World Society The Writings of John W. Meyer

by Krücken, Georg; Drori, Gili S.

• ISBN13: 9780199593439
• ISBN10: 0199593434
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2010-08-06
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

John W. Meyer's work broke new grounds in institutional thought in sociology and made him a central thinker for the emerging interdisciplinary field of neoinstitutionalism, while at the same time establishing institutional thought's comparative variant, world society theory. His scholarship plays a prominent role in contemporary social theory, and has shaped research areas such as international relations and globalization, organization theory, and management studies. One of the results of Meyer's wide-ranging and interdisciplinary influence is that his work has appeared in a diverse range of outlets. This book brings together some of John W. Meyer's widely-scattered work, reviewing four decades of scholarship, and adding several original pieces from Meyer's current work. It gathers substantive commentary on social processes, from stratification to globalization to socialization, as well as on key social institutions, from science to religion to law to education. In its expansive review, this book is both about neoinstitutional thought in general and world society theory in particular. This book is both by John W. Meyer and about John W. Meyer: to the compilation of Meyer's canonized and current work, Georg Krucken and Gili S. Drori add an essay on the theoretical and empirical contribution of Meyer's institutional theory, placing it within the broader context of contemporary social theory, globalization research, and organizational studies in both in the United States and Europe.

Author Biography

Georg Krcken (Ph.D., Sociology; Bielefeld University, 1996) is Professor for Science Organization, Higher Education, and Science Management at the German University of Administrative Sciences in Speyer. Gili S. Drori (Ph.D., Sociology; Stanford University 1997) is a lecturer in Stanford University's International Relations Program and the Director of the International Relations Honors Program.

Table of Contents

List of Figures	p. vii
List of Tables	p. viii
Foreword	p. ix
Overview
World Society: A Theory and a Research Program in Context	p. 3
Reflections: Institutional Theory and World Society	p. 36
Concepts and Processes
Rationalization: Ontology and Rationalization in the Western Cultural Account	p. 67
Myth and Ritual: Institutionalized Organizations: Formal Structure as Myth and Ceremony	p. 89
Actorhood: The "Actors" of Modern Society: The Cultural Construction of Social Agency	p. 111
Diffusion: Institutional Conditions for Diffusion	p. 136
Globalization: Globalization: Sources and Effects on National States and Societies	p. 156
Applications
The Nation-State: World Society and the Nation-State	p. 173
Education: The World Institutionalization of Education	p. 206
Environment: The Structuring of a World Environmental Regime, 1870-1990	p. 222
Management: Globalization and the Expansion and Standardization of Management	p. 251
Science: World Society and the Authority and Empowerment of Science	p. 261
Human Rights: World Society, the Welfare State, and the Life Course: An Institutionalist Perspective	p. 280
The Individual: The Profusion of Individual Roles and Identities in the Postwar Period	p. 296
Law: Modern Law as a Secularized and Global Model: Implications for the Sociology of Law	p. 320
The European Union: The European Union and the Globalization of Culture	p. 344
Universities: The University in Europe and the World: Twentieth Century Expansion	p. 355
Bibliography of John W. Meyer's Writings	p. 373
Index	p. 383
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