Insurance as Governance

Insurance as Governance is the first major sociological study of the hidden world of the insurance industry. It examines how the industry governs our institutions and daily lives in ways that are largely invisible, and how it thereby functions as a form of government beyond the state. The text provides a sophisticated integration of empirical data and theoretical issues about insurance, risk, governance, and security. Drawing on extensive ethnographic research on industry practices, the author team penetrates the complexities of the insurance industry and demonstrates why insurance is such a powerful and pervasive institution. Together Ericson, Doyle, and Barry advance the concept of moral risk as they consider how insurance companies partner with governments and corporations in the negotiation of political economy. 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 post-industrial societies. Impressive in scope and original in approach, this text is a pivotal piece of sociological research.