The Sociology of Markets

Abstract

The sociology of markets has been one of the most vibrant fields in sociology in the past 25 years. There is a great deal of agreement that markets are social structures characterized by extensive social relationships between firms, workers, suppliers, customers, and governments. But, like in many sociological literatures, the theory camps that have formed often seem to speak by each other. We show that some of the disagreement between theory camps is due to differences in conceptual language, and other disagreements stem from the fact that theory camps ignore the concepts in other theory camps, thereby making their theories less complete. We end by considering deeper controversies in the literature that seem open both to new conceptualization and further empirical research. 6.1

Housing and positive European integration: permissible state aid for improving the urban environment

“…Although competition takes place through markets, enterprises may avoid those markets where competition is most fierce, because that is where margins are generally lowest; rather, they may choose markets with less competition (Fligstein and Dauter, 2007) to find 'shelters from price competition' (Fligstein 1996, 659), such as, by receiving state aid (Kassim and Lyons 2013). One aim of the single European market was to break through these 'shelters' by changing the rules of exchange (Fligstein and Mara-Drita 1996).…”

Using the social structure of markets as a framework for analyzing vaccination debates: The case of emergency polio vaccination

“…13 In recent years, scholars have been using the sociological prism to study market interactions, allowing better examination of the tied and tangled networks of social interactions between market actors and examination of the theoretical constructs which characterize those interactions.…”

“…14 Close ties to others over long periods of time, enhance the credibility of transactions 15 and create information dependence. 13 Trust of the lay public in health authorities is also a major factor in compliance with vaccination campaigns 8,16,17 Trust is strongly linked to uncertainty in the market structure, and is related to the difficulty in estimating the quality or value of the exchangeable commodities. 18 In the vaccination discourse, enhancing uncertainty is one of the major tools used by vaccination opponents to undermine the authority of the health establishment.…”

“…10,19 Information appears to be another theoretical construct that emerges from market analyses. 13 Information is a valuable resource that market actors will try to acquire and exchange. [20][21] Information exchange is also a major tool in vaccination debates where complex medical information has to be communicated to the general public by authorities in a clear yet accurate way, and should compete with destructive information provided by the anti-vaccination groups.…”

Theorizing command-and-commodify regulation: the case of species conservation banking in the United States

“…Unlike direct authoritative power, economic power is thus indirect: it structures action by altering the economic context that the action unfolds within. In contemporary capitalist economies, this context is very often 'the market,' where the politically and culturally conditioned terms of the "the competitive price struggle" (ibid: 82) shapes and constrains economic behavior, but where authoritative commands do not compel "formally free" actors to do one thing and not another (Fligstein 2001;Fligstein and Dauter 2007;Fourcade and Healy 2007). 9 These two orthogonal modes of domination suggest a neat four-fold typology of regulatory power: institutions can structure economic action with high levels of authoritative power and low levels of economic power; low levels of authoritative power and high levels of economic power;…”