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Embeddedness, Path Dependency and Social Institutions

An Economic Sociology Approach

Enzo Mingione

Università degli Studi di Milano-Bicocca

This paper argues for a theoretical approach based on embeddedness which assumes that the economic actor is not an atomized and utilitarian individual, but is in fact positioned within specific historical and institutional contexts in various social networks. This approach is based on Polanyi's critically debated contribution which allows for an empirical study of the diversity of institutional structures and of the significance of configurations of insertion within different social networks. Such diversity results from the double movement of disembeddedness and re-embeddedness caused by the spread of constantly emerging market opportunities, and by the importance held by the historically and culturally different selective processes of path dependency in the construction of the institutions of social regulation and of the socialized preferences of economic actors. Within these processes attention is given to the transformation of social systems based on reciprocity (household, kin, social capital networks, etc.), associations of shared interests, forms of economic organization (in a plurality of coexisting ‘economies’), unequal distribution of power, and political intervention.

Key Words: culture • embeddedness • entrepreneurship • kin network • market • path dependency • reciprocity • social institutions

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