Economic Sociology

Economic sociology studies economic activity — production, exchange, consumption, and markets — as embedded in social relations, institutions, and culture.

Scope

It examines markets as social structures, networks and economic action, the social bases of money and consumption, organizations, and the comparative institutional analysis of capitalism.

Core questions

• How is economic action shaped by social relations?
• How are markets socially constructed?
• What role do networks and trust play in the economy?
• How do institutions and culture shape economic life?
• How do varieties of capitalism differ?

Key concepts

• Embeddedness
• Markets as social structures
• Social networks
• Trust
• Economic institutions
• Varieties of capitalism

Key theories

The embeddedness of markets

Polanyi argued markets are socially and politically embedded, not self-regulating; the 'great transformation' disembedded them with destabilizing effects.

Networks and embeddedness

Granovetter showed economic action is embedded in concrete networks of social relations, against both under- and over-socialized views.

Economy and society

Weber analysed the social and institutional foundations of economic action and modern capitalism.

History

Founded by Weber and Durkheim and revived as 'new economic sociology' by Granovetter's embeddedness thesis (1985), the field grew alongside network analysis, institutional theory, and comparative political economy, challenging the autonomy of markets assumed in economics.

Debates

How autonomous are markets?

Economic sociology's embeddedness thesis contests the economists' image of self-regulating markets.

Key figures

• Karl Polanyi
• Mark Granovetter
• Max Weber

Seminal works

• polanyi-1944
• granovetter-1985
• weber-1922

Frequently asked questions

What is embeddedness?

The idea that economic action is shaped by, and takes place within, networks of social relations and institutions rather than among isolated rational actors.