A Market is a Market is a Market?: Institutional Conditions for the Construction of Market Mechanisms

Abstract

What is colloquially known as the "post-socialist transition" comes at an opportune time for economic sociologists, for we are in the midst of developing sociological ways of thinking about economic practices and structures. We had long ceded economic institutions to economists, satisfying ourselves with explaining organizational structures (but not business practices), cultural and welfare policies (but not industrial or economic policies), religious and educational institutions (but not market institutions), and affective and normative behavior (but not rational behavior).