Markets, Organizations, and Law - Perspectives of Convention Theory on Economic Practices and Structures (ed. Rainer Diaz-Bone & Olivier Favereau)
The "economics of conventions" (fr. économie des conventions, short EC) approach developed in France is a new, complex and pragmatic institutionalism that integrates the analysis of markets, organisations and laws. The 14 articles in this HSR Special Issue use and further develop the core concepts of the EC: quality conventions, human action, criticism and justification, the incompleteness and multiplicity of rationalities, state conventions, investments in form or bad conventions. The EC's specifically conceptualized view of law in general, companies, markets and institutions are important topics for the Special Issue.
The pragmatism of the EC starts from structuralist perspectives and shows a growing interest in the sociological theory of Michel Foucault and his topics power, dispositive and discourse. One of the aims of this special issue is to present current contributions by protagonists of the second and third generation of the EC from France (most of whom were educated at the University of Paris X - Nanterre). In addition, contributions from scientists from other countries will be presented, thus presenting the EC as an internationally established approach.