The Social Relevance of Intermediation In Markets: Power, Trust, and Value Formation (II)

The Social Relevance of Intermediation in Markets: Power, Trust, and Value Formation

Classical and contemporary work in economic sociology has long emphasized that markets are embedded in social relations and shaped by power, norms, and networks. Intermediaries do not simply facilitate exchange; they actively organize, structure, and transform market relations. Far from being neutral conduits, they actively shape how value is defined, how transactions occur, and how trust is produced and maintained. This panel proposes to examine the social relevance of intermediation by foregrounding its role in structuring inequalities, redistributing risk, and reconfiguring market relations across sectors. Intermediaries play a critical role in processes central to market coordination, including valuation, categorization, and the management of uncertainty. At the same time, they contribute to the reproduction—and sometimes transformation—of social inequalities by mediating access to markets, redistributing risks, and shaping opportunities for participation.

This double session panel invites contributions that discuss intermediation in distinct empirical contexts and address one or more of the following themes:

• Intermediaries as producers of market order and stability
• The role of intermediation in valuation and price formation
• Power asymmetries and dependencies mediated by third parties
• Intermediation and the governance of uncertainty and risk
• Digital platforms and the transformation of intermediation
• Moral and cultural dimensions of intermediary practices

By foregrounding intermediation, this double session panel highlights intermediation as key sites where economic action is coordinated, contested, and made meaningful, thereby advancing ongoing debates on the social organization of markets in contemporary capitalism.