Neil Fligstein

Neil Fligstein (born May 23, 1951) is an American sociologist, and a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, known for his work in economic sociology, political sociology and organizational theory. He has produced both empirical and theoretical works.

Fligstein's main theoretical works center in economic sociology where he has created a "political-cultural" approach to markets in works on corporate control,^[1] the "architecture of markets",^[2] and "markets as politics."^[3] He has used these ideas to study the European Union's attempt to create a single market through cooperative political means.^[4]

In 2008, he published a book with Doug McAdam entitled A Theory of Fields that proposes a cohesive view of field theory as an approach to study many of the key features of modern life including politics, the economy, and social movements.^[5]

Biography

Born in Seattle, Washington, Fligstein obtained his BA in 1973 from Reed College, his MS in 1976 from the University of Wisconsin, and his Ph.D. in 1979 from the University of Wisconsin.^[6]

After his graduation Fligstein started his academic career in 1979 as an Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of Arizona. From 1980 to 1982, he was at the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago, where he was appointed Senior Study Director and NIMH Postdoctoral Fellow. Fligstein returned to the University of Arizona and in 1984 he was promoted to associate professor and in 1990 full professor. From 1984 to 1988 he was the director of the SBSRI Data and Software Library. In 1991 he moved to the University of California, Berkeley, where he was appointed Professor of Sociology. He was the department chair from 1992 to 1995. Fligstein is the founder and director of the Center for Culture, Organization, and Politics at the Institute for Research on Labor and Employment at the University of California, Berkeley; the center has been in existence since 1998.

Fligstein has been the recipient of various honors and awards. He was named the Class of 1939 Chancellor's Professor at the University of California, Berkeley in 1997.^[6] He was a fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences in Palo Atlo, California, in 1994–95, a Guggenheim Fellow in 2004–05, and a fellow at the Rockefeller Center in Bellagio, Italy, in 2007. Fligstein was elected a member of the American Academy of arts and Sciences in 2010. He has also been a visiting scholar at many institutions including the Max Planck Institute in Cologne, the Ecole Normal Superiore-Cachan, Sciences-Po in Paris, Center for the Study of Organizations in Paris, the European University Institute in Florence, and the Copenhagen Business School.

Work

Fligstein's work has mainly focused on a novel theoretical approach to develop a sociological view on how new social institutions emerge, remain stable, and are transformed. He has used this perspective to study a wide variety of seemingly disparate phenomena. Fligstein's innovation is to consider how most of social action takes place in what he calls "meso-level social orders" or fields. He is interested in theorizing how individuals and groups come to face off against one another in social arenas where there is something at stake.

His book with Doug McAdam, A Theory of Fields, makes a very general set of claims about how such orders operate. They argue that at the beginning of such projects, a social movement like process exists because of the fluid conditions in a particular social space. What is at stake, who the players are, and what will end up being the underlying logic of the order are all up for grabs.

He is also well known for proposing how to produce a sociological view of action that makes actors key to the creation of these orders. He argues that social skill, the ability to empathize with others and thereby engage in collective action, is at the basis of gaining cooperation to produce new fields and keep existing ones going.^[7] He posits that actors with social skill are especially important as fields emerge as they are the one who provide collective identities that bring people together to cooperate to produce a social order.

Theory of markets

Fligstein has used his perspective in the context of developing a theory of markets.^[8] This theory views the production of a new market as the creation of a meso-level social order or field. Here, competition between firms often results in the creation of markets characterized by incumbents and challengers where the incumbents' business model dominates how the market operates. He calls such a perspective a "conception of control".

Fligstein provocatively argues that the creation of a market implies a collective stable order that works to mitigate the worse effects of competition. He also views the state as central to the construction of stable markets providing not just a general social order and a legal system, but often as a participant and regulator of many markets. In Architecture of Markets,^[8] he develops this approach in a quite general way and then applies it to understand the emergence of shareholder value capitalism in the U.S., the construction of labor markets across countries, the varieties of capitalism, and globalization. His "markets as politics" approach^[9] is considered to be one of the foundational works in modern economic sociology.

History of the large American corporation

Fligstein's study of the history of the large American corporation^[10] shows how this process evolved in the U.S. from 1870 to 1980. He shows how the conception of the corporation changed as owners and managers of firms faced challenges from competition.

In the late 1800s and early 1900s, owners and managers worked to establish monopolies. When government challenged this in the 1910s through the use of antitrust law, firms had to have new business models that did not involve taking over entire markets. This led to the creation of oligopolies in many U.S. markets where 2–4 large firms would dominate particular markets and use their size to set prices and mitigate competition. This peaked during the 1920s as a way to avoid antitrust attention. The depression of the 1930s produced a general economic crisis.

Fligstein shows that firms responded by diversifying their product lines and aggressively using sales and marketing tactics to increase market share and guarantee at least some market for their products. Finally, the government once again pursued antitrust policy aggressively in the post World war II era. They tried to prevent increasing product concentration within product lines. This encourage businesses to diversify even more. It gave rise to the conglomerate form and eventually to the creation of most of the modern financial tactics to engage in mergers and acquisitions in the 1950–1980s.

Construction of a European legal and political system

Fligstein has also used this framework to understand the construction of a European legal and political system.^[4] He has shown how the European Single Market project was mostly aimed at making it easier for businesses who were already involved in international trade to expand their activities across Europe.^[11] He has also shown how the political and legal integration in Brussels promoted trade by making it easier to trade.^[12]

His book Euroclash: The EU, European identity, and the Future of Europe ^[4] shows how economic, social, and political fields have formed around Europe in the wake of the creation of the European Union. The book presents a set of analyses that show how the increased economic cooperation across Europe has transformed industries and countries. it has also create opportunities for European citizens to travel, learn second languages, and live in other countries.

The book explores how this has affected European identities. it demonstrates that around 13% of people in Europe think of themselves mostly as Europeans. these people tend to be well educated, have professional and managerial jobs, and be politically liberal. About half of Europeans sometimes think of themselves as Europeans. Fligstein goes on to explore how this has played out across various political issues. He demonstrates that if a majority of citizens in the member states support more integration, it will occur. But he argues that most politics remains national and citizens who mainly have a national identity continue to support their nation states as their most democratic representatives.

Selected publications

• Fligstein, Neil and Doug McAdam. A Theory of Fields. Oxford University Press, 2012.
• Fligstein, Neil. Euroclash: The EU, European Identity, and the Future of Europe. 2008.
• Fligstein, Neil. The transformation of corporate control. Harvard University Press, 1993.
• Fligstein, Neil. The architecture of markets: An economic sociology of twenty-first-century capitalist societies. Princeton University Press, 2001.
• Sweet, Alec Stone, Wayne Sandholtz, and Neil Fligstein, (eds.) The institutionalization of Europe. Oxford University Press, 2001.

Articles, a selection

• Fligstein, Neil. "The spread of the multidivisional form among large firms, 1919-1979". American Sociological Review. 1985: 377–391. doi:10.2307/2095547. 
• Fligstein, Neil. "Markets as politics: A political-cultural approach to market institutions" (PDF). American Sociological Review. 1996: 656–673. doi:10.2307/2096398. 
• Fligstein, Neil (1997). "Social skill and institutional theory". American Behavioral Scientist. 40 (4): 397–405. doi:10.1177/0002764297040004003. 
• Fligstein, Neil (2001). "Social skill and the theory of fields" (PDF). Sociological theory. 19 (2): 105–125. doi:10.1111/0735-2751.00132. 

References

External links

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• Neil Fligstein at UC Berkeley