Foundations of Institutional Theory A block seminar in the winter term of 2012/13 Wolfgang Streeck, Max-Planck-Institut für Gesellschaftsforschung Participation in the seminar: Up to 6 participants, please send a short (about half a page) letter of motivation to the teaching assistant Annina Aßmann (assmann@mpifg.de) that outlines why you want to join the seminar. The seminar will meet for three sessions: Session 1 will be on Wednesday, October 17, from 11 to 12:30 hrs, at the beginning of the winter term. An introduction to the topic of the seminar will be given by the instructor; organizational arrangements will be made; and papers will be assigned (see below). Session 2 will be on Wednesday, December 19, from 9:00 to 15:00 hrs. Session 3 will be held from Wednesday, February 13, to Friday, February 15, 2013, daily from 9:00 to 12:00 hrs. Note that this session will take place after the end of the winter term. Seminar participants are expected To have read the Introductory Reading for Part I of the Seminar in advance of Session 1, and for Part II in advance of Session 2 (see the reading list, below); To have read the readings for Part I of the seminar (see the reading list) in advance of Session 2. Readings marked with an asterisk (*) are to be read in detail, the others should at least be skimmed. Note that one very important author, Arnold Gehlen, has never to my knowledge been translated into English. Those not reading German should look for secondary literature in a language to which they have access; To write a paper of no more than 5,000 words explaining one of the six approaches, or traditions, discussed in Part I, and circulate it to the instructor and the other participants by December 5, 2012, at the latest; To write a paper, of the same maximum length, comparing or relating to each other at least two of the six literatures discussed in Part II of the seminar. Papers must be handed in and circulated to the participants on February 6, 2013. All paper assignments will be made in Session 1 to ensure that all subjects are covered. To have read the readings for Part II in advance of Session 3, following the same rules as apply to the readings in Part I. Listed readings will be made available well before Session 1. It is urgently recommended that participants take advantage of secondary literature when doing their readings, especially those in Part I. Valuable support can be obtained by looking at relevant entries in the In- 1
ternational Encyclopedia of the Social and Behavioral Sciences (IESBS; Smelser and Baltes eds.). There are also numerous other reference books available at the MPIfG library of which participants should feel obliged to make use. Moreover, seminar participants may want to form one or more reading circles to discuss readings and, perhaps, drafts of seminar papers. Part I Introductory Readings * Voss, Thomas R., 2001: Institutions. In: Smelser, Neil and Paul Baltes (eds.): International Encyclopedia of the Social and Behavioral Sciences. Vol. 24. Amsterdam etc.: Elsevier, 7561-7566 Part II * Hall, Peter und Rosemary Taylor, 1996: Political Science and the Three New Institutionalisms. Political Studies, Vol. 44, 936-957 Part I 1. Durkheim * Durkheim, Emile, 1966 [1893]: The Division of Labor in Society. New York: The Free Press, 200-225 Durkheim, Emile, 1982 [1895]: The Rules of Sociological Method. Introduction and Selection by Steven Lukes. Chapter I: What is a Social Fact? New York: The Free Press, 50-59 * Durkheim, Emile, 2001 [1912]: The Elementary Forms of Religious Life. Translated by Carol Cosman. Book II, Chapter 7. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 153-182 2. The American Tradition * Veblen, Thorstein, 1967 [1899]: The Theory of the Leisure Class. New York: Penguin. Chapter I to III, 1-67; Chapter VII, 167-187 3. The Anthropological Tradition * Malinowski, Bronislaw, 1944: A Scientific Theory of Culture and Other Essays. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 43-119 2
4. The German Anthropological Tradition * Gehlen, Arnold, 1986 [1956]: Urmensch und Spätkultur. Wiesbaden: Aula, 11-65 5. The Structural-Functionalist Approach * Parsons, Talcott, 1951: The Social System. New York: The Free Press, Chapter II, The Major Points of Reference and Structural Components of the Social System, 24-67; Chapter X, Social Structure and Dynamic Process: The Case of Modern Medical Practice, 428-79 6. The Sociology-of-Knowledge Approach * Berger, Peter and Thomas Luckmann, 1967: The Social Construction of Reality: A Treatise on the Sociology of Knowledge, Part II, Society as Objective Reality, 1. Institutionalization. New York: Anchor Books, 47-92. Part II 1. Neo-Institutionalism I: Sociological Institutionalism * DiMaggio, Paul and Walter W. Powell, 1983: The Iron Cage Revisited: Institutional Isomorphism and Collective Rationality in Organizational Fields. American Sociological Review, Vol. 48, 147-160 DiMaggio, Paul and Walter W. Powell, 1991: Introduction: The New Institutionalism in Organizational Analysis. Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1-38 * Meyer, John and Brian Rowan, 1977: Institutionalized Organizations: Formal Structure as Myth and Ceremony. American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 83, Nr. 2, 340-363 Stinchcombe, Arthur, 1997: On the Virtues of the Old Institutionalism. Annual Review of Sociology, Vol. 23, 1-18 2. Neo-Institutionalism II: Rational Choice Institutionalism * Greif, Avner, 1998: Self-Enforcing Political Systems and Economic Growth: Late Medieval Genoa. In: Robert H. Bates et al.: Analytic Narratives. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 23-63 * North, Douglass, 1990: Institutions and Their Consequences for Economic Performance. In: Cook, Karen and Margaret Levi (eds.): The Limits of Rationality. Chicago: Chicago University Press, 383-401 3
North, Douglass, 1999: Institutions, Institutional Change, and Economic Performance. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 11-35 * Shepsle, K.A., 1989: Studying Institutions: Some Lessons from the Rational Choice Approach. Journal of Theoretical Politics, Vol. 1, No. 2, 131-147 Weingast, Barry, 2002: Rational Choice Institutionalism. In: Katznelson, Ira and Helen Milner (eds.): Political Science: The State of the Discipline. New York etc.: Norton and Company, 660-692 Williamson, Oliver, 2000: The New Institutional Economics: Taking Stock, Looking Ahead. Journal of Economic Literature, Vol. 38, 595-613 3. Neo-Institutionalism III: Historical Institutionalism Pierson, Paul and Theda Skocpol, 2002: Historical Institutionalism in Contemporary Political Science: In: Katznelson, Ira and Helen Milner (eds.): Political Science: The State of the Discipline. New York etc.: Norton and Company, 693-721 * Thelen, Kathleen, 1999: Historical Institutionalism in Comparative Politics. Annual Review of Political Science, Bd. 2, 369-404 4. Path Dependency * Arthur, Brian, 1994: Increasing Returns and Path Dependence in the Economy. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1-32 Mahoney, James, 2000: Path Dependence in Historical Sociology. Theory and Society, Vol. 29, No. 4, 507-548 North, Douglass, 1999: Institutions, Institutional Change and Economic Performance. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 73-104 * Pierson, Paul, 2000: Increasing Returns, Path Dependence, and the Study of Politics. American Political Science Review, Vol. 94, No. 2, 251-267 Stinchcombe, Arthur, 1968: Constructing Social Theories. London: University of Chicago Press, 103-130 5. Institutional Change Greif, Avner and David A. Laitin, 2004: A Theory of Endogenous Institutional Change. American Political Science Review. Vol. 98, No. 4, 633-652 4
Mahoney, James and Kathleen Thelen, 2010: A Theory of Gradual Institutional Change. In: Mahoney, James and Kathleen Thelen (eds.): Explaining Institutional Change: Ambiguity, Agency, and Power. Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press, 1-37 Pierson, Paul, 2004: Politics in Time. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 133-166 * Streeck, Wolfgang, 2010: Institutions in History: Bringing Capitalism Back In. In: Campbell, John et al. (eds.): Handbook of Comparative Institutional Analysis. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 659-686 * Streeck, Wolfgang and Kathleen Thelen, 2005: Introduction: Institutional Change in Advanced Political Economies. In: Streeck, Wolfgang and Kathleen Thelen (eds.): Beyond Continuity. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1-39 * Thelen, Kathleen, 2002: How Institutions Evolve: Insights from Comparative-Historical Analysis. In: Mahoney, James and Dietrich Rueschemeyer (eds.): Comparative Historical Analysis in the Social Sciences. New York: Cambridge University Press, 208-240 * Thelen, Kathleen, 2010: Beyond Comparative Statics: Historical Institutional Approaches to Stability and Change in the Political Economy of Labor. In: Campbell, John et al. (eds.): Handbook of Comparative Institutional Analysis. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 41-61 6. Institutional Evolution * Streeck, Wolfgang, 2011: A Note on Evolution. Unpublished Manuscript Hodgson, Geoffrey M, 2004: Social Darwinism in Anglophone Academic Journals: A Contribution to the History of the Term. Journal of Historical Sociology. Vol. 17, No. 4, 428-463. Hodgson, Geoffrey M., 2009: The Ontology of Institutional Evolution. Hatfield, Hertfordshire, The Business School, University of Hertfordshire, De Havilland Campus. Unpublished Manuscript. April 19, 2009. Lewis, Orion and Sven Steinmo, 2010: Taking Evolution Seriously in Political Science. Theory in Biosciences. Vol. 129, No. 2-3, 235-245. Steinmo, Sven, 2010: The Evolution of Modern States: Sweden, Japan, and the United States. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, Ch. 1, pp. 1-29 5