moral entrepreneurs

those members of society with the power to create or enforce rules (BECKER, Outsiders: Studies in the Sociology of Deviance, 1963). For Becker, for whom DEVIANCE represents ‘publicly labelled wrongdoing’, someone must call the public's attention to such wrongdoings. Deviance is the product of enterprise in the sense that there are:

those who act to get rules made; and
those who apply the rules once a rule has come into existence, so that offenders created by the abstract rules may be identified, apprehended and convicted. Becker's interest is in reversing the emphasis of most social scientific research which concerns itself with the people who break rules. Instead, he suggests ‘we must see deviance… as a consequence of a process of interaction between people, some of whom, in the service of their own interests, make and enforce rules which catch others who, in the service of their own interests, have committed acts which are labelled deviant’. See also LABELLING THEORY, MORAL CRUSADE.

Collins Dictionary of Sociology, 3rd ed. © HarperCollins Publishers 2000

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moral crusade

References in periodicals archive

Moral panic is often perpetuated by the news media and fuelLed by moral entrepreneurs. These are individuals or formal organiSations that seek to influence a group to adopt or maintain a norm.

Drought does not cause famine; bad politics does

This stigmatization effort is usually led by moral entrepreneurs, for example international legal experts, religious leaders, or public intellectuals.

Moral and political necessities for nuclear disarmament: an applied ethical analysis

Moral entrepreneurs are activists who attempt to persuade others to adhere to a particular value system.

Panic at the church: the use of frames, social problems, and moral panics in the formation of an AIDS social movement organization

The most influential moral entrepreneurs for Arab youth who live in the MENA region and beyond are no longer preachers in the mosques.

Reflections on Arab society and culture

Hafner-Burton's analysis aims to steal our eyes from the more conventional explanations of such developments--among them the notion that moral entrepreneurs, such as NGOs and activist citizens, have played the key, causal role in changing the face of global trade regulation.

Forced to Be Good: Why Trade Agreements Boost Human Rights

As Andrew Lees points out with respect to crime and urban Germany, "moral entrepreneurs," busybodies in the line of morality-mongering as they might seem today, arose among reactionaries and modernizing reformers alike.

Criminals and their Scientists: The History of Criminology in International Perspective

Moral entrepreneurs and the campaign to ban landmines.

Moral entrepreneurs and the campaign to ban landmines

It is symbolic in terms of the outline of a principle, a shadow of control-to-come, and a compromised compromise between the three core groups--distantly interested, distracted government, core cadre of politically active and energetically noisy moral entrepreneurs, and economically anchored dealers eager to join the regulatory circus to defuse from the inside whatever explosive possibilities may be in store.

Transnational crime, local denial

The new act regarding alcoholism (Act on Alcohol and Alcohol Related Problems) in force since 2001 has been the result of greater debate among various groups: economic entrepreneurs, health entrepreneurs, and moral entrepreneurs. The discussion concerning the degree of advertising regulation among the "entrepreneurs" involved was probably the cause of the delay in approval of the act.

Italian alcohol advertising regulation and enforcement

The American government campaign to attack Iraq was in part based on the assumptions that the Iraqi government had "Weapons of Mass Destruction." This was never proven prior to the US police action/war and even President Bush, after the capture of Baghdad, stated, "we may never find such weapons." Cohen's research on deviance discussed this process of how the media and various moral entrepreneurs and government enforcers can conspire to create a panic.

Groups challenge 'liberal bias' on campus: lawmakers push to air conservative views

By contrast, the position of what he calls "moral entrepreneurs" do persuade us, but such persuasion does not come via rational argument.

The Problematics of Moral and Legal Theory. (Book reviews: summaries and comments)