Reading list of economic sociology

Compiled by Patrik Aspers, Jens Beckert, Guido Mllering, and Geny Piotti Revised version September 2007

The list is divided into 18 sections, each of which covers a substantial field of research. Books dominate the reading list, but shorter articles summarizing the main arguments of these books can usually be found. Articles are included in cases where books covering the same issues are not available. In the readers some of the texts mentioned here are reproduced. The readers provide a very good overview of this field, and it is also in these one can find reprints of many of the most important, classical as well as contemporary, contributions in economic sociology.

Useful internet site http:/ /econsoc.mpifg.de

This site is the most extensive site of economic sociology, and home of Economic Sociology, European Electronic Newsletter.

General overviews, text books and readers of economic sociology Beckert, Jens/ Rainer Diaz-Bone/ Heiner Ganmann (ed.) 2007: Mrkte als soziale Strukturen, Campus Verlag, Frankfurt und New York. Beckert, Jens/ Milan Zafirovski (eds.), 2006: International Encyclopedia of Economic Sociology. London: Routledge. Carruthers, Bruce/ Sarah Babb, 2000: Economy/ Society: Markets, Meanings, and Social Structure. Thousand Oaks: Pine Forge Press. Dobbin, Frank, 2004: The New Economic Sociology: A Reader. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Granovetter, Mark/Richard Swedberg (eds.), 2001: The Sociology of Economic Life. 2nd edition. Boulder: Westview Press. Guilln, Mauro F., et al., 2002: The New Economic Sociology: Developments in an Emerging Field. New York: Russel Sage Foundation. Hollingsworth, Rogers/Robert Boyer (eds.), 1997: Contemporary Capitalism: The Embeddedness of Institutions. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Smelser, J. Neil/ Richard Swedberg, 2005: The Handbook of Economic Sociology. 2nd edition, 1st edition 1994. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Swedberg, Richard, 2003: Principles of Economic Sociology. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Trigilia, Carlo, 2002: Economic Sociology. State, Market and Society in Modern Capitalism. Oxford: Blackwell.

Important theoretical statements Beckert, Jens, 1996: What is Sociological About Economic Sociology? Uncertainty and the Embeddedness of Economic Action. In: Theory and Society 25, 803840. Callon, Michel (ed.), 1998: The Laws of the Market. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, Chapter 1. Fligstein, Neil, 1996: Markets as Politics: A Political-Cultural Approach to Market Institutions. In: American Sociological Review 61, 656673. Granovetter, Mark, 1985: Economic Action and Social Structure: The Problem of Embeddedness. In: American Journal of Sociology 91, 481510. White, Harrison, 1981: Where do Markets Come from? In: American Journal of Sociology 87, 517547. Zelizer, Viviana, 1988: Beyond the Polemics of the Market: Establishing a Theoretical and Empirical Agenda. In: Sociological Forum 3, 614634.

Classical economic sociology Durkheim, mile, (1893) 1984: The Division of Labour in Society. London: Macmillan and Co. Marshall, Alfred, (1890) 1961: Principles of Economics. Edited with annotations by C. W. Guillebaud, 2 Vol. London: Macmillan and Co. Marx, Karl, (1867) 1983: Das Kapital. Frankfurt a.M.: Ullstein. Pareto, Vilfredo, (19151916) 1935: Mind and Society: A Treatise on General Sociology. New York: Dover Publications. Polanyi, Karl, (1944) 1957: The Great Transformation: The Political and Economic Origins of Our Time. Boston: Beacon Press. Simmel, Georg, (1907) 1977: Gesammelte Werke, Vol. 1: Philosophie des Geldes. Berlin: Duncker & Humblot.

Smith, Adam, (1776) 1981: An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations. Indianapolis: Liberty Press. Sombart, Werner, (19021927) 1969: Der moderne Kapitalismus: Historisch-systematische Darstellung des gesamteuropischen Wirtschaftslebens von seinen Anfngen bis zur Gegenwart. Berlin: Duncker & Humblot. Weber, Max, (192122) 1972: Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft: Grundri der verstehenden Soziologie. Tbingen: Mohr, especially Chapter 1. Weber, Max, (1923) 1981: General Economic History. New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers.

Topics in economic sociology

Capitalisms and political economy Berger, Suzanne/ Ronald Dore (eds.), 1996: National Diversity and Global Capitalism. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Block, Fred, 1990: Postindustrial Possibilities: A Critique of Economic Discourse. Berkeley: University of California Press. Daems, Hermann/Alfred D. Chandler (eds.), 1980: Managerial Hierarchies: Comparative Perspective on the Rise of the Modern Industrial Enterprise. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Crouch, Colin/Wolfgang Streeck (eds.), 1997: Political Economy of Modern Capitalism: Mapping Convergence and Diversity. London: Sage. Greenfeld, Liah, 2001: The Spirit of Capitalism: Nationalism and Economic Growth. Harvard: Harvard University Press. Hall, Peter/ David Soskice (eds.), 2001: Varieties of Capitalism: The Institutional Foundations of Comparative Advantage. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Nee, Victor/ Richard Swedberg (eds.), 2005: The Economic Sociology of Capitalism. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Weber, Max, (19041905) 2004: Die protestantische Ethik und der Geist des Kapitalismus. Mnchen: Beck. Consumption Bourdieu, Pierre, (1979) 1984: Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Campbell, Colin, 1989: The Romantic Ethic and the Spirit of Modern Consumerism. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. McCracken, Grant, 1988: Culture and Consumption: New Approaches to the Symbolic Character of Consumer Goods and Activities. Indianapolis: Indiana University Press. Miller, Daniel, 1998: A Theory of Shopping. Cambridge: Polity Press. Slater, Don, 1997: Consumer Culture and Modernity. Cambridge: Polity Press. Veblen, Thorstein, (1899) 1953: The Theory of the Leisure Class: An Economic Study of Institutions. New York: New American Library. Culture and economy Bourdieu, Pierre, (1979) 1984: Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. DiMaggio, Paul, 1994: Culture and Economy. In: Neil J. Smelser /Richard Swedberg (eds.), The Handbook of Economic Sociology. 1st edition. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 27 57.

Faulkner, Robert, 1983: Music on Demand. New Brunswick: Transaction Books. Gay, Paul du (ed.), 1998: Production of Culture/Cultures of Production. London: Sage. Velthuis, Olav, 2005: Talking Prices, Symbolic Meanings of Prices on the Market for Contemporary Art. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Zelizer, Vivana, (1985) 1994: Pricing the Priceless Child: The Changing Social Value of Children. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Development Amsden, Alice, 2001: The Rise of the Rest: Challenges to the West from Late-Industrializing Economies. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Evans, Peter, 1995: Embedded Autonomy: States and Industrial Transformation. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Gereffi, Gary/ David Spener/ Jennifer Bair (eds.), 2002: Free Trade and Uneven Development. The North American Apparel Industry after NAFTA. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. Gereffi, Gary, Humphrey, John and Sturgeon, Timothy 2005: The Governance of Global Value Chains, Review of International Political Economy 12, 1:78-104. Palpacuer, Florence/Peter Gibbon/Lotte Thomsen, 2005: New Challenges for Developing Country Suppliers in Global Clothing Chains: A Comparative European Perspective. In: World Development 33, 409430. Entrepreneurship Garud, Raghu/Peter Karne (eds.), 2001: Path Dependence and Creation. Mahwah: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Garud, Raghu/Peter Karne, 2003: Bricolage Versus Breakthrough: Distributed and Embedded Agency in Technology Entrepreneurship. In: Research Policy 32, 277300. Kirzner, Israel, 1997: Entrepreneurial Discovery and the Competitive Market Process. In: Journal of Economic Literature 35, 6085. Schumpeter, Joseph, 1942: Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy. New York: Harper. Swedberg, Richard (ed.), 2000: Entrepreneurship: The Social Science View. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Ethnic economies Aldrich, Howard/Roger Waldinger, 1990: Ethnicity and Entrepreneurship. In: Annual Review of Sociology 16, 111135. Bonacich, Edna /Richard P. Appelbaum, 2000: Behind the Label: Inequality in the Los Angeles Apparel Industry. Berkeley: University of California Press. Light, Ivan H. /Parminder Bhachu (eds.), 1993: Immigration and Entrepreneurship: Culture, Capital and Ethnic Networks. New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers. Light, Ivan/Steven J. Gold, 2000: Ethnic Economies. San Diego: Academic Press. Portes, Alejandro/Julia Sensenbrenner, 1993: Embeddednes and Immigration: Notes on the Social Determinants of Economic Action. In: American Journal of Sociology 98, 13201350. Portes, Alejandro (ed.), 1995: The Economic Sociology of Immigration. New York: Russell Sage Foundation. Gender Acker, Joan, 1989: Doing Comparable Worth: Gender, Class and Pay Equity. Philadelphia: Temple University. England, Paula/George Farkas, 1996: Household, Employment, and Gender: A Social, Economic, and Demographic View. New York: Aldine.

Hochschild, Arlie /Barbara Ehrenreich (eds.), 2002: Global Woman: Nannies, Maids and Sex Workers in the New Economy. New York: Metropolitan Press. Glucksam, Miriam, 2000: Cottons and Casuals: The Gendered Organisation of Labour in Time and Space. Durham: Sociology Press. <http:/ /www.sociologypress.co.uk/cottons.html> Reskin, Barbara /Debra Branch McBrier, 2000: Why not Ascription? Organized Employment of Male and Female Managers. In: American Sociological Review 65, 210233. Globalization Campbell, John, 2004: Institutional Change and Globalization. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Nye, Joseph (ed.), 2000: Governance in a Globalizing World. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution. Sassen, Saskia, 1998: Globalization and its Discontents: Essays on the New Mobility of People and Money. New York: New Press. Sassen, Saskia, 2001: The Global City: New York, London, Tokyo. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Sklair, Leslie, 2002: Globalization: Capitalism and its Alternatives. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Stiglitz, Joseph, 2002: Globalization and its Discontents. New York: Norton. Institutions and institutionalization Beckert, Jens, 1999: Agency, Entrepreneurs and Institutional Change: The Role of Strategic Choice and Institutionalized Practices in Organizations. In: Organization Studies 20, 777799. Djelic, Marie-Laure and Sahlin-Andersson, Kerstin (eds.), 2006: Transnational Governance: Institutional Dynamics of Regulation. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge. Dobbin, Frank, 1994: Forging Industrial Policy: The United States, Britain, and France in the Railway Age. New York: Cambridge University Press. Greenwood, R./Suddaby, R., 2006: Institutional Entrepreneurship in Mature Fields: The Big Five Accounting Firms. In: Academy of Management Journal 49, 2748. March, James G./Johan P. Olsen, 1989: Rediscovering Institutions: The Organizational Basis of Politics. New York: Free Press. Mayntz, Renate /Fritz W. Scharpf (eds.), 1995: Gesellschaftliche Selbstregelung und politische Steuerung. Frankfurt a.M.: Campus. North, Douglass, 1990: Institutions, Institutional Change and Economic Performance. New York: Cambridge University Press. Powell, Walter/Paul DiMaggio (eds.), 1991: The New Institutionalism in Organizational Analysis. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Scharpf, Fritz W., 1997: Games Real Actors Play: Actor-Centered Institutionalism in Policy Research. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. Scott, Richard W., 1995: Institutions and Organizations. London: Sage. Streeck, Wolfgang/Kathleen Thelen (eds.), 2005: Beyond Continuity: Institutional Change in Advanced Political Economies. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Williamson, Oliver E., 1985: The Economic Institutions of Capitalism: Firms, Markets, Relational Contracting. New York: Free Press. Markets Aspers, Patrik, 2005: Markets in Fashion: A Phenomenological Approach. London: Routledge. Beckert, Jens, 2002: Beyond the Market. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Beckert, Jens, 2007: Die soziale Ordnung von Mrkten. In: Jens Beckert/ Rainer DiazBone/Heiner Ganmann (eds.): Mrkte als soziale Strukturen, Campus Verlag, Frankfurt und New York., p. 43-62. Bourdieu, Pierre 2005: The Social Structures of the Economy. Cambridge: Polity Press. Callon, Michel (ed.), 1998: The Laws of the Market. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers. Fligstein, Neil, 2001: The Architecture of Market: An Economic Sociology for the Twenty-First Century Capitalist Societies. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Fligstein, Neil/Dauter, Luke, 2007: The Sociology of Markets. In: Annual Review of Sociology, 33, 105-128. Lie, John, 1997: Sociology of Markets. In: Annual Review of Sociology 23, 241260. MacKenzie, Donald 2006. An Engine, Not a Camera, How Financial Models Shape Markets, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Podolny, Joel, 2005. Status Signals, A Sociological Study of Market Competition, Princeton, NJ.: Princeton University Press. White, Harrison, 2002: Markets from Networks: Socioeconomic Models of Production. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Money Deutschmann, Christoph, 1995: Geld als soziales Konstrukt. In: Leviathan 23, 376393. Dodd, Nigel, 1994: The Sociology of Money: Economics, Reason and Contemporary Society. Cambridge: Polity Press. Ganmann, Heiner, 1996: Geld und Arbeit: Wirtschaftssoziologische Grundlagen einer Theorie der modernen Gesellschaft. Frankfurt a.M.: Campus. Helleiner, Eric, 2003: The Making of National Money. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Ingham, Geoffrey, 2004: The Nature of Money. Cambridge: Polity Press. Paul, Axel, 2004: Die Gesellschaft des Geldes. Entwurf zu einer monetren Theorie der Moderne. Wiesbaden: VS Verlag fr Sozialwissenschaften. Simmel, Georg, (1907) 1978: Philosophy of Money. London: Routledge. Zelizer, Viviana, 1994: The Social Meaning of Money: Pin Money, Paychecks, Poor Relief, and Other Currencies. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Morality and justice in the economy Etzioni, Amitai, 1988: The Moral Dimension: Toward a New Economics. New York: Free Press. Fourcade, Marion/Kieran Healy, 2007: Moral Views of Market Society. In: Annual Review of Sociology 33, 285-311. Healy, Kieran, 2006: Last Best Gifts: Altruism and the Market for Human Blood and Organs. Chicago: Chicago University Press. Nozick, Robert, 1981: Anarchy, State, and Utopia. New York: Basic Books. Rawls, John, 1971: A Theory of Justice. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Sen, Amartya, 1987: On Ethics and Economics. Oxford: Blackwell. Streeck, Wolfgang, 1997: Beneficial Constraints: On the Limits of Rational Voluntarism. In: J. Rogers Hollingsworth/Robert Boyer (eds.), Contemporary Capitalism. The Embeddedness of Institutions. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 197219. Walzer, Michael, 1983: Spheres of Justice: A Defence of Pluralism and Equality. Oxford: Blackwell. Networks Burt, Ronald, 1992: Structural Holes. The Social Structure of Competition. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Grabher, Gernot (ed.), 1993: The Embedded Firm. On the Socioeconomics of Industrial Networks. London: Routledge. Granovetter, Mark, 1985: Economic Action and Social Structure: The Problem of Embeddedness. In: American Journal of Sociology 19, 481510. Powell, Walter W. 1990: Neither Market nor Hierarchy: Network Forms of Organization. In: Barry M. Staw/ Larry L. Cummings (eds.), Research in Organizational Behavior, Vol. 12. Greenwich, CT: JAI Press Inc., 295336. Uzzi, Brian, 1997: Social Structure in Interfirm Networks: The Paradox of Embeddedness. In: Administrative Science Quarterly 42, 3567. Windeler, Arnold, 2001: Unternehmungsnetzwerke: Konstitution und Strukturation. Wiesbaden: Westdeutscher Verlag. Organization Aldrich, Howard, 1979: Organizations and Environments. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall. Hannan, Michael/John Freeman, 1984: Structural Inertia and Organizational Change. In: American Sociology Review 49, 149164. Kieser, Alfred (ed.), 2002: Organisationstheorien. Stuttgart: Kohlhammer. Perrow, Charles, 1999: Normal Accidents. Living with High Risk Technologies. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Powell, Walter/Paul DiMaggio (eds.), 1991: The New Institutionalism in Organizational Analysis. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Selznik, Philip, 1949: T(ennessee) V(alley) A(uthority) and the Grass Roots. Berkeley: University of California Press. Tsoukas, Haridimos / Christian Knudsen (eds.), 2003: The Oxford Handbook of Organization Theory: Meta-Theoretical Perspectives. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Weick, Karl E., 1995: Sensemaking in Organizations. Thousand Oaks: Sage. Social Capital and Trust Bachmann, Reinhard/ Akbar Zaheer, 2006: Handbook of Trust Research. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar. Barber, Bernard, 1983: The Logic and Limits of Trust. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press. Beckert, Jens, 2002: Vertrauen und die performative Konstruktion von Mrkten. In: Zeitschrift fr Soziologie 31, 2743. Cook, Karen (ed.), 2001: Trust in Society. New York: Russell Sage Foundation. Dasgupta, Partha /Ismail Serageldin (eds.), 2000: Social Capital: A Multifaceted Perspective. Washington, DC: World Bank. Fukuyama, Francis, 1995: Trust: The Social Virtues and the Creation of Prosperity. London: Hamish Hamilton. Gambetta, Diego (ed.), 1988: Trust: Making and Breaking Co-operative Relations. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Hartmann, Martin/ Claus Offe (eds.), 2001: Vertrauen: Die Grundlage des sozialen Zusammenhalts. Frankfurt a.M.: Campus. Luhmann, Niklas, 1979: Trust and Power: Two Works by Niklas Luhmann. Chichester: Wiley. Mllering, Guido, 2006: Trust: Reason, Routine, Reflexivity. Oxford: Elsevier. Portes, Alejandro, 1998: Social Capital: Its Origins and Applications in Modern Sociology. In: Annual Review of Sociology 24, 124. Sabel, Charles, 1994: Learning by Monitoring: The Institutions of Economic Development. In: Neil J. Smelser/ Richard Swedberg (eds.), The Handbook of Economic Sociology. 1st edition. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 137165.

Regional economies Crouch, Colin, et al., 2001: Local Production Systems in Europe: Rise or Demise? Oxford: Oxford University Press. Piore, Michael J. /Charles F. Sabel, 1984: The Second Industrial Divide: Possibilities for Prosperity. New York: Basic Books. Pyke, Frank/Giacomo Becattini/Werner Sengenberger (eds.), 1992: Industrial Districts and Interfirm Co-operation in Italy. Geneva: International Institute for Labour Studies. Saxenian, Annalee, 1994: Regional Advantage: Culture and Competition in Silicon Valley and Route 128. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Scott, Allen, 2005: On Hollywood, the Place, the Industry. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Storper, Michael C. /Richard A. Walker, 1989: The Capitalist Imperative: Territory, Technology and Industrial Growth. Oxford: Blackwell. Work and labor markets Abbott, Andrew, 1993: The Sociology of Work and Occupations. In: Annual Review of Sociology 19, 187209. Burawoy, Michael, 1979: Manufacturing Consent: Changes in the Labor Process and Monopoly Capitalism. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Fox, Alan, 1974: Beyond Contract: Work, Power and Trust Relations. London: Faber & Faber. Gouldner, Alvin W., 1954: Patterns of Industrial Bureaucracy. New York: Free Press. Granovetter, Mark, 1974: Getting a Job. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Hochschild, Arlie, (1983) 2003: The Managed Heart: The Commercialization of Human Feeling. Reprinted with a new afterword. Berkeley: The University of California Press. Jahoda, Marie /Paul Lazerfeld/ Hans Zeisl, (1933) 1972: Marienthal: The Sociography of an Unemployed Community. London: Tavistock Publications. Streeck, Wolfgang, 1990: Status and Contract as Basic Categories of a Sociological Theory of Industrial Relations. In: David Sugarman /Gunther Teubner (eds.), Regulating Corporate Groups in Europe. Baden-Baden: Nomos, 105145. Streeck, Wolfgang, 2005: The Sociology of Labor Markets and Trade Unions. In: Neil Smelser / Richard Swedberg (eds.), The Handbook of Economic Sociology. 2nd edition. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 254283. Tilly, Chris /Charles Tilly, 1994: Work under Capitalism. Boulder: Westview Press.