Principles of Economic Sociology

Swedberg, Richard: Principles of Economic Sociology Princeton University Press: Princeton and Oxford 2003, 366 pp., L26,95 In the last two decades or so, sociologists have developed a fresh interest in the analysis of economic phenomena resulting in an ever-growing number of innovative empirical-theoretical studies. While the subjects of these studies are diverse - they range from the working of stock markets to the formation of industrial politics - they have in common that they contest the claim that the phenomena of interest can be appropriately understood by abstract economic models. Rather, these studies demonstrate that the actors' embeddedness in social relations and social institutions is essential to the explanation. These applications of sociological theory to economic phenomena have been one of the most exciting and expanding areas of sociological research. While this `economic sociology' has been institutionalized and gained a recognizable identity within sociology, outside the discipline it has largely failed to establish itself, unlike for example sociological branches such as new institutional organization theory and social network theory, as an identifiable field. Obviously, economic sociology is in urgent need of a succinct and coherent statement of the objectives, theoretical tools and major findings of the field. The eminent scholar and protagonist of economic sociology Richard Swedberg, currently Professor of Sociology at Cornell University, appears to be uniquely suited to provide such an inventory. In his "Principles of Economic Sociology", Richard Swedberg sets himself the ambitious objective not only to write a general introduction into economic sociology, but also to provide a substantial contribution to the formation and further development of the field of economic sociology. On the one hand, he argues for a broad scope of economic sociology that encompasses not only all economic, but also all economically relevant and economically conditioned phenomena. His major concern, however, is to establish a sociological concept of interest as a basic category and indispensable analytical tool of sociology: "economic sociology should not be concerned exclusively with the impact of social relations on economic actions (which is currently its main concern. but also take interests into account" (p. xi). The book opens with a review of classical and contemporary contributions to economic sociology. In the first chapter, Swedberg emphasizes the importance of a concept of interest for the thinking of classical scholars of economic sociology. However, this does not imply that Marx has a privileged place among the `founding fathers' of economic sociology. In contrast, Swedberg places Toqueville over and above Marx and, throughout the book, it is obvious that Max Weber is considered to be the primary classical reference of the project of an economic sociology. In the second chapter, Swedberg familiarizes the reader with the idea of a `new economic sociology'. Valuable contributions to the current discourse of economic sociology are identified as being provided by structural sociology (with the network concept as the primary analytical tool) and organization sociology, in particular resource dependency theory, population ecology and new institutionalism. Swedberg also sees an important role for cultural and historical-comparative sociology. Finally, Coleman's interest based sociology is included in the canon of relevant approaches. The second part is devoted to the core institutions of economic systems, firms and markets. This part starts with a chapter about the organization of economic systems as a whole. The fruitfulness of the concept of economic organization is illustrated by distinguishing various forms of capitalism as well as various levels of economic systems such as industrial districts and the global economy. In the following chapter, it is argued that the particular contribution of economic sociology beyond organizational economics consists in the recognition of social relations within firms on the one hand and in examining the connections between firms on the other. …