Foundations of Social TheoryHarvard University Press, 1994 - 993 من الصفحات Combining principles of individual rational choice with a sociological conception of collective action, James Coleman recasts social theory in a bold new way. The result is a landmark in sociological theory, capable of describing both stability and change in social systems. This book provides for the first time a sound theoretical foundation for linking the behavior of individuals to organizational behavior and then to society as a whole. The power of the theory is especially apparent when Coleman analyzes corporate actors, such as large corporations and trade unions. He examines the creation of these institutions, collective decision making, and the processes through which authority is revoked in revolts and revolutions. Coleman discusses the problems of holding institutions responsible for their actions as well as their incompatibility with the family. He also provides a simple mathematical analysis corresponding to and carrying further the verbal formulations of the theory. Finally, he generates research techniques that will permit quantitative testing of the theory. From a simple, unified conceptual structure Coleman derives, through elegant chains of reasoning, an encompassing theory of society. It promises to be the most important contribution to social theory since the publication of Talcott Parsons' Structure of Social Action in 1936. |
المحتوى
Explanation in Social Science | 1 |
Actors and Resources Interest and Control | 27 |
1 | 38 |
Rights to | 45 |
Authority Relations | 65 |
Structures of Action | 117 |
From Authority Relations to Authority Systems | 145 |
Systems of Trust and Their Dynamic Properties | 175 |
Applied Social Research and the Theory of Action | 626 |
What Should Applied Social Research Be Like? | 645 |
The Linear System of Action | 667 |
The Competitive Equilibrium and the Linear Sys of Action | 681 |
Further Derivations and Use of the Model | 687 |
Economic and Psychological Prope ties of the Utility Function | 693 |
Empirical Applications | 701 |
Extensions of the Theory | 721 |
Collective Behavior | 197 |
The Demand for Effective Norms | 245 |
The Realization of Effective Norms | 266 |
Social Capital | 300 |
Corporate Action | 323 |
The Problem of Social Choice | 371 |
From Individual Choice to Social Choice | 397 |
The Corporate Actor as a System of Action | 421 |
Rights and Corporate Actors | 451 |
Revoking Authority | 466 |
The Self | 503 |
Natural Persons and the New Corporate Actors | 531 |
Responsibility of Corporate Actors | 553 |
New Generations in the New Social Structure | 579 |
The Relation of Sociology to Social Action in the | 610 |
Trust in a Linear System of Action | 747 |
Power the MicrotoMacro Transition and Interpersonal | 769 |
Externalities and Norms in a Linear System of Action | 785 |
Indivisible Events Corporate Actors and Collective | 829 |
Dynamics of the Linear System of Action | 874 |
Unstable and Transient Systems of Action | 899 |
The Internal Structure of Actors | 932 |
References | 951 |
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