The sociological study of economic activity has witnessed a significant resurgence. Recent texts have chronicled economic sociology's nineteenth-century origins while pointing to the importance of context and power in economic life, yet the field lacks a clear understanding of the role that concepts at different levels of abstraction play in its organization. Economic Sociology fills this critical gap by surveying the current state of the field while advancing a framework for further theoretical development. Alejandro Portes examines economic sociology's principal assumptions, key explanatory concepts, and selected research sites. He argues that economic activity is embedded in social and cultural relations, but also that power and the unintended consequences of rational purposive action must be factored in when seeking to explain or predict economic behavior. Drawing upon a wealth of examples, Portes identifies three strategic sites of research--the informal economy, ethnic enclaves, and transnational communities--and he eschews grand narratives in favor of mid-range theories that help us understand specific kinds of social action. The book shows how the meta-assumptions of economic sociology can be transformed, under certain conditions, into testable propositions, and puts forward a theoretical agenda aimed at moving the field out of its present impasse.
Beginning with the foundation of Smith, Marx, Engels and Polanyi, the volume gathers some of the best writings by economic sociologists that consider national and world economies as both products and influences of society.
This handbook provides an overview on major developments that occurred in the field of economic sociology after its rebirth since the 1980s in the US. It offers new insights on the uniqueness of European economic sociology compared to US ...
Dealing with the multiple and complex relations between economy and society, this encyclopedia focuses on the impact of social, political, and cultural factors on economic behaviour.
I would also like to thank the following people who all have been very helpful: Howard Aldrich, Reza Azarian, Jens Beckert, Rick Biernacki, Anne Boschini, John Campbell, Bruce Carruthers, Frank Dobbin, Malcolm Feeley, Magnus Haglunds, ...
In this way, it places a construct into a framework that more closely approximates the world in which we live. But, as an academic field, economic sociology has lost focus. The New Economic Sociology remedies this.
The book opens with an introduction to the main debates and conceptual approaches in economic sociology.
The Handbook of Economic Sociology, Second Edition is the most comprehensive and up-to-date treatment of economic sociology available.
... economic sociology of law. Northern Ireland Legal Quarterly, 65. Becker, G. S., 1974. Essays in the economics of crime and punishment (Human behavior and social institutions), National Bureau of Economic Research. Becker, G. S., 1976. The ...
This book represents a major step forward in the use of economic sociology to illuminate the nature and workings of capitalism amid the far-reaching changes of the contemporary era of global capitalism.
This book offers an in-depth analysis of sociology, e.g. such classics as Weber, Parsons and Homans, and its adjacent social sciences with special reference to economics, including public choice theory, property rights theory, the Austrian ...