Fields of Research
Aiming to combine and develop the approaches of economic sociology, comparative and international political economy, the School’s research investigates the complex linkages between economic and social action.
Interdisciplinary cooperation enables the program to combine insights from economic sociology, comparative and international political economy, and organization studies. Work at the School pursues an empirical-analytical approach rather than an efficiency-theoretical, prescriptive one. It explores how institutions and organizations evolve in the real economy, rather than determining how they should evolve, or how they would evolve in ideal conditions.
The main object of investigation for the School – as well as the MPIfG in which it is embedded – is capitalism as a sociopolitical formation that changes over time and manifests itself in different forms depending on the social and institutional context. In particular, the School focuses on three types of social formations that are constitutive of capitalism: institutions (both economic and political), markets, and organizations.
[more]
For the past thirty years, political economy has focused on the analysis of differences in “supply-side institutions” across countries, such as wage bargaining institutions, vocational training, and corporate finance. Recently the field has made a shift by focusing more strongly on how the “demand-side conditions” of the economy explain national differences in economic performance.
[more]
Like institutions, markets are social constructions. Contemporary economic sociology explores the social-structural, institutional, and cultural conditions that are necessary for market relations to develop and function effectively. One important aspect of investigating markets is looking at the interplay between actors and institutions in the creation of goods and their meaning.
[more]
Another prominent subject at the IMPRS-SPCE is the institutional foundation and operation of economic organizations, their relationship to political regulation, and their role in constituting and reproducing markets. Over the last twenty years, changes in the organizational structures and preferences of firms, as well as different types and sources of business power, have become major research themes in political economy and economic sociology.
[more]
Two types of social formations receiving particular attention in the research program are institutions and markets. Both on their own and in their interaction, institutions are normative constructs that generate social order by constraining specific actions while supporting others.
[more]
Another prominent subject at the School is the institutional embeddedness of economic organizations, their relationship to political regulation, and their role in the constitution and reproduction of markets.
[more]
Research at the School in this field investigates the economic effects of the institutional structure of political systems. For example, different election systems, power sharing between the legislative and the executive, the degree of centralization of political decision making, and multi-level governance (...).
[more]
The final major topic at the School is the analysis of the embedding of markets in larger institutional complexes. In
Pierre Bourdieu's terminology these configurations of institutions are called fields of (cultural) production.
[more]
