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In recent years there has been an outpouring of work at the intersection of social movement thoery, organizational theory, economic, and political sociology. The problems at the core of these areas, Fligstein and McAdam argue, have a similar analytic and theoretical structure. Synthesizing much of this work, A Theory of Fields offers a general perspective on how to understand the problems related to understanding change and instability in modern, complex societies through a theory of strategic action fields.
In this book Neil Fligstein takes issue with prevailing theories of the corporation and proposes a radically new view that has important implications for American competitiveness.
A comprehensive account of the rise and fall of the mortgage-securitization industry, which explains the complex roots of the 2008 financial crisis. More than a decade after the 2008 financial crisis plunged the world economy into recession, we still lack an adequate explanation for why it happened. Existing accounts identify a number of culpritsÑfinancial instruments, traders, regulators, capital flowsÑyet fail to grasp how the various puzzle pieces came together. The key, Neil Fligstein argues, is the convergence of major US banks on an identical business model: extracting money from the securitization of mortgages. But how, and why, did this convergence come about? The Banks Did It care...
The European Union's market integration project has dramatically altered economic activity around Europe. This book presents extensive evidence on how trade has increased, jobs have been created, and European business has been reorganized. The changes in the economy have been accompanied by dramatic changes in how people from different societies interact. This book argues provocatively that these changes have produced a truly transnational-European-society. The book explores the nature of that society and its relationship to the creation of a European identity, popular culture, and politics. Much of the current political conflict around Europe can be attributed to who is and who is not invol...
Market societies have created more wealth, and more opportunities for more people, than any other system of social organization in history. Yet we still have a rudimentary understanding of how markets themselves are social constructions that require extensive institutional support. This groundbreaking work seeks to fill this gap, to make sense of modern capitalism by developing a sociological theory of market institutions. Addressing the unruly dynamism that capitalism brings with it, leading sociologist Neil Fligstein argues that the basic drift of any one market and its actors, even allowing for competition, is toward stabilization. The Architecture of Markets represents a major and timely...
This book provides an account of the development of the EU, from a relatively specialised organ of economic cooperation in the 1960s to the complex, quasi-federal entity that today governs an increasingly diverse set of policy domains.
As the American economy surged in the 1990s, economic sociology made great strides as well. Economists and sociologists worked across disciplinary boundaries to study the booming market as both a product and a producer of culture, tracing the correlations they saw between economic and social phenomena. In the process, they debated the methodological issues that arose from their interdisciplinary perspectives. The New Economic Sociology provides an overview of these debates and assesses the state of the burgeoning discipline. The contributors summarize economic sociology's accomplishments to date, identifying key theoretical problems and opportunities, and formulating strategies for future re...
Going North: Migration of Blacks and Whites from the South, 1900—1950 discusses the historical, demographic, sociological, and economic reasons for black and white migrations. The book explains the transition from a rural, extractive economy to an urban, industrial and service economy, with emphasis on the effects on the Southern rural population. After the Civil War, emerging business concerns became politically and economically significant, making the South a source for needed resources. 1930 was a defining year. Before 1930, migration reflected the growth and contraction of cotton agriculture in the South. After 1930, the transition from a tenant, labor-intensive cotton agriculture economy to a capitalist machine-driven economy caused the black and white migration to the north. American development was not a simple process—it shows how northern business interests defeated southern planters. This transformation has created a permanent underclass in society that can be found in the cities of the South, North, and Midwest regions of America today. Sociologists, economists, academicians doing sociological research, and students of U.S. history can benefit from reading the book.
Contributors examine the nature & workings of capitalism from the perspective of economic sociology.
After two generations of emphasis on governmental inefficiency and the need for deregulation, we now see growing interest in the possibility of constructive governance, alongside public calls for new, smarter regulation. Yet there is a real danger that regulatory reforms will be rooted in outdated ideas. As the financial crisis has shown, neither traditional market failure models nor public choice theory, by themselves, sufficiently inform or explain our current regulatory challenges. Regulatory studies, long neglected in an atmosphere focused on deregulatory work, is in critical need of new models and theories that can guide effective policy-making. This interdisciplinary volume points the way toward the modernization of regulatory theory. Its essays by leading scholars move past predominant approaches, integrating the latest research about the interplay between human behavior, societal needs, and regulatory institutions. The book concludes by setting out a potential research agenda for the social sciences.