Conventions & Institutions (original) (raw)
Related papers
Individual action, institutions, and social change An approach in terms of convention
This anthology consists of a collection of articles that address two common questions: how institutions emerge from individual actions and how individual actions are shaped by institutions? What unifies these contributions is the search of a theoretical explanation that overcomes the shortcomings of the rational choice explanations of social institutions. The approach developed here deals with two methodological problems that are pervasive in social sciences: that of the relationship between agency and structures and that of role of rationality and norms in explaining individual social behavior. Individuals are seen to be acting according to "conventions" that structure their interaction and that are cognitive and interpretative schemes that allow them to understand social reality and to give meaning to their actions. In addition individuals do not act either rationally or normatively but are conceived as acting within a "conventional" context that gives meaning to their action but also constrains them. They are supposed to be moved both by normative considerations and by self-interest that can conflict.
The arbitrariness and normativity of social conventions
This paper investigates a puzzling feature of social conventions: the fact that they are both arbitrary and normative. We examine how this tension is addressed in sociological accounts of conventional phenomena. Traditional approaches tend to generate either synchronic accounts that fail to consider the arbitrariness of conventions , or diachronic accounts that miss central aspects of their normativity. As a remedy, we propose a processual conception that considers conventions as both the outcome and material cause of much human activity. This conceptualization, which borrows from the économie des conventions as well as critical realism, provides a novel perspective on how conventions are nested and defined, and on how they are established, maintained and challenged.
Veblen and Bourdieu on Social Reality and Order: Individuals and Institutions
Journal of Economic Issues, 2020
This essay focuses on the conceptual relationship between Veblen and Bourdieu given that several important aspects of their works remain less widely discussed, or even inadequately explored in a comparative manner. First, the two scholars have laid the foundations of a socioeconomic perspective. Evolution and change are the fundamental vehicles of economic life in their respective works. In such a framework, a central point of their analyses is the interdependence between the cultural, social, and economic spheres. Furthermore, an economic sociology is built around the concept of habit formation. Systemic views expressed, focus on the various institutions and other aspects of cultural, social and economic life, where habits are formed and cover diverse fields and notions such as Rationality, Individualism, Institutions, Classes, Power, Struggle, Culture, and even Capitalism. For instance, both acknowledged that society is a field for the exercise of power, where antagonisms emerge giving way to negotiation, struggle, and compromise. Also, both recognized that research and knowledge development is a collective social process. However, from a methodological perspective, their main emphasis is on the emerging dynamic evolution of habits, which is perceived as the interruption of already existing social norms and the conflict between routine and change.
Schumpeter, Veblen, and Bourdieu on Institutions and the Formation of Habits
2021
As we know, Joseph Alois Schumpeter is one of the greatest economists of all times, while Thorstein Veblen is an economist and sociologist who made seminal contributions to the social sciences. Pierre Bourdieu, meanwhile, is one of the most famous structural sociologists, who has consistently worked on economic dynamics. These three scholars have laid the foundations of a socioeconomic perspective. However, several important aspects of their works remain less widely discussed, or even inadequately explored in a comparative manner. Of course, investigating the origins of their ideas in evolutionary and institutional economics and re-evaluating comparatively the influences that shaped their works is quite useful for promoting dialogue between Economics and Sociology. Within this framework, this essay focuses on the conceptual relationship between Schumpeter, Veblen and Bourdieu. Evolution and Change shape the economic life in their respective works and, in such a framework a central point of their analyses is the interdependence between the cultural, social and economic spheres. Furthermore, an economic sociology is built around the concept of habit formation. The three great authors' systemic views focus on the various institutions and other aspects of cultural, social and economic life, where habits are formed and cover diverse fields and notions such as Consumption, Preferences, Art, Knowledge, Banking and even Capitalism. For instance, all three social scientists acknowledged the fact that the internal dynamics of capitalism introduce structural instabilities into the economic system. Also, they recognized that research and knowledge development is a collective social process. However, from a methodological perspective, their main emphasis is on the emerging dynamic evolution of habits, which is perceived as the interruption of already existing social norms and the conflict between routine and change. Several differences between Schumpeter, Veblen and Bourdieu are observed and analysed and ideas for future research are presented.
The Cognitive Origins of Bourdieu's Habitus
Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour, 2004
This paper aims to balance the conceptual reception of Bourdieu's sociology in the United States through a conceptual re-examination of the concept of Habitus. I retrace the intellectual lineage of the Habitus idea, showing it to have roots in Claude Levi-Strauss structural anthropology and in the developmental psychology of Jean Piaget, especially the latter's generalization of the idea of operations from mathematics to the study of practical, bodily-mediated cognition. One important payoff of this exercise is that the common misinterpretation of the Habitus as an objectivist and reductionist element in Bourdieu's thought is dispelled. The Habitus is shown to be instead a useful and flexible way to conceptualize agency and the ability to transform social structure. Thus ultimately one of Bourdieu's major contributions to social theory consists of his development of a new radical form of cognitive sociology, along with an innovative variety of multilevel sociological explanation in which the interplay of different structural orders is highlighted.
Institutions and Collective Intentionality
Routledge Handbook on Collective Intentionality, 2017
Institutions shape many of the things people do. Think of waiting in line in a store, giving way to a car coming from the right (or left, depending on where you are), ordering a meal in a restaurant, buying a house, getting married, chairing a meeting, and running a multi-billion corporation. There are two perspectives on what examples such as these have in common in both philosophy and the social sciences. According to the first, each is an instance of a particular kind of behavioral regularity or recurring activity. According to the second, each is an instance of a certain kind of rule-based behavior. These two perspectives are sometimes combined (Aoki 2011, Greif and Kingston 2011, Hindriks and Guala 2015). In this vein, Raimo Tuomela (2013) argues that institutions are norm-governed social practices. As social practices are recurring activities and as norms are rules, this definition – on which I will rely in this chapter – captures both perspectives.
From habitus to pragma: a phenomenological critique of Bourdieu's habitus
Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour, 2019
. Others have criticized the concept as either a variant of rational action theory or as a theory of structural determination that entirely abolishes individual agency . Some have argued that misinterpretations of Bourdieu's concept of habitus are indicative of the fact that critics read Bourdieu without awareness of the phenomenological backdrop to his sociology. Some of these readers not only highlight the influence of phenomenology on Bourdieu's sociology, but argue their continuing complementarities. In this article, I take a more radical step in arguing that Bourdieu's conceptual efforts fall short of existing phenomenological solutions to the problem of social action. I do so by highlighting the problems with Bourdieu's concept of habitus when deployed analytically to account for social action. Turning to the work of Alfred Schutz, I show that the social phenomenological theory of action, when read as a theoretical effort to confront the insuperable gap between subjective experience and the objectivated realities of the social world, elucidates many aspects of embodied agency that Bourdieu's habitus obscures. 2 This article proceeds in the following way. In the second section, the article highlights the influence of phenomenology in Bourdieu's construction of the concept of habitus. The section points out criticisms of the analytical limitations of the concept made by critics who otherwise agree with Bourdieu on the theoretical importance in sociology of embodied knowledge and agency. The third section outlines Schutz's critique of Weber's theory of social action and the terms of his phenomenological reconstruction of Weber's sociology. The section also develops an interpretation of Schutz's concept of pragma and contrasts its understanding of embodied agency and relationship to sociality from that in Bourdieu's habitus. The fourth section discusses Schutz's differentiation of embodied agency in his concepts of skills, useful knowledge, and recipes, and the relationship between embodied practical agency and socially objectivated knowledge. The final section concludes with calls for sociologists to reassess and resituate Schutz's theoretical contributions in light of Bourdieu's critical sociology and other present theoretical concerns.
This work focuses on the approach to and analysis of the concept of habitus, and on tracing its relationship to the concept of practice within the framework of Pierre Bourdieu’s ‘theory of practice’. Based on these determinants, we attempted a thorough approach to the concept of habitus. Within the context of epistemological clarification we considered it essential to draw attention to its genealogy and the course of its development. Bearing in mind too the large number of discussions the controversial concept of habitus has provoked in the field of social sciences, we attempted to make reference to the most important relevant critical approaches. In the article’s concluding observations, the concept’s indisputable contribution to and influence on the field of social sciences is demonstrated, as is the notion that Pierre Bourdieu’s constructed concept of habitus attempts to put an end to fundamental divisions in sociology such as: objectivism-subjectivism, individual-society, conscious-unconscious.
Institutions and Social Structures 1
Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour, 2008
This paper clarifies the terms "institutions" and "social structures" and related terms "rules", "conventions", "norms", "values" and "customs". Part one explores the similarities between institutions and social structures whilst the second and third parts explore differences. Part two considers institutions, rules, habits or habitus and habituation, whilst part three critically reflects on three common conceptions of social structures. The conclusion comments upon reflexive deliberation via the internal conversation. 2 The term "institution" is often used to refer to things like: gender, money, the family, religion, property, markets, the state, education, sport and medicine, language, law, systems of weights and measures and table manners. This ignores important differences in the nature of these things. The institution of money, for example, does not contain human beings, whereas the institution of the family clearly does. Are money and families different kinds of institution, or is one of them not really an institution at all? For Schmid (1994: 3-5) "early retirement, further education, retraining and regulation of working hours, trade unions, labour and social security laws, labour market programs, codetermination and collective bargaining" are all institutions. The problem here is that the term "institution" becomes a "catch all" term to refer to all kinds of social phenomena. Portes (2005) refers to this as the "institutions are everything approach". The term "social structure" is also used in many ways and, as Porpora (2007: 195) notes: "there continues to be a certain blurriness in the way we speak of social structure". The term can be used negatively, to refer to phenomena like "rules, relations, positions, processes, systems, values, meanings and the like that do not reduce to human behaviour" (Lawson 2003: 181, emphasis added). But because there are many things that do not reduce to human behaviour, this meaning is impractically broad. Moreover, even if social structures and institutions are irreducible to human behaviour, this tells us nothing of the differences between them. In a similar vein, and by emphasising the first word of the pair, "social structure" can be used to refer to anything that is the result of human action, as opposed to some naturally occurring phenomenon, once again making the meaning impractically broad. The term "social structure" can be used in an "architectural" sense where we refer to the structure of a bridge, market, industry or organisation; or to the way a bridge, market, industry or organisation is structured. It can be used to refer to specific phenomenon like the structure of social class or gender; or to general phenomena, where it acts as a place-holder for a series of un-named "structural" phenomena. It can also be used to refer to society as a whole, or perhaps in a general sense to mean anything that is external to an organisation or an individual which, once again, makes the meaning impractically broad. Incidentally, my argument is not that all of these ways of using the term are exactly wrong; it is that there is simply far too much ambiguity. Finally, discussion of social structures and institutions, often involves the use of terms like habits, habitus, rules, conventions, norms, values, roles, customs, laws, regulations, practices, routines, procedures and precedents, not to mention less commonly used terms like mores, scripts, obligations, rituals, codes and agreements. Once again, there is often confusion about what each of these terms mean, how they relate to one another, and how they relate to social structures and institutions. Consider two examples. In considering "habits, routines, social conventions, social norms" as types of rules, (1999: 92) conflates properties that should be associated with human agency, (i.e. habits) with properties that should be associated with institutions (i.e. conventions and norms). He also makes the