Syllabus: Soc 279: Institutional Theories

Sociology 279: Institutional Theories: Cultural and Phenomenological Approaches

Winter 2011, Class #69845

Time/Place:	Monday 2-4:50pm, SSPB 2214
Class Web Page:	http://www.socsci.uci.edu/~schofer/2011Soc279IT/home279IT.htm

Instructor:	Evan Schofer
Office:	SSPB 4271
Office Hours	Monday 11:00-12 and by appointment
Office Phone:	(949) 824-1397 (but email is a better way to reach me)
Email:

Introduction

Institutional theories have become increasingly prominent across the social sciences. This course examines institutional theories, with a focus on variants deriving from cultural and phenomenological traditions within sociology that emphasize “social construction” processes. 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 and therefore benefit from elaboration.

Readings

Readings can be found online via the UCI webfiles system. Go to: http://webfiles.uci.edu to register. 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/2011soc279IT/

Assignments and Evaluation

Short Assignments. There will be five short assignments, each worth 15% of your final grade (75% 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 15% 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.

NOTE: There is no final exam in this course.

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

* = optional reading. NOT required.

Week 1: January 3

Introduction

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

Start on readings for next week!

Week 2: January 10

Sociological Institutionalism and other “New” Institutionalisms

January 10: Short Assignment #1 Due.

Amenta, Edwin and Kelly M. Ramsey. 2010. “Institutional Theory.” Chapter 2 in The Handbook of Politics: State and Civil Society in Global Perspective, eds. Kevin T. Leicht and J. Craig Jenkins. New York: Springer.

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.

Meyer, John W. 2008. “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.

*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.

*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. January 17

Martin Luther King Day. No Class.

Begin readings for next week.

Week 4: January 24

January 24: Short Assignment #2 Due.

Social Construction and Institutions

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.

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.

Ronald Jepperson and John W. Meyer. 2010. “Multiple Levels of Analysis and the Limits of Methodological Individualisms.” Sociological Theory. (pre-publication version)

*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.

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

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.

*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: January 31

Organizations, Diffusion, and Culture

*If needed, revisit the following reading from Week 2:

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

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.

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.

*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.

*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 6: February 7

February 7: Short Assignment #3 Due.

The World Polity/World Society and World Culture

Schofer, Evan, Ann Hironaka, David Frank, and Wesley Longhofer. Forthcoming. “Sociological Institutionalism and World Society.” In Nash, K, A. Scott, and E. Amenata (eds). The New Blackwell Companion to Political Sociology. Oxford, UK: Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

Boli, John and Frank Lechner. 2002. “Globalization and World Culture.” In the International Encyclopedia of the Social and Behavioral Sciences, edited by Neil J. Smelser and Paul M. Baltes. Oxford: Elsevier.

Meyer, John W. 2009. “Reflections: Institutional Theory and World Society.” Chapter 2 in World Society: The Writings of John W. Meyer. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

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.

*Schofer, Evan and Wes Longhofer. “The Structural Sources of Associational Life.” Working Paper.

*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.

*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.

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 7: February 14

February 14: Short Assignment #4 Due.

Cultural Institutionalism, World Society, and Social Movements

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.

Longhofer, Wesley and Evan Schofer. 2010. “The Origins of Environmental Association.” American Sociological Review.

*Tsutsui, Kiyoteru. “Rights Make Might: Global Human Rights and Minority Movements in Japan.” Working Paper.

*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.

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

Related Traditions: Transnational Social Movements / Advocacy Networks

Khagram, Sanjeev, James V. Riker, and Kathryn Sikkink (eds.). 2002. Restructuring World Politics: Transnational Social Movements, Networks, and Norms.

Chapter 1: “From Santiago to Seattle: Transnational Advocacy Groups Restructuring World Politics” by Sanjeev Khagram, James V. Riker, and Kathryn Sikkink.

Chapter 2: “Infrastructures for Change: Transnational Organizations, 1953-93”

*Keck, Margaret E. and Kathryn Sikkink. 1998. Activists Beyond Borders: Advocacy Networks in International Politics. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Chapters 1-2.

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

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: The Construction of Social Problems

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

Week 8: February 21

President’s Day: No Class.

Begin readings for next week.

Week 9: February 28

Ambiguity and Learning

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

Strang, David. 2010. Learning By Example: Imitation and Innovation at a Global Bank. Princeton, NY: Princeton University Press.

Introduction: “Setting the Scene: Benchmarking a Bank.”

*Chapter 1: “Benchmarking as a Management Technique.”

*Chapter 5: “The Construction of a Reference Group.”

Chapter 9: “Some Lessons from the Search for Best Practice.”

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.

Week 10: March 7

March 7: Short Assignment #5 Due.

Science / Knowledge / Professions

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

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]

*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.

Related Tradition: Science and Technology Studies: Performativity

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

Related Tradition: Foucaultian Analyses of Knowledge

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

*Ferguson, James. 1990. The Anti-Politics Machine: Development, Depoliticization, and Bureaucratic Power in Lesotho. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. [excerpt]

*Goldman, Michael. 2001. “The Birth of a Discipline: Producing Authoritative Green Knowledge, World Bank Style.” Ethnography, 2, 2:191-218.

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]

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. 2010. “Worldwide Trends in the Criminal Regulation of Sex, 1945-2005.” American Sociological Review.

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]

Conceptual and Research Issues

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.