Punishing crimes of the mind: Sanctions for scientific misconduct as a case for the cultural theory of punishment
| Author | Felicitas Hesselmann |
| DOI | 10.1177/1362480618756365 |
| Published date | 01 November 2019 |
| Date | 01 November 2019 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
https://doi.org/10.1177/1362480618756365
Theoretical Criminology
2019, Vol. 23(4) 527 –544
© The Author(s) 2018
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DOI: 10.1177/1362480618756365
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Punishing crimes of the
mind: Sanctions for scientific
misconduct as a case for the
cultural theory of punishment
Felicitas Hesselmann
Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin; German Centre for Higher Education Research and Science Studies
(DZHW), Germany
Abstract
The present article is concerned with the symbolism of punishment, using sanctions for
scientific misconduct as an exemplary case. By looking at a case not traditionally an object
for criminology, it seeks to extend existing cultural theories of punishment to incorporate
settings that are not defined by penal law but that nonetheless feature phenomena of
deviance and punishment. The article outlines how sanctions for misconduct, much like
state punishment, appeal to themes of sacred and evil, uncertainty and disorder. It argues
that this appeal to the sacred is both symbolic and instrumental, in that it serves to create
and legitimize a position of authority for the journals taking action against scientific
misconduct, illustrating how symbolic aspects of punishment relate to aspects of power.
Keywords
Cultural theory of punishment, power, retractions, scientific misconduct, symbolic
politics
Introduction
Punishment is a messy business. From failed executions (Sarat, 2014), to public torture
(Foucault, 1977: 3 ff.), and the far less drastic case of contemporary prisons (Tracy,
Corresponding author:
Felicitas Hesselmann, German Centre for Higher Education Research and Science Studies (DZHW),
Department 2 ‘Research System and Science Dynamics’, Schuetzenstrasse 6a, 10117 Berlin, Germany.
Email: hesselmann@dzhw.eu
756365TCR0010.1177/1362480618756365Theoretical CriminologyHesselmann
research-article2018
Article
528 Theoretical Criminology 23(4)
2004), penal activity is commonly seen as unpleasant and dirty, stigmatizing for those
who conduct it and unsettling for those who watch. Punishments as ‘moral dramatiza-
tions of cultural and public ideals’ (Gusfield, 1984: 158) are highly symbolic activities
that aim at constructing and communicating specific meanings to a relevant community
(Garland, 1990; Smith et al., 2000: 397). Those meanings often center on culturally
taboo areas associated with disorder, pollution, death and supernatural and evil forces
(Smith, 2008: 170 ff.). Such a tendency of punishment to conjure up ‘bad’ meanings and
symbols is seemingly at odds with its intended function to re-establish the symbolic
order that has been disturbed by deviance and to purge it from evil and pollution (Smith,
2008: 171). This gap between the intended and the realized workings of punishment in
turn is said to constantly create resistance (Smith, 2008: 174), leading to calls for penal
reform and eventually penal change (McGowen, 1994; Martschukat, 2008).
The present article sets out to investigate this relationship between punishment’s
meanings and its legitimacy in more detail. By looking at measures against scientific
misconduct it focuses on a sanction in which these invocations of the evil and the
uncanny are clearly present, but in which they serve to solidify, rather than unsettle
penal practices and penal authorities. Although not traditionally an object for criminol-
ogy, these measures present a case that allows for an investigation of the entanglement
of punishment’s symbolic aspects with aspects of power. Currently, science is seeing the
development and expansion of processes, measures and authorities to deal with miscon-
duct, such as the Office of Research Integrity (ORI) or comparable national organiza-
tions in several European countries, a trend both resulting from, and contributing to,
rising numbers of known cases. At first sight, scientific misconduct seems remarkably
different from crime, and reactions to misconduct do not appear to satisfy common defi-
nitions of punishment (see Lucken, 2013). However, this article argues that it can prove
insightful to consider scientific misconduct a form of deviance (Ben-Yehuda, 1986),
and consequently, to look at responses to misconduct as forms of punishment in the
broadest sense. On the one hand, such a perspective can be fruitful to better capture and
understand the forms and structures responses to scientific misconduct are currently
evolving into. On the other hand, taking seriously and perhaps expanding calls to over-
come ‘criminocentric dogmatism’ (Hannah-Moffat and Lynch, 2012; Velloso, 2013), it
also provides the opportunity for new insights into the workings of punishment in set-
tings that are not defined by penal law.
Analyzing retractions of incriminated scientific articles as an empirical example of
sanctions for misconduct, the article seeks to uncover themes of danger, evil and pollu-
tion that lurk right under the surface of seemingly neutral scientific communication. In
addition though, drawing on insights from poststructuralist and social semiotics, it argues
that the symbolism involved in retractions at once corresponds to a larger symbolic order
and furthers and legitimates specific power relations within science, rather than subvert
them. It will trace the way in which those meanings legitimize the newfound sanction of
retractions, rather than motivate resistance against it and how they create and sustain
positions of power and interpretative authority for those involved in penal activity. The
article thus attempts to show how observable symbolic structures and structures of power
and authority are inextricably linked, and how punishment, as all meaning-making, is
necessarily both expressive and instrumental.
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