Sociology 219:  Institutional Theories:  Cultural and Phenomenological Approaches

 

Winter 2009, Class #69710

 

 

Time/Place:

Monday 9-11:50am, SSPB 4206

Class Web Page:

http://www.socsci.uci.edu/~schofer/2009Soc219IT/home219IT.htm

 

 

Instructor:

Evan Schofer

Office:

SSPB 4271

Office Hours

Monday 12:00-1 and by appointment

Office Phone:

(949) 824-1397

Email:

 

 

Introduction

 

Institutional theories have become increasingly prominent across the social sciences.  This course examines institutional theories, with a focus on variants emphasizing social construction and deriving from cultural and phenomenological traditions within sociology.  Institutional theories, in the broadest sense, shift attention to the political, organizational, and cultural contexts that shape social life.  Some institutionalisms conceptualize environments in terms of networks and resources, within which social actors are “embedded.”  Others stress historically built-up structures (e.g., laws & governmental agencies) that shape and channel subsequent dynamics.  More radical cultural and phenomenological variants of institutionalism argue that the core features of modern social actors, themselves, are largely products of social context, rather than existing a priori as many theories assume.  This course explores the latter, in part reflecting my interests and in part because such approaches are rather non-intuitive to most sociologists and therefore require more extensive elaboration.

 

 

Readings

 

Readings can be found online via the UCI webfiles system.  A UCI password is required.  Additionally, you may receive handouts and other small reading assignments on occasion.  Complete reading assignments prior to the class in which material will be covered.  You will get much more out of class if you have already finished the readings. 

 

Link to readings (password required):

https://webfiles.uci.edu/schofer/classes/2009soc219IT/

 

 

Assignments and Evaluation

 

Short Assignments.  There will be four short assignments, each worth 20% of your final grade (80% total).

 

In-Class Mini-Presentation.  Each person is required to give a mini (5-minute) report on one of the “recommended” readings (or those listed in “Additional Topics of Interest”) to help expose everyone to readings beyond those that are required for the course.  The presentation will count toward 10% of your final grade.

 

In-Class Participation.  You are expected to show up contribute (positively) to class discussion.  Participation counts for 10% of your final grade.

 

Assignments received late will be marked down one partial grade (i.e., and A becomes an A-, C+ becomes a C) per day past the due date.  Extensions will be granted for legitimate reasons if requested in advance – before the due date. 

 

Your final grade will be computed based on the percentage weightings indicated.  In the event of a borderline grade, I may use my discretion in adjusting grades based on course participation, improvement, and effort (or lack thereof).  Incompletes will not be given, except in unusual circumstances.

 

 

General Information

 

Check the course web site periodically.  Urgent notices may be posted on the web site (e.g., if an assignment due date were to be extended).  Also, the course web page will contain important information:  copies of course handouts and assignments, links to readings, etc. 

 

 

Schedule & Reading Assignments

 

* = recommended reading.  NOT required.

 

Week 1:  January 5

 

Introduction

 

In-class handout:  Foundational Ideas from Social Psychology:  Context and Conformity

 

Start on readings for next week!

 

 

Week 2:  January 12

 

Sociological Institutionalism and other “New” Institutionalisms

 

Jepperson, Ronald L.  1991.  “Institutions, Institutional Effects, and Institutionalism.”  Pp. 143-163 in Walter W. Powell and Paul J. DiMaggio (eds.).  The New Institutionalism in Organizational Analysis.  Chicago, IL:  University of Chicago Press.

 

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.

 

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.

 

*Zucker, Lynne G.  “The Role if Institutionalization in Cultural Persistence.”  Pp. 83-107 in Walter W. Powell and Paul J. DiMaggio (eds.).  The New Institutionalism in Organizational Analysis.  Chicago, IL:  University of Chicago Press.

 

*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

 

Related Tradition:  Historical Institutionalism

 

*Kathleen Thelen. 1999.  “Historical Institutionalism in Comparative Politics.”  Annual Review of Political Science.  2: 369-404.

 

Related Tradition:  Economic Institutionalism

 

*Williamson, O.  1981.  “The Economics of Organization:  The Transaction Cost Approach.”  American Journal of Sociology, 87:.

 

*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.

 

 

Week 3:  MLK Day.  NO CLASS:  January 19

 

MLK day.  No Class.

Begin readings for next week.

 

 

Week 4:  January 26

 

January 26:  Short Assignment #1 Due.

 

Social Construction and Institutions:  An Overview

 

Jepperson, Ronald L.  2002.  “The Development and Application of Sociological Neoinstitutionalism.”  Pp. 229-266 in New Directions in Contemporary Sociological Theory, edited by Joseph Berger & Morris Zelditch, Jr.  Rowman & Littlefield.

 

Meyer, John W.  1988.  “Society Without Culture:  A Nineteenth Century Legacy.”  Pp. 193-201 in Rethinking the Nineteenth Century, edited by Francisco Ramirez.  New York:  Greenwood Press.

 

Foundational Ideas:  Phenomenology & Social Construction

 

Peter L. Berger and Thomas Luckmann.  1966.  The Social Construction of Reality: A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge.  Garden City, New York: Anchor Books.

Part II:  “Society as Objective Reality.”  Excerpts:  53-55, 58-62, 64-67mid, 70-82, 85-86, 88-90, 92-97, 105-108, 110-115, 121-125, 128.

Part III:  “Society as Subjective Reality.”  Excerpts:  129-136, 142bot-143, 145, 149, 150bot-151, 154bot-161, 164-165, 168mid-173, 175-176, 178bot-183.

           *All of Parts I - III are recommended.

 

*Berger, Peter L.  1963.  Invitation to Sociology:  A Humanistic Perspective.  Garden City, NY:  Anchor Books.

           Chapter 3:  Society in Man

           Chapter 4:  Man in Society

 

 

Week 5:  February 2

 

The Social Construction of the Individual

 

Meyer, John W.  1987.  “The Self and the Life Course.”  In Thomas, George et al.  1987.  Institutional Structure Constructing State, Society, and Individual.  Newberry Park, CA:  Sage.

 

Meyer, John W.  1986. "Myths of Socialization and Personality," pp. 212-225 in T. Heller et al. (eds), Reconstructing Individualism.

 

Frank, David J., Bayliss Camp, and Steven A. Boutcher.  “Worldwide Trends in the Criminal Regulation of Sex, 1945-2005.”  Working Paper.

 

Frank, David J. and John W. Meyer.  2002.  “The Profusion of Individual Roles and Identities in the Postwar Period.”  Sociological Theory, 20, 1:86-105.

 

Related Tradition:  Goffman

 

*Goffman, Erving.  1959.  The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life.  Anchor Books.  [excerpt]

 

*Goffman, Erving.  1974.  Frame Analysis:  An Essay on the Organization of Experience.  London:  Harper and Row.  [excerpt]

 

Related Tradition:  Foucault

 

*Focault, Michel. [1976] (1998). The History of Sexuality Vol. 1: The Will to Knowledge. London: Penguin.  [excerpt]

 

 

Week 6:  February 9

 

February 9:  Short Assignment #2 Due.

 

“Actors” and Organizations as Cultural Constructions

 

Dobbin, Frank.  1994.  “Cultural Models of Organization:  The Social Construction of Rational Organizing Principles.”  Pp. 117-141 in The Sociology of Culture: Emerging Theoretical Perspectives. Edited by Diana Crane. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.

 

John Meyer and Ronald Jepperson.  2000.  "The "Actors" of Modern Society: Cultural Rationalization and the Ongoing Expansion of Social Agency."   Sociological Theory, 18, 1: 2000: 100-120.

 

Meyer, John W.  2007.  “Reflections on Institutional Theories of Organizations.”  In The Handbook of Organizational Institutionalism, ed. by R. Greenwood, C. Oliver, R. Suddaby & K. Sahlin-Andersson, Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2007. 

 

*Drori, Gili, John W. Meyer, and Hokyu Hwang (eds).  2006.  Globalization and Organization:  World Society and Organizational Change.  Oxford University Press. 

           Drori, Meyer, Hwang:  Introduction

           Meyer, Drori, Hwang:  Chapter 1:  World Society and the Proliferation of Formal Organization

 

 

Foundational Ideas:  Ambiguity, Bounded Rationality, and the Garbage Can

 

Ansell, Christopher K.  2001.  “The Garbage Can Model of Behavior.”  In N. J. Smelser and Paul Bates (eds) International Encyclopedia of the Social and Behavioral Sciences.  Oxford:  Pergamon Press.

http://www.polisci.berkeley.edu/faculty/bio/permanent/Ansell,C/Encyclopedia/GarbageCan.pdf

 

*Cohen, Michael D., James G. March, Johan P. Olsen.  1972.  A Garbage Can Model of Organizational Choice.  Administrative Science Quarterly, Vol. 17, No. 1 (Mar., 1972), pp. 1-25

 

*Kahneman, Daniel.  “Maps of Bounded Rationality:  Psychology for Behavioral Economics.”

 

Foundational Ideas:  Loose Coupling

 

*Weick, Karl E.  1976.  “Educational Organizations as Loosely-Coupled Systems.”  Administrative Science Quarterly, 21, 1:1-19.

 

 

Week 7:  President’s Day.  NO CLASS:  February 16

 

Begin readings for next week.

 

 

Week 8:  February 23

 

February 23:  Short Assignment #3 Due.

 

The World Polity, World Culture, and the Nation-State

 

Meyer, John W.  2004.  “The Nation As Babbitt:  How Countries Conform.”  Contexts, 3, 3 (Summer):42-47.

 

Meyer, John W., John Boli, George Thomas, and Francisco O. Ramirez.  1997.  “World Society and the Nation-State.”  American Journal of Sociology.  Vol 103, 1 (July 1997): 144-181.

 

Boli, John and George Thomas.  1999.  “INGOs and the Organization of World Culture.”  Chapter 1 in Boli, John, and George M. Thomas.  Constructing World Culture: International Nongovernmental Organizations since 1875.  Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

 

Frank, David J., Ann M. Hironaka, and Evan Schofer.  2000.  “The Nation State and the Natural Environment, 1900-1995.”  American Sociological Review, 65 (Feb): 96-116.

 

*David Strang and John W. Meyer, "Institutional Conditions for Diffusion." Theory and Society 22 (1993): 487-511.

 

*Meyer, John W.  1987.  “Ontology and Rationalization in the Modern Western Cultural Account.”  In Thomas, George et al.  1987.  Institutional Structure Constructing State, Society, and Individual.  Newberry Park, CA:  Sage.

 

*Ramirez, Francisco O., Yasemin Soysal, and Suzanne Shanahan.  1997.  “The Changing Logic of Political Citizenship: Cross-National Acquisition of Women's Suffrage Rights, 1890 to 1990”  American Sociological Review, 62, 5.

 

Related Tradition:  Constructivism in Political Science

 

*Jepperson, Ronald L., Alexander Wendt, and Peter Katzenstein. 1996. “Norms, Identity, and Culture in National Security.” Pp. 33-78 in The Culture of National Security, edited by Peter Katzenstein. New York: Columbia University Press.

 

Finnemore, Martha.  1996.  “Norms, Culture, and World Politics:  Insights from Sociology’s Neo-institutionalism.”  International Organization, 50, 2:325-347.

 

Intellectual Counterpoint:  Neo-Realism. 

 

*Waltz, Kenneth N.  Theory of International Politics.  New York:  McGraw Hill.    [excerpt]

 

Intellectual Counterpoint:  World System Theory. 

 

Chirot, Daniel and Thomas D. Hall.  1982.  World-System Theory. Annual Review of Sociology, 8:81-106.

 

 

Week 9:  March 2

 

Ambiguity, Sensemaking, and Social Construction

 

Hironaka, Ann.  Chapter from work in progress: Tokens of Power.

 

Foundational ideas:  The Problem of Organizational “Learning”

 

Fischhoff, Baruch.  1982.  “For Those Condemned to Study the Past:  Heuristics and Biases in Hindsight.”  Pp. 335-354 (Chapter 23) in Kahneman, Daniel, Paul Slovic, and Amos Tversky (eds.).  1982.  Judgment Under Uncertainty:  Heuristics and Biases.  Cambridge, UK:  Cambridge University Press.

 

*Daniel A. Levinthal and James G. March.  1993.  “The Myopia of Learning.”  Strategic Management Journal, Vol. 14, Special Issue: Organizations, Decision Making and Strategy. 

 

*March, J. G. and J. P. Olsen.  1975. "The Uncertainty of the Past: Organizational Learning Under Ambiguity." European Journal of Political Research, 3: 147-171.

 

*March, James G., Lee S. Sproull, and Michal Tamuz, "Learning from Samples of One or Fewer", Organization Science, 2 (1991) 1-13.

 

Some Methodological Issues

 

Schneiberg, Marc and Elisabeth Clemens. 2006. “The Typical Tools for the Job: Research Strategies in Institutional Analysis,” Sociological Theory 3: 195-227.

 

Ronald Jepperson and John W. Meyer.  Working paper.  “Multi-Level Analysis versus Doctrinal Individualism:   

The Use of the “Protestant Ethic Thesis” as Intellectual Ideology.”

 

 

Week 10:  March 9

 

March 9:  Short Assignment #4 Due.

 

Science / Knowledge / Rationalization

 

Drori, Gili, John W. Meyer, Francisco O. Ramirez, and Evan Schofer.  2003.  Science in the Modern World Polity:  Institutionalization and Globalization.  Stanford University Press.

           Introduction:  Science as a World Institution

           Chapter 1:  World Society and the Authority and Empowerment of Science

 

Hironaka, Ann.  2003.  Science and the Environment.  Chapter 11 in Drori, Gili, John W. Meyer, Francisco O. Ramirez, and Evan Schofer.  Science in the Modern World Polity:  Institutionalization and Globalization.  Stanford University Press.

 

Forucade Gourinchas, Marion and Sarah Babb.  2002 "The Rebirth of the Liberal Creed: Paths to Neoliberalism in Four Countries." American Journal of Sociology 107(9): 533-579.

 

*Fourcade, Marion.  2008.  Economists and Societies: Discipline and Profession in the United States, Britain and France, 1890s-1990s.  Princeton University Press.  [excerpt]

 

Related Tradition:  Science and Technology Studies

 

*Donald MacKenzie.  2006.  An Engine, Not a Camera: How Financial Models Shape Markets.  Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.  Chapters 1,2.

 

Related Tradition:  Foucaulian Analyses of Knowledge

 

*Foucault, Michel.  1971.  The Order of Things.  [excerpt]

 

 

 

 

Additional Topics of Interest:

 

Education as an Institutional Locus of Social Construction

 

Meyer, John W.  1977.  “The Effects of Education as an Institution.”  American Journal of Sociology. 

 

Meyer, John W., Francisco O. Ramirez, David J. Frank, and Evan Schofer.  2006.  “Higher Education as an Institution.”  In Gumport, P. (ed).  The Sociology of Higher Education.  Baltimore, MD:  The Johns Hopkins University Press.

 

Meyer, John W. and Brian Rowan.  1978.  “The Structure of Educational Organizations.”  Pp. 78-109 in Environments and Organizations, edited by Marshall Meyer et al.  Jossey-Bass.

 

Frank, David John, and Jay Gabler. 2006. Reconstructing the University: Worldwide Shifts in Academia in the 20th Century. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

 

 

World Culture

 

Boli, John, and George M. Thomas.  1999.  Constructing World Culture: International Nongovernmental Organizations since 1875.  Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

 

Boli, John.  2005.  “Contemporary Developments in World Culture.”  International Journal of Comparative Sociology, 46, 5/6:383-404.

 

Related Tradition:  Global Culture

 

Robertson, Roland.  1992.  Globalization: Social Theory and Global Culture.  London:  Sage.

 

 

National Institutional Structures/Trajectories

 

Jepperson, Ronald. 2002. “Political Modernities: Disentangling Two Underlying Dimensions of Institutional Differentiation.” Sociological Theory. 20(1):61-85.

 

Jepperson, Ronald and John Meyer. 1991. “The Public Order and the Construction of Formal Organizations.” In Walter W. Powell and Paul J. DiMaggio (eds.) The New Institutionalism in Organizational Analysis. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

 

Schofer, Evan and Marion Fourcade Gourinchas.  The Structural Contexts of Civic Engagement:  Voluntary Association Membership in Comparative Perspective.”  American Sociological Review, 66 (Dec): 806-828.

 

Fourcade, Marion and Evan Schofer.  Working Paper.  “The Multifaceted Nature of Civic Engagement:  Forms of Political Activity in Comparative Perspective.”

 

Dobbin, Frank.  1997.  Forging Industrial Policy: The United States, Britain, and France in the Railway Age.  Cambridge University Press.  [excerpt]

 

 

World Society and The Construction of Social Movements and Change

 

Frank, David, Wesley Longhofer, and Evan Schofer.  2007.  “Environmental Policy Reform in Asia: NGOs and the Nation-State.”  International Journal of Comparative Sociology, 48:275-295.

 

Longhofer, Wesley and Evan Schofer.  “The Origins of Environmental Association.”  Working Paper.

 

Tsutsui, Kiyoteru. 2006. "Redressing Past Human Rights Violations: Global Dimensions of Contemporary Social Movements." Social Forces 85(1): 331-354.

 

Tsutsui, Kiyoteru and Hwa Ji Shin.  2008.  Global Norms, Local Activism, and Social Movement Outcomes:  Global Human Rights and Residents of Japan.”  Social Problems, 55, 3:391-418.

 

Related Traditions:  Transnational Movemements

 

Keck, Margaret E. and Kathryn Sikkink. 1998. Activists Beyond Borders: Advocacy Networks in International Politics. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.  [excerpt]

 

Smith, Jackie and Hank Johnston. 2002. Globalization and Resistance: Transnational Dimensions of Social Movements. Boulder, CO: Rowman and Littlefield.  [excerpt]

 

     Related Tradition:  Framing

 

Benford, Robert D., and David A. Snow. 2000. "Framing Processes and Social Movements: An Overview and Assessment." Annual Review of Sociology 26: 611-639.

 

     Related Tradition:  Classic Sociology of Culture

 

Gusfield. Joseph.  1980.  The Culture of Public Problems:  Drinking-Driving and the Symbolic Order.  Chicago, IL:  University of Chicago Press.  [excerpt]

 

 

Conceptual and Research Issues

 

Schneiberg, Marc and Elisabeth Clemens. 2006. “The Typical Tools for the Job: Research Strategies in Institutional Analysis,” Sociological Theory 3: 195-227.

 

Ronald Jepperson and John W. Meyer.  Working paper.  “Multi-Level Analysis versus Doctrinal Individualism:   

The Use of the “Protestant Ethic Thesis” as Intellectual Ideology.”

 

Schofer, Evan and Elizabeth McEneaney.  2003.  “Methodological Strategies and Tools for the Study of Globalization.”  Chapter 2 in Drori, Gili, John W. Meyer, Francisco O. Ramirez, and Evan Schofer.  Science in the Modern World Polity:  Institutionalization and Globalization.  Stanford University Press.

 

Jepperson, Ronald L.  Working Paper.  “Relations Among Different Theoretical Imageries”

 

Schofer, Evan and Ann Hironaka.  2005.  “The Effects of World Society on Environmental Protection Outcomes.”  Social Forces, 84, 1:25-47.