A Theory of Fields
1st Edition
Published on 15. July 2012
288 pages
978-0-19-985995-5 (ISBN)
Description
Finding ways to understand the nature of social change and social order-from political movements to market meltdowns-is one of the enduring problems of social science. A Theory of Fields draws together far-ranging insights from social movement theory, organizational theory, and economic and political sociology to construct a general theory of social organization and strategic action.
In a work of remarkable synthesis, imagination, and analysis, Neil Fligstein and Doug McAdam propose that social change and social order can be understood through what they call strategic action fields. They posit that these fields are the general building blocks of political and economic life, civil society, and the state, and the fundamental form of order in our world today. Similar to Russian dolls, they are nested and connected in a broader environment of almost countless proximate and overlapping fields. Fields are mutually dependent; change in one often triggers change in another. At the core of the theory is an account of how social actors fashion and maintain order in a given field. This sociological theory of action, what they call "social skill," helps explain what individuals do in strategic action fields to gain cooperation or engage in competition.
To demonstrate the breadth of the theory, Fligstein and McAdam make its abstract principles concrete through extended case studies of the Civil Rights Movement and the rise and fall of the market for mortgages in the U.S. since the 1960s. The book also provides a "how-to" guide to help others implement the approach and discusses methodological issues.
With a bold new approach, A Theory of Fields offers both a rigorous and practically applicable way of thinking through and making sense of social order and change-and how one emerges from the other-in modern, complex societies.
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Persons
Neil Fligstein is the Class of 1939 Chancellor's Professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of California, Berkeley. A renowned scholar of economic sociology, organizations, and political sociology, he is the author or coauthor of six books, including The Architecture of Markets and Euroclash: The EU, European Identity, and the Future of Europe.
Doug McAdam is the Ray Lyman Wilbur Professor of Sociology at Stanford University. He is the author or co-author of thirteen books in the area of political sociology, with an emphasis on social movements and revolutions. Among his best known works are Political Process and the Development of Black Insurgency, 1930-1970, Freedom Summer, and (with Sid Tarrow and Charles Tilly) Dynamics of Contention.
Content
Chapter 1: The Gist of It
Introduction - The Central Elements of the Theory -
Other Perspectives - Conclusion
Chapter 2: Micro-Foundations
Introduction - Meaning and Membership - The Collective as Existential Refuge -
Social Skill - Social Skill in Action - The Scope of the Theory -
Institutional Politics - Social movements - Markets and the Economy -
The Nonprofit Sector - Conclusion
Chapter 3: Macro Implications
Introduction - The "Embeddedness" of Strategic Action Fields -
An Excursus on Formal Organization and Bureaucracy - The State
as a system of strategic action fields - The Impact of State Fields on
Non-state strategic action fields - The Dependence of States and State
Fields on Non-state strategic action fields - Internal Governance Units -
Higher Education and the Professions - Conclusion
Chapter 4: Change and Stability in Strategic Action Fields
Introduction - Current Debates - The Emergence of Strategic Action Fields
- Sustaining a Settlement - Settlements and Ruptures - Reestablishing -
Field Stability - The Relationship between Social Skill and the State of
the Strategic Action Field - Social Skill and the Emergence of Fields - Social
Skill and the Reproduction of Fields - Social Skill and the Transformation of
Fields - Conclusion
Chapter 5: Illustrating the Perspective
Introduction - The Civil Rights Struggle, 1932-1980 - Setting the Stage -
The Field of Racial Politics - Destabilizing Changes - The Episode of Contention
and the Rise of the Civil Rights Movement - A New Settlement - The Declining
Salience of the Cold War Dynamic - The Revenge of the Dixiecrats and the End
of the New Deal Electoral Regime - The Rise of Black Power and the Rupture in
the Movement strategic action fields - The Institutionalization of the Civil Rights
Movement and Its Impact on Other Strategic Action Fields - Summing up - The
Transformation of the U.S. Mortgage Market, 1969-2010 - The Dominant Strategic
Action Fields of the Mortgage Market, 1934-1987 - Changes that Destabilized the
Mortgage Market, 1969-1987 - Settlement and the new Strategic Action Field - The
Rise of the Industrial model of the MBS market, 1993-2007 - The Causes of the
Crisis - The Impact of the Strategic Action Field based on the Industrial model on
other strategic action fields - Conclusion
Chapter 6 Methods
Introduction
The Roadmap
How to Tell if a Strategic Action Field Exists
Emergence, Stability, and Crisis, Part 1
The Problem of the State in Relation to Strategic Action Fields
Emergence, Stability, and Crisis, Part 2
Social Skill, Strategic Action, and the Question of Entrepreneurship
Considering Different Philosophies of Science and Methodological Strategies
A Positivist Approach to Strategic Action Fields
Realist Approaches to Strategic Action Fields
The Problem of Empiricism
Conclusion
Chapter 7 A Theory of Strategic Action Fields
So what is new here?
The Problem of the Accumulation of Knowledge in the Social Sciences
The Surprising Discovery of Fields
Toward a Collaborative Program of Theory and Research on Fields
Bibliography
