Jens Beckert Explained

Jens Beckert (born 21 July 1967, in Frankfurt am Main)[1] is a German sociologist with a strong interest in economic sociology.[2] [3] The author of books on inherited wealth and the social foundations of economic efficiency and imagined futures in the economy,[4] he focuses on the role of the economy in society – especially based on studies of markets – as well as organizational sociology, the sociology of inheritance, and sociological theory.[5] He is director at the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies (MPIfG) in Cologne, Germany, and a member of the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities.[6]

Education and career

Beckert earned his MA in sociology at the New School for Social Research in New York City in 1991 and his MBA at Free University of Berlin in 1993.[7] He earned his doctorate with a dissertation in the field of economic sociology in 1996 at Free University of Berlin and his habilitation at the same university with a book on the sociology of inheritance in 2003.[8] An associate professorship in sociology at International University Bremen (2002–2003) and a professorship in sociology at the University of Göttingen (2003–2005) preceded Beckert’s appointment at age 37 as director at the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies (MPIfG),[9] which conducts basic research on the governance of modern societies.[10] Beckert has had visiting fellowships at Princeton University, Harvard University, the European University Institute in Florence,[11] the Center for the Sociology of Organizations (CSO)[12] in Paris, and the Paris Institute for Advanced Study.[13] He gave a Mario Einaudi Lecture at the Center for International Studies at Cornell University in 2007.[14] In 2019-20 he was Theodor Heuß Professor at the New School for Social Research in New York.[15]

Current position and activities

He is director at the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies (MPIfG) in Cologne. In addition, Beckert is a member of the Faculty of Management, Economics and Social Sciences at the University of Cologne.[16] He is a faculty member of the International Max Planck Research School on the Social and Political Constitution of the Economy, a doctoral program run jointly by the MPIfG and the Faculty of Management at the University of Cologne.[17] [18] Beckert is an editor of the European Journal of Sociology[19] and a member of the editorial board of Socio-Economic Review.[20] He was council member of the Economic Sociology Section of the American Sociological Association (ASA).[21]

Research

Economies as social orders within societies

Jens Beckert’s current work at the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies reflects a research program he has developed with his former codirector Wolfgang Streeck which “proposes to invest in a theory of social action as the most promising approach to a deeper understanding and an improved theorization of the economy as a socially and politically constituted system of action.”[22]

“Any economy is socially and politically constructed. The way it is socially embedded reflects both prevailing systems of meaning and the results of political ‘market struggles’ over social regulation. Investigating institutional regulation of the economy requires studying how economies are constituted as social orders within societies.”[23]

Markets from a sociological perspective

In his research cluster on the “Sociology of Markets,” Beckert focuses on “markets as the core institution of capitalist economies,” seeking “to understand the functioning of markets from a distinctively sociological perspective.” Analyzing markets “from a Weberian viewpoint as arenas of social struggle in which actors confront each other under conditions of competition,” he explores the “social, cultural, and political underpinnings for the development of the order of markets.”[24]

Embeddedness of economic action

“The problem of uncertainty market actors face when making decisions” is a key issue in Beckert’s research, which examines “the coordination problems market participants must cope with” – the problems of value, competition, and cooperation. “Uncertainty also provides a theoretical opening to explain the embeddedness of economic action.”[25]

Awards and honours

Selected publications

Books

Articles

External links

Notes and References

  1. Web site: Max Planck Society – CV Jens Beckert. 24 June 2014.
  2. Web site: Personal Homepage Jens Beckert . 24 June 2014 . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20140808140146/http://www.mpifg.de/people/jb1/lebenslauf_en.asp . 8 August 2014 .
  3. Web site: Jens Beckert answers ten questions about economic sociology. Economic Sociology – The European Electronic Newsletter, Vol. 7, No. 3, 2006, 34–39 . 24 June 2014 . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20160304023222/http://econsoc.mpifg.de/archive/econ_soc_07-3.pdf . 4 March 2016 .
  4. Web site: Publications by Jens Beckert in the Catalog of the German National Library. 24 June 2014.
  5. Web site: Research Interests . 24 June 2014 . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20140808172638/http://www.mpifg.de/people/jb1/forschung_en.asp . 8 August 2014 .
  6. Web site: Current Members of the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities. 24 June 2014. 23 September 2015. https://web.archive.org/web/20150923230501/http://www.bbaw.de/en/academy/members/alphabetical_order?letter=B. dead.
  7. Web site: Prof. Dr. Jens Beckert, Researchers at the MPI for the Study of Societies . 24 June 2014 . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20160303233031/http://www.mpifg.de/forschung/wissdetails_en.asp?MitarbID=54 . 3 March 2016 .
  8. Web site: Personal Homepage Jens Beckert . 24 June 2014 . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20140808140146/http://www.mpifg.de/people/jb1/lebenslauf_en.asp . 8 August 2014 .
  9. Web site: Max Planck Society – CV Jens Beckert. 24 June 2014.
  10. Web site: Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies . 24 June 2014 . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20140808083649/http://www.mpifg.de/institut/institut_en.asp . 8 August 2014 .
  11. Web site: Max Planck Society – CV Jens Beckert. 24 June 2014.
  12. Web site: The CSO welcomes Jens Beckert. 24 June 2014.
  13. Web site: Fellows at Paris Institute for Advanced Study . 24 June 2014 . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20140808051422/http://paris-iea.fr/en/resident/jens-beckert . 8 August 2014 .
  14. Web site: Mario Einaudi Center for International Studies, Cornell University, p.23 . https://wayback.archive-it.org/all/20140615194518/http://www.einaudi.cornell.edu/sites/dev.einaudi.cornell.edu/files/AR2006-2007web.pdf . dead . 15 June 2014 . 24 June 2014 .
  15. Web site: Jens Beckert . 2024-02-22 . www.mpifg.de . en.
  16. Web site: Cologne Graduate School in Management, Economics and Social Sciences, University of Cologne. 24 June 2014. 8 August 2014. https://web.archive.org/web/20140808033844/http://www.cgs.uni-koeln.de/faculty.html. dead.
  17. Web site: International Max Planck Research School on the Social and Political Constitution of the Economy (IMPRS-SPCE) . 24 June 2014 . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20140706101423/http://imprs.mpifg.de/imprs_faculty.asp . 6 July 2014 .
  18. Web site: PhD Program at the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies . 24 June 2014 . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20130606185850/http://imprs.mpifg.de/downloads/2012-10-imprs-folder_w.pdf . 6 June 2013 .
  19. Web site: European Journal of Sociology. 24 June 2014.
  20. Web site: Socio-Economic Review. https://web.archive.org/web/20140808051422/http://www.oxfordjournals.org/our_journals/soceco/editorial_board.html. dead. 8 August 2014. 24 June 2014.
  21. Web site: Section on Economic Sociology. American Sociological Association . 24 June 2014 . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20140629045424/http://asanet.org/sections/economic.cfm . 29 June 2014 .
  22. Web site: Research Program of the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies . 24 June 2014 . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20150124002713/http://www.mpifg.de/forschung/forschprogramm_en.asp . 24 January 2015 .
  23. Web site: J. Beckert and W. Streeck: Economic Sociology and Political Economy: A Programmatic Perspective . 24 June 2014 . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20130723125654/http://www.mpifg.de/pu/workpap/wp08-4.pdf . 23 July 2013 .
  24. Web site: Introduction to "Sociology of Markets." Research Projects at the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies . 24 June 2014 . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20071212141138/http://www.mpifg.de/forschung/projdetails_en.asp?ProjekteID=113 . 12 December 2007 .
  25. Web site: Introduction to "Sociology of Markets." Research Projects at the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies . 24 June 2014 . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20071212141138/http://www.mpifg.de/forschung/projdetails_en.asp?ProjekteID=113 . 12 December 2007 .
  26. Web site: Jens Beckert . 2024-02-22 . www.mpifg.de . en.
  27. Web site: Leibniz Prize to Jens Beckert . 2024-02-22 . www.mpifg.de . en.
  28. Web site: Current Members of the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities. 24 June 2014. 23 September 2015. https://web.archive.org/web/20150923230501/http://www.bbaw.de/en/academy/members/alphabetical_order?letter=B. dead.
  29. Web site: Juristische Bücher des Jahres – Eine Leseempfehlung. 24 June 2014.
  30. Web site: Prizewinners. 24 June 2014.
  31. Web site: Tribute to Jens Beckert. 24 June 2014.
  32. Beckert . Jens . 2023-12-25 . Varieties of wealth: toward a comparative sociology of wealth inequality . Socio-Economic Review . 10.1093/ser/mwad068 . 1475-1461. free .
  33. Beckert . Jens . 2022-07-29 . Durable Wealth: Institutions, Mechanisms, and Practices of Wealth Perpetuation . Annual Review of Sociology . en . 48 . 1 . 233–255 . 10.1146/annurev-soc-030320-115024 . 0360-0572.
  34. Beckert . Jens . April 2021 . The Firm as an Engine of Imagination: Organizational prospection and the making of economic futures . Organization Theory . en . 2 . 2 . 263178772110057 . 10.1177/26317877211005773 . 2631-7877. free .
  35. Web site: Markets from Meaning: Quality Uncertainty and the Intersubjective Construction of Value . 2024-02-22 . academic.oup.com.

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Jens Beckert".

Except where otherwise indicated, Everything.Explained.Today is © Copyright 2009-2024, A B Cryer, All Rights Reserved. Cookie policy.