Economic Sociology and Economics of Convention: Themes for Mutual Inspiration and Dialogue?

This paper is part of a larger exploration of the French Economics of Convention tradition. The aim of the paper is to explore potential themes of common interest to economic sociology and Economics of Conventions. The paper is in two parts. First, I summarise the main theoretical features of EC as 1) the reformulation of the theory of action focusing on the uncertainty of social action; 2) pointing to the importance of collective frames of reference for individual rationality; and 3) the elaboration of a theory of institutions, focusing on the importance of conventions as forming the institutional framework of social action. Second, I explore two issues raised by economics of conventions that may be particularly important to consider for economic sociology. The first issue is the explicit exploration of the consequences of a plurality of forms of justification suggested by Luc Boltanski and Laurent Thévenot in ‘économie de la grandeur’. This perspective has already been taken up in economic sociology in David Stark’s notion of a ‘Sociology of Worth’. The second issue, recently suggested by André Orléan, is the need to denaturalise economic theory and economic action to demonstrate the social constructed nature of economic action. It is argued that these two issues demonstrate that a fruitful dialogue is indeed possible between economic sociology and economics of convention.