This book presents three social action models rational, normative and emotional. It proposes the emotional model of social action and shows the many ways in which social structures, formal organizations and social movements are pervaded by emotions. The core of the book contains three empirical case studies focused on the question of how emotions, interests and symbolic worlds account for conformism and defiance. Its last part assesses the current state of the theory of social movements and the sociology of emotions. It suggests how their agendas could be expanded."

This collection is concerned with two fundamental concepts of social science- power and emotion. Power permeates all human relationships and is constitutive of social, economic, and political life. It stands at the centre of social and political theorizing, and its study has enriched scholarship within a wide range of disciplines, including sociology, political science, philosophy, and anthropology. The conceptual cluster of emotion, by contrast, had a more troubled time within these same disciplines. However, since the 1970's and the advent of the 'emotional turn', there has been a...

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...