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  1. Home
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  3. Institutions and Social Conflict
  • Cited by 876
Publisher:
Cambridge University Press
Online publication date:
September 2009
Print publication year:
1992
Online ISBN:
9780511528170
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511528170
Subjects:
Social Theory, Political Economy, Politics and International Relations, Sociology
Series:
Political Economy of Institutions and Decisions
Information

Book description

Many of the fundamental questions in social science entail an examination of the role played by social institutions. Why do we have so many social institutions? Why do they take one form in one society and quite different ones in others? In what ways do these institutions develop? When and why do they change? Institutions and Social Conflict addresses these questions in two ways. First it offers a thorough critique of a wide range of theories of institutional change, from the classical accounts of Smith, Hume, Marx and Weber to the contemporary approaches of evolutionary theory, the theory of social conventions and the new institutionalism. Secondly, it develops a new theory of institutional change that emphasises the distributional consequences of social institutions. The emergence of institutions is explained as a by-product of distributional conflict in which asymmetries of power in a society generate institutional solutions to conflicts.

Reviews

"Overall, this is an interesting book written with clarity and conciseness and contains a very valid argument for understanding the emergence and development of social institutions." Review of Radical Political Economics

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