Course Information

Instructor: Dr. Timur Ergen
Institution: Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies Semester: Spring 2018
Schedule: Tuesdays, 2:00–3:30
Location: Paulstraße 3

The seminar focuses on recent debates on the interrelations between economy and society. It builds on a second course taught in Fall on foundational controversies (Economy & Society I). The goal is to familiarize students with several major theories, approaches and topics that contribute to our understanding of the interrelations between the economy and society.

The seminar proceeds from the assumption that economic action and economic structures are socially, politically and culturally constituted. Understanding the processes leading to the actual forms of organization of the economy and to the specific forms of agency within the economy is the primary goal of economic sociology.

Course Materials
  • Complete Syllabus — Full course syllabus with detailed information and requirements

Assessment

All participants will be expected to read all required texts, take an active part in class discussions, and prepare response memos on the required readings for two weeks (1500 words each). Memos should not just summarize readings but take up specific arguments, compare positions of different authors, raise questions of evidence, usefulness, or plausibility, or draw attention to specific strengths and weaknesses. Memos are due by 4 pm on the day before class.

Part 1: Economic Action

April 10, 2018: Introduction

April 17, 2018: Models of Action

Required Readings:

  • John Dewey, 2008 [1922]: Human Nature and Conduct. An Introduction to Social Psychology. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 119–170.
  • Max Weber, 1978 [1921]: Economy and Society: An Outline of Interpretive Sociology, Berkeley: University of California Press, 3–31.

April 24, 2018: Rational Choice

Required Readings:

  • Milton Friedman, 1953: The Methodology of Positive Economics. In: Milton Friedman, Essays in Positive Economics. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 3–43.
  • Jon Elster, 2009: Excessive Ambitions. In: Capitalism and Society 4, Online article.

May 8, 2018: The Embeddedness of Economic Action

Required Readings:

  • Mark Granovetter, 1985: Economic Action and Social Structure: The Problem of Embeddedness. In: American Journal of Sociology 91, 481–510.
  • Brian Uzzi, 1997: Social Structure and Competition in Interfirm Networks: The Paradox of Embeddedness. In: Administrative Science Quarterly 42, 35–67.
  • Gernot Grabher, 1993: The Weakness of Strong Ties. The Lock-in of Regional Development in the Ruhr Area. In: Gernot Grabher (ed.), The Embedded Firm. On the Socioeconomics of Industrial Networks. London, New York: Routledge, 255–277.

May 22, 2018: Categories in Economic Action

Required Readings:

  • Wendy Espeland and Mitchell Stevens, 1998: Commensuration as a Social Process, Annual Review of Sociology 24: 312–343.
  • Marion Fourcade, 2011 Cents and Sensibility: Economic Values and the Nature of ‘Nature’ in France and America. American Journal of Sociology 116, 1721–1777.
  • Ezra Zuckerman, 1999: The Categorical Imperative: Securities Analysts and the Illegitimacy Discount. American Journal of Sociology 104, 1398–1438.
  • Rainer Diaz-Bone, 2017: Classifications, Quantifications and Quality Conventions in Markets – Perspectives of the Economics of Convention. In: Historical Social Research 42, 238–262.

May 29, 2018: Innovation

Required Readings:

  • Joseph Schumpeter, 1912: Theorie der wirtschaftlichen Entwicklung. Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, 124–164.
  • Richard K. Lester and Michael J. Piore, 2004: Innovation. The Missing Dimension. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1–12, 35–73.
  • Daron Acemoglu, James A. Robinson and Thierry Verdier, 2013: Can’t We All Be More Like Scandinavians? Asymmetric Growth and Institutions in an Interdependent World. Working Paper.
  • Fred Block and Matthew Keller, 2009: Where Do Innovations Come From? Transformations in the US Economy, 1970–2006. In: Socio-Economic Review 7, 459–483.

June 5, 2018: Competing for the Future

Required Readings:

  • Jens Beckert, 2013: Imagined Futures. Fictional Expectations in the Economy. Theory and Society 42, 219–240.
  • Leon Wansleben, 2013: Dreaming with BRICs. Innovating the Classificatory Regimes of International Finance. Journal of Cultural Economy 6, 453–471.
  • Harro van Lente and Arie Rip, 1998: The Rise of Membrane Technology: From Rhetorics to Social Reality." Social Studies of Science 28, 221–254.

Part 2: Markets

June 12, 2018: Markets as Institutions

Required Readings:

  • Neil Fligstein, 2001: The Architecture of Markets: An Economic Sociology of Twenty-First-Century Capitalist Societies, Princeton: Princeton University Press. pp. 3–44.
  • Peter Hall and David Soskice, 2001: An Introduction to Varieties of Capitalism. In: Ibid. (eds.), Varieties of Capitalism: The Institutional Foundations of Comparative Advantage, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1–45.
  • Wolfgang Streeck, 2012: E Pluribus Unum? Varieties and Commonalities of Capitalism. MPIfG Discussion Paper 10/12.

June 19, 2018: Performativity

Required Readings:

  • Donald MacKenzie 2007: Is Economics Performative? Option Theory and the Construction of Derivatives Markets. In: Donald MacKenzie et al. (eds.), Do Economists Make Markets? On the Performativity of Economics. Princeton, NJ, Princeton University Press, 54–86.
  • Frank Dobbin and Jiwook Jung, 2010: The Misapplication of Mr. Michael Jensen: How Agency Theory Brought Down the Economy and Why it Might Again. In: Markets on Trial: The Economic Sociology of the U.S. Financial Crisis. Research in the Sociology of Organizations 30b, 29–64.

Optional:

  • Michel Callon, 1998: Introduction: The Embeddedness of Economic Markets in Economics. In: Michel Callon (ed.), The Laws of the Markets. Malden, Oxford: Blackwell, 1–57.

June 26, 2018: Consumption

Required Readings:

  • Gunnar Trumbull, 2012: Credit Access and Social Welfare: The Rise of Consumer Lending in the United States and France. In: Politics and Society 40, 9–34.
  • Colin Campbell, 1987: The Romantic Ethic and the Spirit of Modern Consumerism, Oxford: Basil Blackwell, Chapter 5.
  • Luc Boltanski and Arnaud Esquerre, 2016: The Economic Life of Things. Commodities, Collectibles, Assets. New Left Review 98, 31–54.

Part 3: Capitalism

July 03, 2018: Consumer Credit (session with Akos Rona-Tas)

Required Readings:

  • Akos Rona-Tas and Alya Guseva, 2014: Plastic Money. Constructing Markets for Credit Cards in Eight Postcommunist Countries. Stanford, Stanford University Press, ch. 4 & 7.
  • Akos Rona-Tas, 2017. The Off-Label Use of Consumer Credit Ratings. Historical Social Research 42: 52–76.

July 10, 2018: Financialization

Required Readings:

  • Greta Krippner, 2011: Capitalizing on Crisis. The Political Origins of the Rise of Finance. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, Chapters 2 & 3.
  • Marion Fourcade and Sarah Babb, 2002: The Rebirth of the Liberal Creed: Paths to Neoliberalism in Four Countries, American Journal of Sociology 108, 533–579.
  • Neil Fligstein and Adam Goldstein, 2015: The Emergence of a Finance Culture in American Households, 1989–2007. Socio-Economic Review 13, 575–601.
  • Gerald F. Davis, 2009: The Rise and Fall of Finance and the End of the Society of Organizations. ACM Perspectives 23, 27–44.

July 17, 2018: Crises in Capitalism

Required Readings:

  • Wolfgang Streeck, 2011: The Crises of Democratic Capitalism. In: New Left Review 71, 5–29.
  • Kindleberger, Charles P. and Robert Z. Aliber, 2005 [1978]: Manias, Panics and Crashes. A History of Financial Crises, Houndsmills & New York: Palgrave MacMillan. Chapters 1 & 2.