LFU:online

Students acquire the ability to explain theories and analyses of development and transfor-mation of social institutions – in particular, institutions in terms of politics, market and civil society. They know how to analyse the effects and interactions of these institutions in socie-ties. Students know central social scientific discussions, terms and methods to analyse mar-ket, state and social institutions and organizations.

This series of lectures will introduce students to institutional approaches in the social sciences. Institutionalism and neo-institutionalism are at the heart of classical and contemporary social theory and empirical research and are particularly influential in economic and political sociology, political sciences and organizational analysis. Together they constitute the major alternative to standard economic explanations of the social world. The lectures will take the two major institutions of capitalist modernity – the state and the market – as the main examples and will examine their origins, nature and development. Both classical and contemporary theories of social institutions will be discussed.

A written examination at the end of the course consisting of a list of question from which students will be expected to answer two (in English or German).

positive completion of the compulsory module according to § 5 Para 1 No 2