Explaining the complexity of social life remains the central challenge of the social sciences. This book offers a variety of theoretical-empirical explorations and applications inspired by an important neo-institutional approach to tackling this complexity the rule systems theory. Its point of departure is the assumption that institutions and cultural formations possess causal powers and relative autonomy, constraining and enabling people s social actions and interactions. Structural and cultural properties of society are carried by, transmitted, and reformed by human agents whose...