Néo-institutionnalisme sociologique et nouvelle sociologie économique : quelles relations ?

• Main Author: Roberto Rizza
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Association d'Economie Politique 2008-12-01
• Series: Interventions Économiques pour une Alternative Sociale
• Online Access: http://journals.openedition.org/interventionseconomiques/292
• ISSN: 0715-3570; 1710-7377

The neo institutionalist theories attribute a central role to institutions for the understanding of social, economic, political and cultural phenomena, as well as for the reconstruction of the complex relation between individuals and the supra-individual sphere. The different versions of institutionalism agree on the fact that institutions contribute to the definition of regularities in individuals’ behaviours by reducing uncertainty and making social, economic, political and cultural phenomena more predictable. Various authors show how institutions are the result of human interaction, while trying to explain why autonomous individuals are so deeply conditioned, in their choices, by institutional schemes that they contributed to create themselves. Beyond these common interpretations, there exist profound differences in the neoinstitutionalist approaches, due to differences in the explanation of the source of institutions, the level of conditioning theyu exedrt on collective and individual behaviours, as well as their changing or inert quality. Three main orientations are disputing the field: the regulatory approach, which refers to the capacity of institut9ions to establish rules and exert contros so that individuals confirm to these; the normative approach which is based on the series of rules that introduct social prescriptions and obligations into social life; and finally the cognitive approach, which sees institutions as supra-individual schemes, basically stable, which structure and orient individual action by presenting resources and obstacles to individuals.