Abstract
Barbara Misztal’s book The Challenges of Vulnerability, is a timely and extremely valuable contribution to the current theoretical and political concern with vulnerability, especially in the advanced capitalist nation-states. There are a number of reasons why vulnerability has become a topic of recent social scientific enquiry and debate. There is the influence of sociological theories that highlight the extent to which the dynamics of contemporary capitalist societies involve risk, contingency and uncertainty. Likewise, the restructuring of welfare state regimes is considered to have reduced social citizenship and increased potential vulnerability. The politics of welfare restructuring have also been articulated in terms of vulnerability, rather than the former categories of inequality, with neoliberalism implying a minimal commitment of the state to the most vulnerable, and ‘the third way’ seeking to address vulnerability through preventative welfare and ‘active citizenship’. In addition, various social struggles have brought the disadvantages and deleterious experiences that result from conditions of vulnerability to public consciousness, particularly through revealing abuses of institutional power and the victims of conflicts’ claims for protection and asylum. The diversity of these discussions, which Misztal demonstrates go well beyond those just enumerated, have undoubtedly established vulnerability as a topic worthy of the sociological imagination. Yet, they have created a diffusion of meanings and provoked critical responses, such as claims that the discourse of vulnerability is a byproduct of an exaggerated sense of fear and anxiety. Misztal’s analysis demonstrates why these critical perspectives are deficient; they generally underestimate the depth and complexity of circumstances of vulnerability. Even more importantly, Misztal develops a coherent framework that is capable of integrating and refining divergent interpretations of vulnerability. For this reason, The Challenges of Vulnerability is likely to be a major point of reference for future research on vulnerability and a means for assessing policy initiatives.
The Challenges of Vulnerability is a work of synthesis and analysis. On the one hand, it provides a diagnosis of the major forms and sources of vulnerability and, on the other hand, it proposes a series of corresponding ‘remedies’ for reducing vulnerability and for constructively coming to terms with its negative consequences. Misztal shows that vulnerability has to be addressed both in its specificity and in terms of its intersections with other dimensions of social disadvantage and suffering. One of the most impressive features of The Challenges of Vulnerability is its detailed clarification of these intersections and harnessing of an extensive body of research to explicate its positions. Those familiar with Misztal’s previous works will be aware of her capacity to marry exceptional scholarship with a strong ethical and political commitment to promoting more humane ways of living. In particular, The Challenges of Vulnerability complements Misztal’s earlier works on trust and memory, whilst developing elements of their analyses in relation to vulnerability. The themes of trust and memory do not just demonstrate that vulnerability can never be completely eliminated from social relations, but also that addressing substantial vulnerabilities entails the acceptance of different types of vulnerability.
Misztal rightly notes that ‘despite the popularity of the notion vulnerability and its investigations, there is no comprehensive theory of vulnerability in the social sciences’ (p. 32). Misztal develops just such a multidimensional theory through proposing what she describes as an ‘aggregative’ conception of vulnerability. That is, Misztal specifies three analytically separable layers and dimensions of vulnerability, which should be considered in their complex interconnections. In other words, she proposes a cumulative conception of vulnerability that is intended to ‘capture the ways in which an individual experiences different aspects of disadvantage’ (p. 221). Although Misztal does not use the term, her conception is based on a kind of social ontology. The first form of vulnerability is grounded in the ‘fundamental dependency’ of human beings on others, since every individual is affected by the actions and decisions of others. The fact that humans are embodied beings and highly reliant during infancy are major sources of the dependency on others. The recent theoretical discussions of care, respect and recognition have highlighted this first form of vulnerability and its various manifestations. Misztal’s analysis of the dependency on others has important parallels with Honneth’s theory of intersubjective recognition. She argues that the dilemma interdependency poses is that of establishing an appropriate balancing of the relationship between dependence and autonomy, both at the personal and institutional levels. Significantly, Misztal argues that to reach a proper appreciation of vulnerability, it is necessary to correct western philosophical and social thought’s long-standing neglect of the ‘idea of dependency’ (p. 63).
The second form of vulnerability is connected to the unpredictability of human action and the uncertainty concerning the future. In reconstructing this form of vulnerability, Misztal draws especially on Hannah Arendt’s arguments about unpredictability, on the one hand, and the sociological interpretations of risk and uncertainty in late modernity, on the other. Arendt argued that the unpredictability of action is mainly due to three things: the fact that human plurality means that each person lives with individual differences, there is the problem of the unreliability of assurances relating to the future, and the capacity of action among equals to set in train an unforeseen sequence of subsequent actions and to have unintended consequences. The uncertainty concerning the future has been reinforced by the accelerated social change in modernity. As noted already, recent sociology contains various categories that seek to convey some aspect of this experience of vulnerability, such as deregulation, individualization, precariousness, flexibility and disembedding. Misztal points to how variations in the extent to which individuals experience this form of vulnerability relate to their social support networks and the relative institution of labour force and welfare state protections. The third form of vulnerability is the irreversibility of past actions and experiences. Misztal focuses especially on trauma and the consequences of the damages that ensue from failing to respect the dependency and autonomy of others. Whether as physical or psychological injuries, unresolved experiences, or cultural memories, the persistence of injustices from the past undermines capabilities and wellbeing. This ‘form of vulnerability stems from painful experiences that diminish the emotional capacities of individuals, lower the possibility of realizing our individuality and reduce the chances of collaborative relationships with others who are seen either as responsible for our traumas and emotional vulnerability or as wounded or damaged by us’ (p. 95).
This delineation and illumination of forms of vulnerability are a significant clarification of the conditions for reducing vulnerability. Misztal is then able to propose remedial mechanisms that correspond to each form of vulnerability. In short, Misztal suggests that responsibility is a way to mitigate the vulnerability of dependence; promising, which involves the building of shared expectations, enables a diminishing of the precariousness ensuing from unpredictability and contingency; while forgiveness represents a way of addressing the irreversible pains and injustices of past actions. Although these remedial mechanisms appear likely to be generally accepted, the reality of persisting vulnerability seriously qualifies this presumption. Misztal’s analysis importantly sketches the historical contexts in which these practical orientations were recognized and partially implemented. What these remedies have in common, according to Misztal, is social trust: ‘All three mechanisms for reducing vulnerability – responsibility, promise and forgiveness – are trust-related and as such create opportunities for trust as “bonds of solidarity”, “bonds of security”, and “bonds of cooperation” respectively’ (p. 128).
The latter half of The Challenges of Vulnerability explicates these strategies and assesses different instances of putting them into practice. In each case, Misztal deals with these at the three levels of the individual, national and global. For instance, the bonds of solidarity that are generated by responsibility find expression in care at the level of the individual; respect at the national level through institutional means like citizenship and actions that are consistent with notions of human dignity, such as in terms of state policies on the aged, health and employment; and finally responsibility is manifested at the global level in rights, such as in the enforcement of the human rights of refugees and asylum seekers. Misztal’s exposition of these strategies is not simply normative, rather it investigates the substantive conditions of realizing them. This means that Misztal is able to document the need to take into account the social structural conditioning of these remedies and the degree of variation in their global, national and individual distribution. It is for this reason difficult to do justice to Misztal’s detailed and intricate reflections on these strategies for reducing vulnerability, especially given that they are equally founded on a sophisticated treatment of complex theoretical frameworks. Nonetheless, it is worth noting that Misztal suggests that the remedy of promising translates into individual support, national protection and global prevention, whereas forgiveness involves inclusion, reconciliation and restoration. There is a great deal to be learnt from Misztal’s account of relevant cases of actualizing these remedies, such as that of the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
In my opinion, Misztal’s analysis and argument are convincing and compelling. The relevant question then may be whether the message of The Challenges of Vulnerability will be received; for instance, demonstrating the benefits of forgiving does not mean, as Misztal is very much aware, that acts of forgiveness will not be resisted. In a similar vein, the further elaboration of certain themes would require interrogating some historically deep-seated assumptions about the political and social order. Misztal broaches the topics of violence and coercion in a highly perceptive manner on several occasions, particularly in relation to the preventative promise of nuclear disarmament and the restorative forgiving that has occurred in Polish–German state relations since the Second World War. Even so, the combination of force and political authority expands some dimensions of vulnerability and yet presents itself as a way of limiting vulnerabilities. Misztal certainly appreciates this dialectic of violence, but it nonetheless represents a difficult conundrum. It could, for instance, be argued that the post-September 11 environment foregrounded precisely this issue of vulnerability, or rather subsumed it under that of security. In many nation-states, the response was equivocation over, and even arguably the rejection of, aspects of the other remedial mechanisms. Misztal’s theory equally raises important questions about the basic framework of western political and social thought, since it could be suggested that vulnerability has been an implicit supposition since Hobbes. Misztal’s comment on the neglect of dependency may open the way for a more extended interrogation of how the relationship between the social and the political has been framed in western thought and the manner in which disciplinary divisions consolidated deficient understandings of vulnerability.
The Challenges of Vulnerability is a substantial volume that illuminates a core problem of contemporary societies. It makes a very strong case for regarding vulnerability and the clarification of the strategies for its reduction as major concerns of sociology. Misztal’s aggregative conception and multidimensional theorizing lead to what she describes as a ‘vulnerability perspective’ that is distinct from, but related to, comparable approaches like those addressed to happiness, wellbeing and capabilities. After reading this book, it would be hard to disagree with Misztal’s contention that this ‘approach can convey much more about social injustice and carries more weight than studies of happiness because being vulnerable is more acutely experienced than desirable states or gains’ (p. 225). In addition, Misztal’s aggregative conception is of more general interest for the way in which it fits together different strands of contemporary theory and throws into relief their predominant concerns. Misztal shows not only why we should develop wider forms of solidarity, security and cooperation, but also explains how we can in order to confront vulnerability.