Download Institutional Theories

Sociology 219: Institutional
Theories: Cultural /
Phenomenological Approaches
Class 1: Introduction
Copyright © 2009 by Evan
Schofer
Agenda
• 1. Review syllabus
• 2. Introduce course topic:
• Institutions…
• Types of institutionalisms
• Why cultural/phenomenological institutionalism?
• 3. Explore some of the intellectual
foundations of cultural/phenomenological
institutionalism
• Specifically, classic contributions from social
psychology
– Short class… wrap up ~11:00.
Announcements
• Talks
– Today: Prof David Suarez, USC
• Global proliferation of human rights in universities
• 1:00pm, SSPB 4206
– Tomorrow: Prof. David Frank
• Also sspb 4206
• Relates directly to material covered in this course
Syllabus / Course Info
• All assignments, readings, and handouts are
available online
– Course website:
• http://www.socsci.uci.edu/~schofer/2009Soc219IT/home219IT.htm
– Course readings via webfiles:
• https://webfiles.uci.edu/schofer/classes/2009soc219IT/
• UCI ID & password required
• Sign up for reading “mini-reports” today
• Hand out sheet…
Background: Institutional Theories
• The 1980s saw the rise/revival of institutional
scholarship in economics, political science,
sociology, and other fields
• Reactions (variously) to:
• 1. Functionalism – Parsons; plus “lay functionalism”
which crops up even today
• 2. Materialism – ‘interest-based’ explanations
• 3. Rationalism / Realism / Microeconomics –
Emphasis on de-contextualized rational actors.
Institutional Theories
• “New” Institutionalisms took many forms:
• 1. New institutional economics
• Moving beyond pure rational actors in a vacuum…
• The world is not made up entirely of markets…
– Economic actors create organizations (firms, states)
– Actors function within institutional frameworks (laws, etc)
– Questions:
• Under what conditions to actors form organizations &
institutions?
• How do institutions shape/channel economic
behavior?
Institutional Theories
• 2. Institutionalism in International Relations:
“International Regimes”
• Prior theory (“neo-realism”) characterized states as
rational actors in an anarchy (Waltz)
• But, states cooperate via treaties, organizations (e.g.,
the WTO)
• Again: What leads to cooperation/coordination? How
do these “regimes” shape state behavior?
Institutional Theories
• 3. “Bringing the State Back In”… institutions
in political sociology
• The 1960s saw lots of research on voting behavior and
pluralism/interest group representation…
– Politics = aggregation of individual/group interests
• Skocpol and others reasserted the importance of the
state (i.e., governing institutions, policies, law) in
channeling & shaping politics.
• Also: attention to history, “path dependence”
– The ways a particular policy gets implemented channels
subsequent action, possibilities
– Aka “historical institutionalism”
Institutional Theories
• 4. Institutionalism in organization research
– 1960s scholarship emphasized the rational &
functional features of organizations
• Or, brought in context in a limited manner (“old
institutionalism”) – e.g., politics / vested interests
• New institutionalism emphasized embeddedness of
organizations within a wider political, legal, cultural
context
Institutional Theories
• Common theme of “institutionalisms”:
• Greater attention to context within which social actors
are embedded…
– Key differences:
• What kind of context?
• What kind of actors?
• What kind of action?
Kinds of Context
• (Fragile) agreements that rational/interested
actors enter into
• Economic actors may form a corporation to reduce
transaction costs
• Countries may enter into a treaty to improve security
• Path-dependent / emergent features of
history (arbitary)
• Ex: Skocpol’s work on social policy
– The way things developed in the past shape future
possibilities
• Ex: QWERTY keyboard
Kinds of Actors / Action
• Culture / ideology / “social order” that
influences actors – or even “constitutes” them
• Key issue: Actors aren’t the starting point…
– Interests, preferences, perhaps even identities = shaped by
social context
• Ex: The phenomenological tradition
– We are born into a world in which most social realities are
already defined for us…
– We “enact” rules of our world…
• Others:
• Powell: (emergent) culture & networks
• Etc., etc.
Kinds of Actors
• Key distinction in modern sociological
theories: Conceptions of actors/action
– At one extreme: rational, interested actors
– ex: microeconomics, rational choice theory
– At the other extreme: “stage” actors that enact
roles in society
– Ex: phenomenological institutionalism
– Various compromise positions
• Ex: Bourdieu – habitus, field, etc.
Why Phenomenology?
• Why focus on cultural/phenomenological
institutionalism?
– Sociology continues to be dominated by theories
that privilege actors & interests; & functionalism
• In large part because wider culture seeps into
sociological thinking
– Yet, cultural/phenomenological institutionalism
has been empirically very fruitful
• It predicts things that others haven’t… sees things that
are in our “blind spots”
• In sum: It is a powerful but very non-intuitive way of
thinking…. Worth learning.
What is Phenomenology?
• Phenomenology in philosophy (Husserl):
study of subjective experience
• Phenomenology in sociology (Schutz,
Garfinkel):
• Examination of the subjective or “lived world” of
everyday life
– Further elaborations in 1960’s, 70’s:
• Focus on “taken-for-granted” features of reality
• Attention to the socially/culturally constructed reality
that we inhabit
What is phenomenological
institutionalism?
• Ethnomethodology: a phenomenological
tradition that focuses on how “reality”
emerges from direct interaction
• Related tradition: symbolic interaction
• Phenomenological institutionalism (aka
cultural institutionalism)
• Similar in that it focuses on socially constructed
realities…
– But it doesn’t just look at immediate social interaction…
• Instead, it looks at the broader culture and institutions
of society.
Readings
• Jepperson, Ronald L. 1991. “Institutions,
Institutional Effects, and Institutionalism.” Pp. 143163 in Walter W. Powell and Paul J. DiMaggio
(eds.). The New Institutionalism in Organizational
Analysis. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
• Addresses foundational issues: what is an institution. Read
closely.
• DiMaggio, Paul J. and Walter W. Powell. 1991.
“Introduction.” Pp. 1-38 in Walter W. Powell and
Paul J. DiMaggio (eds.). The New Institutionalism
in Organizational Analysis. Chicago, IL: University
of Chicago Press.
• Provides overview of many institutionalisms… plus a description
of phenomenological tradition
Readings
• Two classic readings in organizations:
• Meyer, John W. and Brian Rowan. 1977.
"Institutionalized Organizations: Formal Structure as
Myth and Ceremony." American Journal of Sociology,
83,2: 340-63.
• DiMaggio, Paul, and Walter W. Powell. 1983. “The
Iron Cage Revisited: Institutional Isomorphism and
Collective Rationality in Organizational Fields.”
American Sociological Review 48, 2: 147-60.
• Moving away from older visions of organizations as
bastions of rationality / efficiency
– Research was showing the world to be more “Dilbert-like”
than previously imagined…
– New ideas: Bounded rationality, the “Garbage Can”, etc.
– Result: Sociologists trying to re-think things…
Readings
• Recommended readings:
• *March, James G. 1984. “The New Institutionalism: Organizational
Factors in Political Life.” The American Political Science Review, Vol. 78,
No. 3 (Sep., 1984), pp. 734-749
• Another overview of many institutionalisms
• *Kathleen Thelen. 1999. “Historical Institutionalism in Comparative
Politics.” Annual Review of Political Science. 2: 369-404.
• Example of ‘historical institutionalism.
• *Williamson, O. 1981. “The Economics of Organization: The
Transaction Cost Approach.” American Journal of Sociology, 87:.
• Example of economic institutionalism
• *North, Douglass and B. Weingast. 1989. “Constitutions and
Commitment: The Evolution of Institutions Governing Public Choice in
Seventeenth Century England.” The Journal of Economic History, 4:80332.
• Example of economic institutionalism.
Discussion & Break
• Questions?
Foundations: Social Psychology
• Cultural/Phenomenological institutionalisms =
a product of many intellectual currents
• Cognitive Social Psychology: provided key
insights about the extent to which humans:
• 1. Are shaped by social context
• 2. Depart from standard “rational actor” assumptions
– Therefore, the tradition provides an important
basis for thinking about actors as “socially
constructed”.
Group Discussion
• Task: Take 10 minutes to read handouts:
Foundational ideas from social psychology
– Then we’ll have an open group discussion
•
•
•
•
Sherif
Asch
Milgram
Zimbardo
– Issues:
• Importance of context / situation
• Dynamics of conformity
• Action as rule-following  culture as scripts, models.