edition

• Publisher: University of Toronto Press
• Publication date: 2003
• ISBN 10: 0802085741
• ISBN 13: 9780802085740
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 384