Euroclash Fligstein, Neil
2008, 2009, 2008-04-10, 20080101
eBook, Book
A major new interpretation of European integration. Leading scholar, Neil Fligstein, provocatively argues that European integration has produced a truly transnational European society.
In recent years there has been an outpouring of work at the intersection of social movement studies and organizational theory. While we are generally in sympathy with this work, we think it implies a ...far more radical rethinking of structure and agency in modern society than has been realized to date. In this article, we offer a brief sketch of a general theory of strategic action fields (SAFs). We begin with a discussion of the main elements of the theory, describe the broader environment in which any SAF is embedded, consider the dynamics of stability and change in SAFs, and end with a respectful critique of other contemporary perspectives on social structure and agency.
One of the puzzles about the financial crisis of 2008 is why regulators, particularly the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC), were so slow to recognize the impending collapse of the financial ...system and its broader consequences for the economy. We use theory from the literature on culture, cognition, and framing to explain this puzzle. Consistent with recent work on "positive asymmetry," we show how the FOMC generally interpreted discomforting facts in a positive light, marginalizing and normalizing anomalous information. We argue that all frames limit what can be understood, but the content of frames matters for how facts are identified and explained. We provide evidence that the Federal Reserve's primary frame for making sense of the economy was macroeconomic theory. The content of macroeconomics made it difficult for the FOMC to connect events into a narrative reflecting the links between foreclosures in the housing market, the financial instruments used to package the mortgages into securities, and the threats to the larger economy. We conclude with implications for the sociological literatures on framing and cognition and for decision-making in future crises.
The Sociology of Markets Fligstein, Neil; Dauter, Luke
Annual review of sociology,
01/2007, Letnik:
33, Številka:
1
Journal Article
Recenzirano
The sociology of markets has been one of the most vibrant fields in sociology in the past 25 years. There is a great deal of agreement that markets are social structures characterized by extensive ...social relationships between firms, workers, suppliers, customers, and governments. But, like in many sociological literatures, the theory camps that have formed often seem to speak by each other. We show that some of the disagreement between theory camps is due to differences in conceptual language, and other disagreements stem from the fact that theory camps ignore the concepts in other theory camps, thereby making their theories less complete. We end by considering deeper controversies in the literature that seem open both to new conceptualization and further empirical research.
The problem of the relationship between actors and the social structures in which they are embedded is central to sociological theory. This paper suggests that the “new institutionalist” focus on ...fields, domains, or games provides an alternative view of how to think about this problem by focusing on the construction of local orders. This paper criticizes the conception of actors in both rational choice and sociological versions of these theories. A more sociological view of action, what is called “social skill,” is developed. The idea of social skill originates in symbolic interactionism and is defined as the ability to induce cooperation in others. This idea is elaborated to suggest how actors are important to the construction and reproduction of local orders. I show how its elements already inform existing work. Finally, I show how the idea can sensitize scholars to the role of actors in empirical work.
I use the metaphor "markets as politics" to create a sociological view of action in markets. I develop a conceptual view of the social institutions that comprise markets, discuss a sociological model ...of action in which market participants try to create stable worlds and find social solutions to competition, and discuss how markets and states are intimately linked. From these foundations, I generate propositions about how politics in markets work during various stages of market development--formation, stability, and transformation. At the formation of markets, when actors in firms are trying to create a status hierarchy that enforces noncompetitive forms of competition, political action resembles social movements. In stable markets, incumbent firms defend their positions against challengers and invaders. During periods of market transformation, invaders can reintroduce more fluid social-movement-like conditions.
American society has now been living in the wake of shareholder value capitalism for four decades. The shareholder value movement began as an invasion of the market for corporate control by ...financially oriented investors who critiqued sitting managers as not paying sufficient attention to the interests of shareholders during the economic crisis of the 1970s. It altered the relationship between financial markets and the managers of publicly held corporations. Subsequently, publicly held corporations have worked to raise share prices any way they can. While managers initially resisted shareholder value initiatives, they came to embrace them when their pay became tied to the share price. This created an incentive to discover new forms of financial extraction whenever a given set of strategies stopped producing new gains. We consider the impact that these reorganizations had on inequality and the relationship between shareholder value capitalism and financialization. We end by discussing the continuing relevance of shareholder value for understanding contemporary American capitalism. We also identify several avenues for future research on the evolution and consequences of shareholder value in the twenty-first century.
In the literature on organizations, there are two very different views of social change. One emphasizes piecemeal change and actor learning. The other views change as more revolutionary resulting in ...entirely novel forms of organizations. On the surface, these two conceptions of social change seem incompatible. But, I argue that by situating organizations in field analysis, we can make sense about the conditions under which both can occur. This paper offers a framework for understanding strategic action in organizational fields. Embedded in this framework is the idea that these different theories of change operate under quite different structural conditions of fields. The emergence or transformation of a field implies radical change precisely because all elements of the structuring of the field are in flux. If one is observing an already existing field, then the dynamics of interaction are likely to be quite different. Actors in existing fields will work to maintain their position in the field. They will engage in strategic action to make changes in response to what others are doing in the field. Thus, in a stable field where the game for position is ongoing, we expect change to be more incremental, more imitative, and often, in reaction to the moves of others. I end by presenting an example of stability and suggesting a research agenda.
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