Course Information

Course Code: 08-29-W-30
Instructor: Dr. Timur Ergen (tergen@uni-bremen.de)
Institution: University of Bremen
Semester: Winter Semester 2025/2026
Schedule: Mondays 16:00 - 18:00, weekly (from 13/10/25)
Location: UNICOM 3.3390 (SOCIUM - Mary-Somerville-Str. 3)
First Date: Monday, 13.10.2025 16:00 - 18:00, Room: UNICOM 3.3390 (SOCIUM - Mary-Somerville-Str. 3)

Theories of institutions have been at the core of the social and behavioral sciences throughout the 20th and early 21st century. The course introduces theories of institutions from across the social sciences. The material covered ranges from institutional theory’s classical origins through to recent debates about the explanation of institutional change.

The course is paradigmatically eclectic, covering positions from classical anthropology, institutional economics, historical political science, and organizational sociology. Among the main problems discussed are the relationship between social action and institutions, the origins of social order and change, the role of culture and norms in social organization, and the interplay between social power and institutions.

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

Assessment

Discussion of the readings will make up the core of the seminar sessions. Students are expected to read all assigned texts and to participate regularly and actively. To get credit (6 CP), students must (1) do all assigned readings; (2) prepare three reading reports (1,500 words); (3) and submit final papers (10,000 characters).

The reading reports are intended to prepare the ground for discussions by asking participants to set out their responses to the readings in written form. Memos should not just summarize the readings, but rather take up specific arguments, compare the positions of different authors, raise questions of evidence, usefulness, or plausibility or draw attention to particular strengths and weaknesses in the arguments and descriptions. We will share these memos through email. In order for everyone to have time to read over the comments of others, these will be due by 4 pm on the day before the class meets.

Session 1: Introduction

October 13, 2025

Required Readings:

  • Hans Joas and Wolfgang Knöbl, 2009. What is Theory? In: Hans Joas and Wolfgang Knöbl, Social Theory: Twenty Introductory Lectures. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1–19.
  • Peter A. Hall and Rosemary Taylor, 1996. Political Science and the Three New Institutionalisms. Political Studies 44, 936–957.

Session 2: Durkheim

October 20, 2025

Required Readings:

  • Émile Durkheim, 1966 [1893]. The Division of Labor in Society. New York: The Free Press, 200–225.
  • Émile Durkheim, 1982 [1895]. The Rules of Sociological Method. New York: The Free Press, 50–59.
  • Émile Durkheim, 2001 [1912]: The Elementary Forms of Religious Life. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 153–182.

Session 3: The American Tradition

October 27, 2025

Required Reading:

  • Thorstein Veblen, 1967 [1899]. The Theory of the Leisure Class. New York: Penguin, 1–67; 167–187.

Session 4: The Anthropological Tradition

November 3, 2025

Required Reading:

  • Bronislaw Malinowski, 1944. A Scientific Theory of Culture and Other Essays. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 43–119.

Session 5: The Structural-Functionalist Approach

November 10, 2025

Required Reading:

  • Talcott Parsons, 1951. The Social System. New York: The Free Press, 24–67; 428–479.

Session 6: The Sociology-of-Knowledge Approach

November 17, 2025

Required Reading:

  • Peter Berger and Thomas Luckmann, 1967. The Social Construction of Reality: A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge. New York: Anchor Books, 47–92.

Session 7: Sociological Neo-Institutionalism I

November 24, 2025

Required Reading:

  • John Meyer and Brian Rowan, 1977: Institutionalized Organizations: Formal Structure as Myth and Ceremony. American Journal of Sociology 83, 340–363.

Session 8: Sociological Neo-Institutionalism II

December 1, 2025

Required Readings:

  • Paul DiMaggio and Walter W. Powell, 1983. The Iron Cage Revisited: Institutional Isomorphism and Collective Rationality in Organizational Fields. American Sociological Review 48, 147–160.
  • Paul DiMaggio and Walter W. Powell, 1991. The New Institutionalism in Organizational Analysis. Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1–38.

Session 9: Economic Neo-Institutionalism

December 8, 2025

Required Readings:

  • Douglass North, 1990. Institutions and their Consequences for Economic Performance. In: Karen Cook and Margaret Levi (eds.), The Limits of Rationality. Chicago: Chicago University Press, 383–401.
  • Kenneth A. Shepsle, 1989. Studying Institutions: Some Lessons from the Rational Choice Approach. Journal of Theoretical Politics 1, 131–147.

Session 10: Institutions and Actors

December 15, 2025

Required Reading:

  • James G. March and Johan P. Olsen, 1989. Rediscovering Institutions. The Organizational Basis of Politics. New York: The Free Press, 21–38; 159–172.

Winter Break: December 22, 2025 - January 2, 2026

Session 11: Historical Institutionalism

January 6, 2026

Required Readings:

  • Paul Pierson and Theda Skocpol, 2002. Historical Institutionalism in Contemporary Political Science: In: Ira Katznelson and Helen Milner (eds.), Political Science: The State of the Discipline. New York: Norton and Company, 693–721.
  • James Mahoney, 2000. Path Dependence in Historical Sociology. Theory and Society 29, 507–548.

Session 12: Institutional Change I

January 13, 2026

Required Reading:

  • Wolfgang Streeck and Kathleen Thelen, 2005. Introduction. In: Wolfgang Streeck and Kathleen Thelen (eds.), Beyond Continuity: Institutional Change in Advanced Political Economies. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1–39.

Session 13: Institutional Change II

January 20, 2026

Required Reading:

  • John F. Padgett and Walter W. Powell, 2012. The Emergence of Organizations and Markets. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1–29.

Session 14: Final Discussion

January 27, 2026