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"The central premise of this book is that the demand for social science knowledge is derived from the demand for institutional change." --pref.
This book is about some of the most important problems confronting social scientists who study institutions and institutional change. It is also about globalization, particularly the frequent claim that globalization is transforming national political and economic institutions as never before.
Institutional change is a central driving force behind social changes, and thus a central topic in all major fields of social sciences. Yet, no general theory of institutional change exists. Drawing from a diverse literature, this book develops a general theory of institutional change, based on a social evolutionary synthesis of the conflict approach and the harmony approach. The book argues that because the whole process of institutional change can be understood as a process of selecting a few ideas and turning them into institutions, competition of ideas and struggle for power to make rules are often at the heart of institutional change. The general theory not only integrates more specific theories and insights on institutional change that have been scattered in different fields into a coherent general theory but also provides fundamental new insights and points to new directions for future research. This book makes a fundamental contribution to all major fields of social sciences: sociology (sociological theory), political sciences, institutional economics, and political theory. It should be of general interest to scholars and students in all major fields of social science.
The main focus of the book is institutional change in the Scandinavian model, with special emphasis on Norway. There are many reasons to pay closer attention to the Norwegian case when it comes to analyses of changes in the public sphere. In the country’s political history, the arts and the media played a particular role in the processes towards sovereignty at the beginning of the 20th century. On a par with the other Scandinavian countries, Norway is in the forefront in the world in the distribution and uses of Internet technology. As an extreme case, the most corporatist society within the family of the “Nordic Model”, it offers an opportunity both for intriguing case studies and for challenging and refining existing theory on processes of institutional change in media policy and cultural policy. It supplements two recent, important books on political economy in Scandinavia: Varieties of Liberalization and the New Politics of Social Solidarity (Kathleen Thelen, 2014), and The Political Construction of Business Interests (Cathie Jo Martin and Duane Swank, 2013). There are further reasons to pay particular attention to the Scandinavian, and more specifically the Norwegian cases: (i) They are to varying degrees neo-corporatist societies, characterized by ongoing bargaining over social and political reform processes. From a theoretical perspective this invites reflections which, to some extent, are at odds with the dominant conceptions of institutional change. Neither models of path dependency nor models of aggregate, incremental change focus on the continuous social bargaining over institutional change. (ii) Despite recent processes of liberalization, common to the Western world as a whole, corporatism implies a close connection between state, public sphere, cultural life, and religion. This also means that institutions are closely bundled, in an even stronger way than assumed for example in the Varieties of Capitalism literature. Furthermore, we only have scarce insight in the way the different spheres of corporatism are connected and interact. In the proposed edited volume we have collected historical-institutional case studies from a broad set of social fields (a detailed outline of contents and contributors is attached): • Critical assessments of Jürgen Habermas’ theory of the public sphere • Can the public sphere be considered an institution? • The central position of the public sphere in social and political change in Norway • Digital transformations and effects of the growing PR industry on the public sphere • Institutionalization of social media in local politics and voluntary organizations • Legitimation work in the public sphere • freedom of expression and warning in the workplace • “Return of religion” to the public sphere, and its effects
The essays in this book contribute to emerging debates in political science and sociology on institutional change, providing a theoretical framework and empirical applications.
A revolutionary textbook introducing masters and doctoral students to the major research approaches and methodologies in the social sciences. Written by an outstanding set of scholars, and derived from successful course teaching, this volume will empower students to choose their own approach to research, to justify this approach, and to situate it within the discipline. It addresses questions of ontology, epistemology and philosophy of social science, and proceeds to issues of methodology and research design essential for producing a good research proposal. It also introduces researchers to the main issues of debate and contention in the methodology of social sciences, identifying commonalities, historic continuities and genuine differences.
Applying the new economics of organisation and relational theories of the firm to the problem of understanding cross-national variation in the political economy, this volume elaborates a new understanding of the institutional differences that characterise the 'varieties of capitalism' worldwide.
A thorough critique of theories of institutional change followed by the development of a new theory emphasising the role of distributional conflict in the emergence of social institutions.