Daniel Kluttz And Neil Fligstein Appears In Handbook Of .
Varieties of Field TheoryDaniel Kluttz and Neil FligsteinAppears in Handbook of Contemporary SociologySeth Abrutyn, EditorSpringer Publsihing, 2016.AbstractKeywords (separatedby “ - ”)Field theory offers a radically alternative view of social life. It is concernedwith how a set of actors orienting their actions to one another do so withina meso-level social order. Fields, once formed, are the arenas where thesociological game of jockeying for position constantly plays out. Our purposeis to review contemporary field theory as articulated in three major theoreticalstatements in sociology. We discuss field theory’s intellectual roots, payingparticular attention to the influences of Max Weber and Kurt Lewin, but alsophenomenology and symbolic interaction. We next provide an overview of threeof the most developed elaborations of field theory from the last half-century –Pierre Bourdieu’s theory of fields (1992), the neo-institutional approach toorganizational fields (DiMaggio and Powell, Am Socio Rev 48(2):147–160,1983), and the theory of strategic action fields recently proposed by Fligsteinand McAdam, A theory of fields. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2012.We follow these overviews with more a detailed examination of how each ofthese theories addresses two of the most fundamental problems in sociologicaltheory: (1) how to conceive of agency and actors in fields, and (2) howsocial fields emerge, reproduce, and change. We spend the bulk of our essaydiscussing key differences between the three approaches on these issues. Weend by suggesting the next steps forward in elaborating field theory.Field theory - Strategic action fields - Meso-level social theory - Organizationalfields - Bourdieu
2Varieties of Sociological FieldTheory3Daniel N. Kluttz and Neil Fligstein1410.15The explanation of social action in sociologicaltheory has traditionally focused on either macroor micro-level analyses. Field theory offers analternative view of social life. It is concernedwith how a set of actors orienting their actions toone another do so in a meso-level social order.Field theory implies that there is something atstake in such an order, that there are rulesgoverning the order, that actors have positionsand resources, and that actors have an understanding of the order that allows them to interpretthe actions of others and frame a response. Fields,once formed, are the arenas where the sociological game of jockeying for position constantlyplays out.Our purpose in this chapter is to review contemporary field theory as articulated in threemajor theoretical statements in sociology.1 Webegin with a brief description of the core tenets ofany contemporary sociological field theory. e only review theories that explicitly invoke the fieldconcept. There are a great many perspectives in sociologythat appear compatible with field theory, for example, network analysis (White 1992) and the institutional logicsperspective (Thornton et al. 2012). But these perspectiveseschew field as a central concept and are not discussed inthis chapter.10then discuss field theory’s intellectual roots, paying particular attention to the influences of MaxWeber and Kurt Lewin but also phenomenologyand symbolic interactionism. We next provide anoverview of three of the most developed elaborations of field theory from the last half-century –Pierre Bourdieu’s theory of fields (1992), theneo-institutional approach to “organizationalfields” (DiMaggio and Powell 1983), and themodel of “strategic action fields” recently proposed by Fligstein and McAdam (2012). We follow these overviews with a more detailedexamination of how each of these theoriesaddresses two of the most fundamental problemsin sociological theory: (1) how social fieldsemerge, reproduce, and change, and (2) how toconceive of agency and actors.We spend the bulk of our essay discussing keydifferences between the three approaches onthese issues. Although there are some commonalities across the varieties of field theory, thereare also some clear differences of opinion.Drawing its model of social action from Bergerand Luckmann (1967) and phenomenology,foundational neo-institutional theory downplaysthe exercise of power in fields and offers us aview of actors who tend towards habit and conformity in their actions and rely on cues from thefield to legitimate their actions. In contrast,D.N. Kluttz (*) N. FligsteinUniversity of California, Berkeley,Berkeley, CA, USAe-mail: dkluttz@berkeley.edu; fligst@berkeley.edu Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2016S. Abrutyn (ed.), Handbook of Contemporary Sociological Theory,Handbooks of Sociology and Social Research, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-32250-6 102526272829303132333435363738394041424344 [AU1]454647484950515253
D.N. Kluttz and N. 9100Bourdieu’s theory emphasizes the role of powerin field construction and focuses on how thestructuring of the field gives more powerfulactors the tools by which to consistently win thegame. He develops a sophisticated model ofaction predicated on “habitus,” which is a concept to explain how people form cultural framesthat inform their ability to interpret the actions ofothers. While there are clear affinities betweenthe model of actors in Bourdieu and classic neoinstitutional theory, Bourdieu’s model focuses onhow actors use their existing cognitive frames toengage in strategic yet socially structured action.On the questions of field emergence andchange, Bourdieu and neo-institutional theoryfocus mostly on the reproducibility of field structure as the outcome of social action. Fligstein andMcAdam (2012) theorize emergence and changemore explicitly and offer the most fluid and political view of field dynamics. They suggest thateven stable fields are constantly undergoingchange, as contestation over all aspects of thefield is part of the ongoing field project. Fligsteinand McAdam advance the idea that fields areembedded in systems of fields that greatly influence the ability of actors to create and reproducestable worlds. They also provide insight into fieldemergence and transformation by viewing theseas situations in which all aspects of field formation are up for grabs. Finally, they develop theevocative concept of social skill to explain howactors influence, dominate, or cooperate withothers to produce and sustain meso-level socialorder.We clarify these differences of opinion to suggest two future lines of work. First, it is possiblethat each of these perspectives captures something plausible about how the world works. Whatis left unspecified is the scope conditions underwhich one or the other of these perspectivesshould be deployed. Second, it may turn out thatone of these perspectives in fact offers a betterempirical way to make sense of meso-level socialorders. Establishing their differences allowsscholars to construct tests by which the validityof one or the other of these perspectives can beestablished. The promise of field theory is itspotential to explain interactions in a wide varietyof social settings. It offers a set of conceptualtools that can be deployed for many of the mostimportant sociological questions. Progress willbe made only by sharpening our understanding ofthe differences in field theories in order to betterunderstand how they can be profitably used.10.2Common Themes in FieldTheoriesThe main idea in field theory is that most of sociallife occurs in arenas where actors take oneanother into account in their actions. These interactions occur where something is at stake. Butfields also imply a stable order, one that allowsfor the reproduction of the actors and their socialpositions over time. This general formulation of afield is sometimes described as a meso-levelsocial order. The term “meso” refers to the factthat actors are taking each other into account inframing actions within some theoretically orempirically defined social arena. This means thatthe explanation of social action is done in thecontext of the field. This does not mean that allactors are individuals. Instead, field theory conceives of actors as including individuals, groups,subunits of organizations, organizations, firms,and states. Examples of meso-level social ordersmade up of both individual and collective actorsinclude groups of individuals who work in anoffice and cooperate over a task, subunits of organizations that vie for organizational resources,firms that compete with one another to dominatea market, and states that come together to negotiate treaties. The primary unit of analysis is neither a macro-social process that contains someunderlying structural logic operating independently of actors (e.g., social class) nor is it amicro-social process that focuses on the idiosyncratic preferences and motivations of individualactors.Field theorists share a spatial, relationalapproach to understanding how actors interactwith one another. Actors are located in a socialspace (the field), which is a socially 0131132133134135136137138139140141142143144
10 Varieties of Sociological Field 76177178179180181182183184185186187188arena in which actors are oriented toward oneanother over a common practice, institution,issue, or goal. Being oriented toward one another,field actors frame their actions and identities visà-vis one another (i.e., relationally). Actorswithin a field recognize (if not always follow)shared meanings, rules, and norms that guidetheir interactions. Fields structure actors’ interests and influence them to think and act in accordance with the rules and expectations of the field.Nevertheless, field actors have the agentic capacity (again, to varying degrees depending on theversion of the theory) to accumulate resourcesand/or seek advantages vis-à-vis others. Suchresources and advantages can include legitimacy,the accumulation of various forms of capital inorder to exert power over others, and the buildingof political coalitions to further collectiveinterests.Field theorists use the field construct to makesense of how and why social orders can be reproduced. They have increasingly become interestedin how fields emerge and are transformed.Underlying this formulation is the idea that afield is an ongoing game where actors have tounderstand what others are doing in order toframe their action. This has caused field theoriststo consider issues of agency and action and todevelop sociological views of how cognitionworks, focusing on issues of culture, framing,identity, habit, and socialization. Finally, whilethe role of actors varies across formulations offield theories, such theories explicitly reject rational actor models and instead rely on phenomenology and symbolic interactionism to understandwhat actors do under varying field conditions.10.3Classical Rootsof ContemporarySociological Field TheoryWe trace the classical roots of contemporarysociological field theory to two primary influences, Max Weber and Kurt Lewin. Then webriefly discuss how phenomenology and symbolic interactionism have provided the founda-tions of field theories’ models of action. Wedirect the reader to Mey (1972) and Martin (2003)for more detailed accounts of the classicalfoundations of field theory that draw from manymore theoretical lines of inquiry. In particular,Martin (2003) provides a concise review of fieldtheory’s roots in the physical sciences (particularly classical electro-magnetism), the contributions of the Gestalt school of psychology apartfrom Lewin, and the contributions of other intellectual ancestors not discussed here, most notably Ernst Cassirer, Karl Mannheim, and FriedrichFürstenberg.Max Weber argued that social relationshipsrequire meaningful action between two or moreactors whose actions are based on an awarenessof and orientation to the other (Weber 1978:28–30). Weber also took the position that socialrelationships can scale up to higher levels (e.g.,organizations, associations, etc.) and become asocial order that encompasses a multitude ofactors. A social order can simultaneously be itsown complex of meaning and part of a broadercomplex of meaning. Weber identified a smallnumber of orders present in every society: legal,social, economic, political, and religious. Hethought that something different is at stake ineach order and the struggles over a particularorder could only be interpreted from the perspective of groups vying for advantage in that order(1978). For example, honor or status is at stake inthe social order, power in the political order, thesaving of souls in the religious order, and economic advantage in the economic order. Weberthought that power in one order could bring aboutpower in another. So, for example, economic success could spill over to social honor or esteem.However, Weber also thought that the relationship between orders was the product of history.For example, in a theocracy, the religious ordercould dominate the political and economic order.With his emphasis on the symbolic in addition tothe material dimension of relations, Weber was offundamental importance to field theorists’ conceptions of fields as socially constructed arenasof 220221222223224225226227228229230231232233234
D.N. Kluttz and N. 65266267268269270271272273274275276277278As a social psychologist with a background inGestalt psychology, it was Kurt Lewin who mostdirectly transferred the ideas of field theory fromthe physical sciences into the social sciences.Lewin applied Gestalt concepts of perception –that stimuli are not perceived as individual partsbut by their relation to the whole field of perception – to social psychology and, in particular,human motivation and how social situationsinfluence cognition (Mohr 2005). Lewin (1951:240) also developed formal models to representfields, which he defined as the “totality of coexisting facts which are conceived of as mutuallyinterdependent,” and the life space, defined as“the person and the psychological environmentas it exists for him” (1951: 57).For Lewin, the individual’s phenomenologicalapprehension of the world could be simultaneously influenced by the field environment andhis/her navigation of the life space. The life spaceis made up of regions of experience, the meaningof each being defined by its relations to otherregions. And because one’s apprehension of afield also influences the field itself, the effects ofone on the other are reciprocal. Individual behavior, then, could be explained only by consideringthe totality of the interaction between the individual’s navigation of the life space and the environment. Although Lewin has been criticized for,among other things, his ultimately unworkabletopological formalizations (see Martin 2003:18–19), his explicit use of the field metaphor andhis emphasis on the co-constitution of fields andactors served as an important foundation onwhich contemporary sociological field theorieswere built.Field theorists have used a variety of sourcesto construct their model of the actor. For example, Bourdieu’s notion of habitus has manysources – some in philosophy like Husserl,Heidegger, and Merleau-Ponty as well as sociologists who were philosophically inclined andinfluenced by phenomenology, like Mauss andElias.2 Mauss (1934) defined habitus as those2Crossley (2004) provides a lengthy discussion ofMerleau-Ponty’s deep influences on Bourdieu’s theoreti-aspects of culture that are anchored in the body ordaily practices of individuals, groups, societies,and nations. It includes the totality of learnedhabits, bodily skills, styles, tastes, and otherforms of non-discursive knowledge that might besaid to “go without saying” for a specific group.Elias used the habitus concept to make sense ofthe changes in personality he detailed in TheCivilizing Process (1939).Neo-institutionalists rely heavily on Bergerand Luckmann’s The Social Construction ofReality (1967) for their model of actors (Powelland DiMaggio 1991). Berger and Luckmanndrew their inspiration from Alfred Schutz, a sociologist who was trained in phenomenology.Berger and Luckmann argued that the world is asocial construction. It requires effort for this toemerge, effort that implied institutionalizationand legitimation. Like the habitus for Bourdieu,an existing social world gets internalized viasocialization.Compared to the neo-institutional elaborationof organizational fields, Fligstein and McAdam(2012) draw more heavily on Mead’s (1934)symbolic interactionism. Symbolic interactionism is a perspective grounded in American pragmatist philosophy (Menand 2001). It bears manyresemblances to phenomenology, viewing thesocial world as a construction and socializationas the main way in which that world is inculcatedin individuals. But Mead’s symbolic interactionism also proposes that one of the main goals ofsocial action is for actors to help shape and createtheir worlds. At the core of interaction is the ideathat we have identities that we share with others.These identities provide the basis for our cooperation with others. Bourdieu also cites symbolicinteraction as a source for his view of socialaction. Because he was interested in how powerwas actually experienced in interaction, he sawsymbolic interaction as a way to frame how theless powerful accepted their fate in interactionwith the more powerful.cal framework. Interestingly, it was also through MerleauPonty’s work that Bourdieu first encountered Weber(Bourdieu et al. 2013: 0311312313314315316317318319320321
10 Varieties of Sociological Field Theory32210.4323Contemporary Elaborationsof Sociological Field Theory32410.4.1 Bourdieu’s Field Theory325Pierre Bourdieu is the contemporary sociologistmost often associated with field theory. Bourdieudeployed the idea of field as part of a more complex theoretical framework that included twoother major concepts, capital and habitus (seegenerally Bourdieu 1977, 1986; Bourdieu andWacquant 1992). For Bourdieu, social life takesplace in fields. Fields are arenas of struggle, andBourdieu frequently uses the game metaphor todescribe how action takes place in fields. Infields, players occupy positions relative to oneanother but have a shared sense of the sociallyconstructed, centralized framework of meaning,or what is at stake in the field. Bourdieu’s fieldsare relatively autonomous, meaning each tends tohave its own logic (or “rules of the game”) andhistory. Players compete with one another forresources, status, and, most fundamentally, overthe very definition of the “rules of the game” thatgovern field relations. Relations withinBourdieu’s fields are mostly hierarchical, withdominant individuals or groups imposing theirpower over dominated groups as a result of theirability to control the field, what is at stake, andwhat counts as rules and resources.The main source of power for dominant actorsis the capital that they bring to the field. Actorswithin a field are endowed with physical (or economic), social, human, and cultural capital(Bourdieu 1986, 1989: 17).3 One’s position in afield is defined by the volume and form of capitalone possesses. Those with similar volumes andforms of capital tend to cluster in similar positions in a field. Actors within a field wield capitalin order to improve or maintain their field positions. A field is thus the site where actors 73583593603All
On the questions of field emergence and change, Bourdieu and neo-institutional theory focus mostly on the reproducibility of field struc- ture as the outcome of social action. Fligstein and McAdam (2012) theorize emergence and change more explicitly and offer the most fluid and polit- ical view of field dynamics. They suggest that
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