Theories of Institutions

Spotlights institutions' sociality, temporality, efficiency and power. Promotes interdisciplinary dialogue among theories of institutions.

Joseph Jupille (Author), James A. Caporaso (Author)

9780521879293, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 20 January 2022

304 pages
23.5 x 15.8 x 2 cm, 0.48 kg

'This is an ambitious and timely attempt to pull together – or at least to understand and connect – several disparate disciplinary approaches to understanding 'institutions'. For organizational theorists the book provides many insights, raises important issues, and should prompt reflection on where we might go from here. We may not all agree with some of the issues and statements made, but the scope and purpose makes this a text that matters. Read on!' Royston Greenwood, University of Alberta

The human condition teems with institutions – intertemporal social arrangements that shape human relations in support of particular values – and the social scientific work developed over the last five decades aimed at understanding them is similarly vast and diverse. This book synthesizes scholarship from across the social sciences, with special focus on political science, sociology, economics, and organizational studies. Drawing out institutions' essentially social and temporal qualities and their varying relationships to efficiency and power, the authors identify more underlying similarity in understandings of institutional origins, maintenance, and change than emerges from overviews from within any given disciplinary tradition. Most importantly, Theories of Institutions identifies dozens of avenues for cross-fertilization, the pursuit of which can help keep this broad and inherently diverse field of study vibrant for future generations of scholars.

1. Introduction: Theories of institutions
2. Institutional temporality
3. Institutional sociality
4. Institutions and (In)efficiency
5. Institutions and power
6. Conclusion.

Subject Areas: Political economy [KCP], Economic theory & philosophy [KCA], Comparative politics [JPB]