Dr David Pinzur STC.S217a

This course is available on the MRes/PhD in Management (Organisational Behaviour), MSc in Economy, Risk and Society, MSc in Political Sociology and MSc in Sociology. This course is available as an outside option to students on other programmes where regulations permit.

This course studies the cultural, social, and technological elements underlying and influencing market behaviour. We will touch upon several key topics, including the production of calculability, valuation and pricing, measurement, classification, application of economic theory, and expectation-setting. Our concern throughout the course will be first, to identify the distinct challenges facing market action, and second, to reveal how these challenges are met, the relation of solutions to existing power structures, and the consequences, both inside and outside the market, that result. By the end of the course, students will have developed a distinctly sociological understanding of economic markets, and applied this perspective to an original case study.

This course is delivered through a combination of lectures, online materials and seminars totalling a minimum of 20 hours in MT.

Reading Weeks: Students on this course will have a reading week in MT Week 6, in line with departmental policy.

A 1500 word essay is required.

Recommended texts:

• Callon, Michel. 1998. The laws of the markets. Blackwell Publishers: Oxford;
• Fligstein, Neil. 2001. The Architecture of Markets. An Economic Sociology of Twenty-First-Century Capitalist Societies. Princeton, NJ a.o.: Princeton University Press;
• Granovetter, Mark. 1995[1974]. Getting a Job: a Study of Contacts and Careers. Chicago; London: Chicago University Press;
• Krippner, Greta R. 2002. "The elusive market: Embeddedness and the paradigm of economic sociology." Theory and Society 30:775-810;
• Swedberg, Richard. 2003. Principles of Economic Sociology. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.

Case analysis (100%) in the LT.

The course is assessed by a 5000 word case analysis due in LT week 2. Assessment will consist of a report on ONE case study.

An electronic copy of the assessed essay, to be uploaded to Moodle, no later than 4.00pm on the second Wednesday of Lent Term.

Attendance at all workshop sessions and submission of all set coursework is required.

Department: Sociology

Total students 2019/20: 21

Average class size 2019/20: 20

Controlled access 2019/20: Yes

Value: Half Unit