Course description: This is an advanced treatment of the theory and empirical practice of institutional analysis in sociology and related fields. Part one of the course focuses on structure, treating institutions as contextual determinants of action, addressing economic, historical and sociological approaches to these contexts, and identifying different mechanisms by which institutions promote order, stability and distinctive patterns of behavior. Topics covered included path dependence, isomorphism, "lock in," structure-induced equilibria, institutional contingency, diffusion, and globalization. Part two of the course focuses on agency and action—how to explain institutional building and change without abandoning the contextual insights of institutional analysis. Topics covered include punctuated equilibria versus evolutionary theories of change, the role of ideas and incentives in institutional systems, institutional entrepreneurship, endogenous change dynamics, processes of transposition, theorization and translation, and the relationship between social movements and institutional fields. Four specific fields or empirical phenomena will preoccupy us at multiple points throughout the semester: the American health care system, the emergence and deinstitutionalization of the corporation, the rise of French, nouvelle and hybrid cuisine, and the regulation and deregulation of insurance.
Course prerequisite: Sociology 211, Introduction to Sociology and one upper division class in sociology, or consent of the instructor.
Course assignments: This is a reading intensive seminar which will proceed entirely by discussions of materials supported by regular reading memos. One to two page memos are due each week for the first half of the semester. Three to four somewhat longer reading memos of three to five pages will be due roughly every other week for the second half of the semester. There are no other papers or exams. Late work will not be accepted.
Readings: The following books are available at the Reed College bookstore and are on reserve. Additional readings listed below are available though JSTOR or are on reserve.
- John Campbell. 2004. Institutional Change and Globalization. Princeton: Princeton Press
Douglass North. 2005. Understanding the Process of Economic Change. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
- Paul Pierson. 2004. Politics in Time: History Institutions and Social Analysis. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
W. R. Scott, Martin Ruef, Peter J. Mendel, and Carol A. Caronna. 2000. Institutional Change and Healthcare Organizations: From Professional Dominance to Managed Care. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
- Sven Steinmo, Kathleen Thelen, and Frank Longstreth. 1992. Structuring Politics: Historical Institutionalism in Comparative Analysis. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
- Wolfgang Streeck and Kathleen Thelen. 2005. Beyond Continuity: Institutional Change in Advanced Political Economies. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
- W. R. Scott. 2001. Institutions and Organizations, 2nd ed. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Assignments
INTRODUCTION: EXPLAINING SOCIAL ORDER AND ITS TRANSFORMATION
Week 1: (January 24)
PART I: CORE APPRAOCHES AND PROBLEMS
Week 1: (January 26)
Rational choice institutionalism: Two classic statements
- Williamson, O. 1981. “The Economics of Organization: The Transaction Cost Approach.” American Journal of Sociology 87: (JSTOR)
- Wiengast B and W. Marshall. 1988. “The Industrial Organization of Congress; Or Why Legislatures, Like Firms, Are Not Organized Like Markets.”Journal of Political Economy 1: 132-63. (JSTOR)
Week 2: (January 31, February 2)
Rational choice institutionalism: overview and elaborations
- 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: 803-32. (JSTOR)
- Leibcap, G. 2004. “State Regulation of Open-Access, Common-Pool Resources.”
Pp 545-72 in Handbook of the New Institutional Genomics, edited by C
Menard and M Shirley. (reserve folder)
- Greif, Avner. 1988. “Self-enforcing political systems and economic growth: late
medieval Genoa” In Analytic Narratives, edited R Bate, B Weingast, M
Levi, J Rosenthal. Princeton: Princeton University Press (Reserve folder)
Week 3: (February 7, 9)
Historical Institutionalism: Foundations and exemplars, Institutions as context
- Thelen, K and S Stienmo. 1992. “Historical Institutionalism in Comparative
Politics.” In Structuring Politics.
- Dunlavy, Collen. 1992. “Political Structure, State Policy and Industrial Change:
Early Railroad Policy in the United States and Prussia.” In Structuring Politics.
- Immergut, Ellen. 1992. “The Rules of the Game: The Logic of Health Policy-Making in France, Switzerland, and Sweden.” In Structuring Politics
- Steinmo, S and Jon Watts. 1995. "It's the Institutions, Stupid!: Why the United
States Can't Pass Comprehensive National Health Insurance" Journal of Health Politics Policy and Law 2: 329-372. (reserve folder)
Week 4: (February 14, 16)
Historical Institutionalism Meets Rational Choice: Path Dependence
- Douglass, North 1990. Institutions, Institutional Change and Economic Performance. Chapters 1, 11-14 (books on reserve)
- David, Paul. 1985. “Clio and the Economics of QWERTY.” Economic History Review 75: 332-37. (JSTOR)
- Paul Pierson. 2000. Politics in Time, Chapter 1.
- James Mahoney. 2000. “Path Dependence in Historical Sociology.” Theory and Society 29:507-548. (JSTOR)
Week 5: (February 21, 23)
Historical Institutionalism Rethinks History and time
- Paul Peirson. Politics in Time chapters 2-6
- Jacob Hacker. 1998. “The Historical Logic of National Health Insurance:
Sequence and Structure in the Development of British, Canadian and US
Medical Policy. Studies in American Political Development 12: 57-130
(reserve folder)
Week 6: (February 28, March 2)
Enter Sociology: Fields, Organizations, Cognitive Schemas and more
- Meyer, J. and B. Rowan. 1977. “Institutionalized Organizations: Formal Structure as Myth and Ceremony.” American Journal of Sociology 83: 340-63. (JSTOR)
- DiMaggio, P and WW Powell. 1983. "The Iron Cage Revisited: Institutional
Isomorphism and Collective Rationality in Organizational Fields."American Sociological Review 48: 147-160. (JSTOR)
- Tolbert, P., and L Zucker. 1983. "Institutional Sources of Change in the Formal
Structure of Organizations: The Diffusion of Civil Service Reform, 1880-1935." Administrative Science Quarterly 28: 22-39. (JSTOR)
- Edelman, L. 1992. “Legal Ambiguity and Symbolic Structures: Organizational Mediation of Civil Rights Law.” American Journal of Sociology 97: 1531-
76. (JSTOR)
- Schneiberg, M, and E Clemens. 2006. “The Typical Tools for the Job: Research
Strategies in Institutional Analysis.” Forthcoming in How Institutions Change, edited by W.Powell and D. Jones. Chicago: University of Chicago. (reserve folder)
Week 7: (March 7, 9)
Globalization, Diffusion and the Critique of Actor-Centered Theory
- John Meyer,, John Boli, George M. Thomas, and Francisco O. Ramirez. 1997. "World Society and the Nation-State." American Journal of Sociology
103: 144-81. (JSTOR)
- Schofer, Evan and John Meyer. 2005. “The Worldwide Expansion of Higher
Education in the Twentieth Century.” American Sociological Review 70:
898-920. (Reserve folder).
- Witold Henize, Bennet Zelner and Mauro Guillen. 2005. “The Worldwide
Diffusion of Market Oriented Infrastructure Reform.” American Sociological Review 70: 871-897. (reserve folder) SKIP
Spring break: March 11-19
Week 8: (March 21, 23)
Institutionalization and Path Creation
- Ferguson, P. 1998. “A Cultural Field in the Making: Gastronomy in 19th Century
France.” American Journal of Sociology 104: 597-641 (JSTOR)
- Hwang, Hokyu and Walter Powell. 2005. “Institutions and Entrepreneurship.”
Pp. 179-210 in Handbook of Entrepreneurship (reserve folder)
- Rao, H.. 1998. “Caveat Emptor: The Construction of Nonprofit Consumer
Watchdog Organizations.” American Journal of Sociology 103: 912-961.
(JSTOR)
- Jeannett Colyvas and Walter Powell. 2006. “Roads to Institutionalization.”
Forthcoming in Research in Organizational Behavior. (reserve folder)
- Marc Schneiberg and Sarah Soule. 2005. “Institutionalization as a Contested, Multi-level Process:” Pp. 122-160 in Social Movements and Organizations, edited by Mayer Zald, WR Scott and Jerald Davis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. (Reserve folder)
Week 9: (March 28, 30)
Institutional change as punctuated history/regime shifts: shocks, infiltration,
succession, defection
- John Campbell. Institutional Change and Globalization, Chapter 2, “The Problem
of Change”
- Fligstein, N. 1991. “The Structural Transformation of American Industry: An
Institutionalist Account of the Causes of Diversification in the Largest Firms.” In The New Institutionalism in Organizational Analysis, edited by W Powell and P DiMaggio. Chicago:University of Chicago (book on reserve)
- Schneiberg, M. 2005. “Combining New Institutionalisms: Explaining Institutional
Change in American Property Insurance.” 2005. Sociological Forum 1:
93-137. (reserve folder)
- Davis, G., K Diekmann, and C.Tinsley. 1994. “The Deinstitutionalization of
Conglomerate Firms in the 1980s.” American Sociological Review 59:
547-70. (JSTOR)
- Rao H., P. Monin and Rodolphe Durand. 2003. “Institutional Change in Touque
Ville: Nouvelle Cuisine as an Identity Movement in French Gastronomy.”American Journal of Sociology 4: 795-843. (Reserve folder)
Week 10: (April 4, 6)
Institutional change as punctuated history/regime shifts II:
-
W. Richard Scott, M Ruef, PJ Mendel, and C Caronna. 2000. Institutional Change and Healthcare Organizations: Chapters 6, 7, 9, 10.
Week 11: (April 11, 13)
Institutional change as path dependent rational adaptive processes (evolutionary
approaches in economic instiutionalism)
- Douglass North, Understanding the Process of Economic Change
Week 12: (April 18, 20)
Institutional change as layering, transposition, recombination I (evolutionary approaches in sociological and historical institutionalism)
For Tues: Steeck and Thelen, Crouch c 4, Morrill
Thursday: Scheniberg 06, Rao et al
- W. Streeck and K Thelen. 2005. “Introduction: Institutional Change in Advanced
Political Economies.” In Beyond Continuity, edited by W Streek and K
Thelen. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
- J Hacker. 2005 “Policy Drift: The Hidden Politics of US Welfare State
Retrenchment.” In Beyond Continuity.
- Gregory Jackson. 2005. “Contested Boundaries: Ambiguity and Creativity in the
Evolution of German Codetermination.” In Beyond Continuity
- John Campbell. Institutional Change and Globalization, Chapter 3, “The Problem
of Mechanisms,” and Chapter 6, “Where Do We Go From Here?”
Week 13: (April 25, 27)
Institutional change as layering, transposition, recombination II
- Colin Crouch. 2005. “Innovation and Path Dependence” Chapter 4 in Capitalist Diversity and Change: Recombinant Governance and Institutional Entrepreneurs. Oxford: Oxford University Press (Reserve Folder)
- Garud, R and P Karnoe. 2001. “Path Creation as a Process of Mindful
Deviation.” Pp. 1-36 in Path Dependence and Creation, edited by R
Garud and Peter Karnoe. London: Lawrence Erlbaum (Reserve folder)
- Rao, H. P Monin and R Durand. 2005. “Border Crossing: Bricolage and the
Erosion of Categorical Boundaries in French Gastronomy.” American Sociological Review 70: 968-991. (Reserve folder)
- Morrill, Calvin. 2006. “Institutional Change and Interstitial Emergence: The
Growth of Alternative Dispute Resolution in American Law, 1965-1995.”
In How Institutions Change, edited by W. Powell and D. Jones. Chicago:
University of Chicago. (reserve folder)
- Schneiberg, M. 2006. “What’s on the Path?: Path Dependence, Organizational
Diversity and the Problem of Institutional Change in the US Economy.” Socio-Economic Review, forthcoming. (reserve folder)
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