LFU:online

Curr. § 5 Para 2 No 2:

Students acquire the ability to discuss and illustrate the development and transformation of social institutions, markets, state and other central institutions. They will acquire knowledge about the main questions and problems of economic sociology and gain a better understanding of the embeddedness of social action into economic institution. The course is of particular relevance to political and economic sociology, political science and organization studies.

The lecture introduces into recent sociological fields of research about the market and the state. Based on classical foundations like Weber, Durkheim and Marx the following basic assumptions of economic sociology will be explored:

(1) Economic action is a form of social action.

(2) Economic action is embedded within socio-historical contexts.

(3) Economic institutions are social constructions.

These assumptions constitute the frame in which theoretical streams like Neo-Institutionalism, Market sociology, Network sociology, Capitalism, Neoliberalism and post-social relations will be discussed. Main questions will be how the boundaries between state and market, between power and control have shifted in the beginning of the 21th century and what different meanings as well as consequences these changes involve for society.

Lecture and discussion

Written exam at the end of the lecture with comprehensive questions.

• Burt, Ronald S. (1992). Structural Holes. The Social Structure of Competition. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. (Auszug: 8-30.)
• DiMaggio, Paul & Powell, Walter W. (1983). The Iron Cage Revisited: Institutional Isomorphism and Collective Rationality in Organizational Fields. American Sociological Review 48: 147-160.
• Fligstein, Neil (1996). Markets as Politics: A political-cultural approach to market institutions. American Sociological Review 61(4): 656-673.
• Granovetter, Mark (1995). The Economic Sociology of Firms and Entrepreneurs. In: Alejandro Portes (Hg.). The Economic Sociology of Immigration: Essays on Networks, Ethnicity, and Entrepreneurship. New York: Russell Sage Foundation: 128-165.
• Hall, Peter A. (2006). Stabilität und Wandel in den Spielarten des Kapitalismus. In: Beckert et al. (Hg.) (2006). op. cit.: 181-205.
• Knorr-Cetina, Karin & Brügger, Urs (2002). Global Microstructures: The virtual societies of financial markets. American Journal of Sociology 107(4): 905-950.
• Power, Michael (1997). The audit society: rituals of verification. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press. (Auzüge: Kap. 1: 1-15 und Kap. 3: 41-69.)
• Swedberg, Richard (2001). Max Weber’s Vision of Economic Sociology. In: Granovetter & Swedberg (Hg.) (2001). op. cit.: 77-96.
• Tonkiss, Fran (2001). Markets against States: Neo-Liberalism. In: Nash & Scott (Hg.) (2001). op. cit.: 250-261.
• Whitley, Richard (1992). The Social Construction of Organizations and Markets. The Comparative Analysis of Business Recipes. In: Reed, Michael (Hg.). Rethinking Organization: new directions in organization theory and analysis. London: Sage: 120-143.

positive completion of the compulsory module according to Curr. § 5 Para 1 No 8.