Structure, institution, agency, habit, and reflexive deliberation

2008 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 183-203 ◽  
Author(s):  
STEVE FLEETWOOD
Keyword(s):  
Social Science ◽  
Institutional Economics ◽  
Specific Area ◽  
Downward Causation ◽  
Labour Markets ◽  
Social Structures ◽  
Institutional Rules ◽  
Conceptual Apparatus ◽  
Nuanced Understanding ◽  
Internal Domain

AbstractThe conceptual apparatus referred to generally as agency-structure or agency-institution is central to a great deal of social science, especially Institutional Economics. Despite its centrality, this apparatus has never been able to fully explain how institutions and social structures influence agents' intentions and actions. Economist, Geoff Hodgson and Sociologist, Margaret Archer have been at the forefront of endeavours to provide such an explanation. Section 1 of this paper elaborates upon Hodgson's ideas on institutional rules, habits, habituation, and the notion of reconstitutive downward causation. Section 2 elaborates upon Archer's ideas on structures, reflexive deliberation and the notion of an internal domain of mental primacy, and ends with a critical look at Archer's (brief) comments on rules and habits. The conclusion shows how a more nuanced understanding of structures, institutions, agency, habits, and deliberation, can inform research into a specific area, namely the analysis of labour markets.

scholarly journals ‘You're not sure that you are gay yet’: The perpetuation of the ‘phase’ in the lives of young disabled LGBT + people

Sexualities ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 23 (4) ◽  
pp. 516-529 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alex Toft ◽  
Anita Franklin ◽  
Emma Langley
Keyword(s):  
Young People ◽  
Gender Identity ◽  
Detailed Analysis ◽  
Social Structures ◽  
Authentic Identity ◽  
Sexuality And Gender ◽  
Nuanced Understanding ◽  
Lgbt People ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Identity Shifts

Contemporary discourse on sexuality presents a picture of fluidity and malleability, with research continuing to frame sexuality as negotiable, within certain parameters and social structures. Such investigation is fraught with difficulties, due in part to the fact that as one explores how identity shifts, language terms such as ‘phase’ emerge conjuring images of a definitive path towards an end-goal, as young people battle through a period of confusion and emerge at their true or authentic identity. Seeing sexuality and gender identity as a phase can delegitimise and prevent access to support, which is not offered due to the misconception that it is not relevant and that one can grow out of being LGBT+. This article explores the lives of disabled LGBT + young people from their perspective, using their experiences and stories to explore their identities and examine how this links to the misconception of their sexuality and gender as a phase. Taking inspiration from the work of scholars exploring sexual and gender identity, and sexual storytelling; the article is framed by intersectionality which allows for a detailed analysis of how identities interact and inform, when used as an analytic tool. The article calls for a more nuanced understanding of sexuality and gender in the lives of disabled LGBT + young people, which will help to reduce inequality and exclusion.

Governing the Environment: the Intitutional Economics Approach

2009 ◽  
pp. 61-86
Author(s):  
Arild Vatn
Keyword(s):  
Transaction Costs ◽  
Environmental Governance ◽  
Institutional Economics ◽  
Specific Area ◽  
New Institutional Economics ◽  
Neoclassical Economics ◽  
Institutional Perspective ◽  
Institutional Structures ◽  
Plural Rationalities ◽  
Jel Classifications

- Analyzing environmental governance implies foremost to analyze institutional structures and their implications. In doing so, the present paper utilizes insights primarily from the tradition of classical institutional economics. The paper is divided in three. In the first part I describe the main features of the classical position and compare it briefly with that of neoclassical economics and the tradition of new institutional economics. In the second part I clarify what is considered the main aspects of governance as seen from an institutional perspective. In part three I move to the more specific area of environmental governance. The concept of resource regimes is defined. Moreover I analyze how different regimes influence which environmental problems appear and how they can be treated. I discuss how institutions influence the formation and articulation of knowledge and values, how they form and protect interests, how they influence the level of transaction costs and hence the possibilities for coordination, and finally how they form the motivations underlying human choices in concrete contexts. Given that all these variables are shown to be endogenous to the institutional system, the use of comparative analysis in the assessment of various governance options is emphasized.Keywords: classical institutional economics, interdependence, resource regimes, value articulation, interest protection, transaction costs, plural rationalities.JEL classifications: B52; Q50; D02; D70.

Energy Consumption as Part of Social Practices

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ana Horta
Keyword(s):  
Energy Consumption ◽  
Social Science ◽  
Everyday Life ◽  
Practice Theory ◽  
Social Science Research ◽  
Science Research ◽  
Social Practices ◽  
Social Structures ◽  
Theory Approach ◽  
Practice Turn

This chapter examines social practices as an alternative and promising approach to conventional social science research on energy consumption. It highlights the emergence of practice theory in social science research on energy consumption that focuses on the interaction between social structures and everyday life, including materiality. After providing an overview of the evolution of social science research on energy consumption, the chapter summarizes the “practice turn” in sociology and its extension to research on energy consumption. It then considers the most prominent features of practice theory used in the field of research on energy consumption and concludes by describing the process of formation of the practice of managing the mobile phone as an example of how energy consumption can be analyzed using a practice theory approach.

Organizational Social Context

2017 ◽  
pp. 76-126
Author(s):  
Albert J. Simard
Keyword(s):  
Knowledge Management ◽  
Social Context ◽  
Social Science ◽  
Tacit Knowledge ◽  
Three Dimensional ◽  
Social Structures ◽  
Science Literature ◽  
Organizational Social Context ◽  
The Social ◽  
Tacit Knowledge Management

Understanding the social context of an organization is a precursor to managing tacit knowledge. This chapter describes a three-dimensional social-context framework comprising factors, trust, and manageability. Factors are underlying characteristics - situation, interaction, and scale - that affect all aspects of the social structure. Trust classifies criteria that affect trust at individual, group, and organizational levels. Manageability lists methods of enhancing indicators for each social context criteria. The framework is based on patterns and clusters of 1200 terms found in a survey of the social-science literature related to social structures. The framework is presented in a format that facilitates prioritizing the most important criteria for an organization to focus on. Understanding how social context affects organizations will greatly facilitate tacit knowledge management.

What is to be done about capability-promoting policies?

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hans-Uwe Otto ◽  
Melanie Walker ◽  
Holger Ziegler
Keyword(s):  
Public Policy ◽  
Social Justice ◽  
Social Science ◽  
Human Development ◽  
Critical Analysis ◽  
Capabilities Approach ◽  
Social Structures ◽  
Human Flourishing ◽  
Policy Interventions ◽  
Critical Social Science

This book has examined how the capability approach provides a politically normative metric for the critical analysis of policies and public policy structures, as well as policy interventions driven by human development or human security concerns. It has demonstrated that existing social structures and institutions play a key role in the realisation of capabilities or the feasibility of human flourishing. This chapter summarises the book's main arguments and considers new principles and aspirations towards capability-promoting policy. It argues that an alliance with the tradition of critical social science may ‘secure’ the capabilities approach, with its analytic focus on real-world conditions and requirements for renegotiating social justice and creating more capabilities-promoting policies, and vice versa. Capability-promoting policies include emancipatory and democratic strategies that transform unjust structures in order to enhance the agency of individual subjects in terms of human flourishing.

Tsugaru Gaku as Area Studies: Research plasticity and researcher hybridity

2017 ◽  
Vol 20 (4) ◽  
pp. 349-359 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anthony Rausch
Keyword(s):  
Social Science ◽  
Social Science Research ◽  
Research Work ◽  
Specific Area ◽  
Science Research ◽  
Area Studies ◽  
The Future ◽  
Social Science Researcher ◽  
Conducting Research ◽  
Social Scientific

This review essay speaks to the crisis of Area Studies, offering a view from the field in the form of a review of Tsugaru Gaku (Tsugaru Studies) as a specific Area Studies research case. After presenting an overview of the work of social science researchers working in Japan, both foreign and Japanese, the essay turns to major questions articulated in the literature of Area Studies regarding the purpose, character and future of Area Studies. By reviewing the multi-dimensional and combinative implications in the process and dissemination of his own social science research work together with consideration of the work of Japanese social scientists conducting research in rural Japan and publishing in Japanese, the author positions such ‘domestic,’ place-based sociological and anthropological research as a vital contribution to the future of Area Studies. Capitalizing on social scientific research that can contribute to Area Studies research requires a view of the ‘plasticity of research.’ Further, recognition of the ‘hybridity of the Area Studies researcher,’ both as the trained Area Studies specialist as well as a ‘domestic social science researcher’ capable of theory, methodology and analysis, as well as dissemination of Area Studies research originating in a specific place and in a specific language, is vital to the future of Area Studies research.

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