Moralized Licensing Laws: Accumulating Advantage Through Fuzzy Boundaries

My dissertation explores how groups maintain privileges by keeping unclear boundaries between insiders and outsiders. Contrary to the conventional view that advantages are secured through sharp borders, I argue that fuzzy boundaries, created through ambiguous membership criteria and unsystematic application, can serve as a flexible tool for exclusion and advantage accumulation. Through case studies of occupational licensing laws in the nineteenth-century United States, I show how elite groups utilized fuzzy boundaries to defend status, secure privileges, and gain social respectability, while also creating space for exclusion. This approach highlights a subtle yet persistent source of social inequalities, as fuzzy boundaries can endure due to their ambiguity and resistance to legal contestation. By exploring the instrumental use of fuzzy boundaries, this research illustrates a strategy that powerholders can activate to maintain control over resources in environments that are moving toward formal principles that prohibit categorical exclusion.