Political Modernities: Disentangling Two Underlying Dimensions of Institutional Differentiation

Abstract

This article recommends that we recover two old contrasts from the history of social thought in order to facilitate the recently renewed discussion of multiple variants of European political modernity. Recovering them greatly aids in clarifying the different "modernizing" paths that the European-system polities took during the stateconsolidation and nation-building periods of the "long nineteenth century." Specifically, the basic polity forms delineated in this article capture strikingly well the distinctive "institutional logics" and political cultures of the Anglo, Nordic, Germanic, and French orbits, legacies enduring through the 1960s and beyond. Clarifying these polity forms also helps in isolating underlying institutional changes occurring in the contemporary (post-World War II) period (current institutional convergence, for example).

Institutional Logics and Interorganizational Learning in Technological Arenas: Evidence from Standard-Setting Organizations in the Mobile Handset Industry

“…Among the most visible of such institutions is the varieties of corporatism across countries. We construe corporatism as "located in the realm of institutional behavior" (Schmitter 1981: 295)-an exploration of how society is organized to achieve its economic goals rather than as a political ideology (Cawson 1986, Hicks and Kenworthy 1998, Jepperson 2002. In this vein, the organization of society is characterized as either more corporatist-a society of orders with a set of rights and obligations, or less corporatist (pluralist)-a society of individuals bound in loose association (e.g.…”

“…In this vein, the organization of society is characterized as either more corporatist-a society of orders with a set of rights and obligations, or less corporatist (pluralist)-a society of individuals bound in loose association (e.g. Jepperson andMeyer 1991, Jepperson 2002). …”

“…Our conceptualization of nationally embedded institutional logics draws from the literature on comparative social systems as providing the basis for explaining organizational behavior and actions in economic exchanges (Jepperson andMeyer 1991, Dobbin 1994). Of importance to our study is the theory of corporatism as a national-level social system wherein, on one end of the continuum, a high level of corporatism fosters a logic of overarching cooperation and coordination through which organizations achieve their desired goals, and on the other end of the continuum, a low level of corporatism, or pluralism, engenders competitive and market-based solutions (Schmitter 1981, Cawson 1986, Jepperson 2002.…”

“…Our conceptualization of nationally embedded institutional logics draws from the literature on comparative social systems as providing the basis for explaining organizational behavior and actions in economic exchanges (Jepperson andMeyer 1991, Dobbin 1994). Of importance to our study is the theory of corporatism as a national-level social system wherein, on one end of the continuum, a high level of corporatism fosters a logic of overarching cooperation and coordination through which organizations achieve their desired goals, and on the other end of the continuum, a low level of corporatism, or pluralism, engenders competitive and market-based solutions (Schmitter 1981, Cawson 1986, Jepperson 2002. Cross-national variations in corporatism are shown to hold important consequences for outcomes such as distinctive approaches to countries' technology policies (Spencer et al 2005) and the redistribution of wealth (Hicks and Kenworthy 1998), inter-firm technological alliance formation and knowledge flows (Vasudeva et al 2013), and training attitudes of individuals (Luo 2007).…”

Múltiplas modernidades ou variedade da modernidade?

“…Não seria surpreendente, portanto, se muitos dos fenômenos que associamos à modernidade (ou à modernização) se manifestassem lá depois -e, de fato, há sinais de que é precisamente isso o que está acontecendo (cf., p. ex., JEPPERSON, 2002) 22 .…”