Finding ways to understand the nature of social change and social order-from political movements to market meltdowns-is one of the enduring problems of social science. A Theory of Fields draws together far-ranging insights from social movement theory, organizational theory, and economic and political sociology to construct a general theory of social organization and strategic action.In a work of remarkable synthesis, imagination, and analysis, Neil Fligstein and Doug McAdam propose that social change and social order can be understood through what they call strategic action fields. They posit that these fields are the general building blocks of political and economic life, civil society, and the state, and the fundamental form of order in our world today. Similar to Russian dolls, they are nested and connected in a broader environment of almost countless proximate and overlapping fields. Fields are mutually dependent; change in one often triggers change in another. At the core of the theory is an account of how social actors fashion and maintain order in a given field. This sociological theory of action, what they call "social skill," helps explain what individuals do in strategic action fields to gain cooperation or engage in competition.To demonstrate the breadth of the theory, Fligstein and McAdam make its abstract principles concrete through extended case studies of the Civil Rights Movement and the rise and fall of the market for mortgages in the U.S. since the 1960s. The book also provides a "how-to" guide to help others implement the approach and discusses methodological issues.With a bold new approach, A Theory of Fields offers both a rigorous and practically applicable way of thinking through and making sense of social order and change-and how one emerges from the other-in modern, complex societies.

Chapter 1: The Gist of ItIntroduction - The Central Elements of the TheoryOther Perspectives - ConclusionChapter 2: Micro-FoundationsIntroduction - Meaning and Membership - The Collective as Existential RefugeSocial Skill - Social Skill in Action - The Scope of the TheoryInstitutional Politics - Social movements - Markets and the EconomyThe Nonprofit Sector - ConclusionChapter 3: Macro ImplicationsIntroduction - The "Embeddedness" of Strategic Action FieldsAn Excursus on Formal Organization and Bureaucracy - The Stateas a system of strategic action fields - The Impact of State Fields onNon-state strategic action fields - The Dependence of States and StateFields on Non-state strategic action fields - Internal Governance UnitsHigher Education and the Professions - ConclusionChapter 4: Change and Stability in Strategic Action FieldsIntroduction - Current Debates - The Emergence of Strategic Action Fields Sustaining a Settlement - Settlements and Ruptures - ReestablishingField Stability - The Relationship between Social Skill and the State ofthe Strategic Action Field - Social Skill and the Emergence of Fields - SocialSkill and the Reproduction of Fields - Social Skill and the Transformation ofFields - ConclusionChapter 5: Illustrating the PerspectiveIntroduction - The Civil Rights Struggle, 1932-1980 - Setting the StageThe Field of Racial Politics - Destabilizing Changes - The Episode of Contentionand the Rise of the Civil Rights Movement - A New Settlement - The DecliningSalience of the Cold War Dynamic - The Revenge of the Dixiecrats and the Endof the New Deal Electoral Regime - The Rise of Black Power and the Rupture inthe Movement strategic action fields - The Institutionalization of the Civil RightsMovement and Its Impact on Other Strategic Action Fields - Summing up - TheTransformation of the U.S. Mortgage Market, 1969-2010 - The Dominant StrategicAction Fields of the Mortgage Market, 1934-1987 - Changes that Destabilized theMortgage Market, 1969-1987 - Settlement and the new Strategic Action Field - TheRise of the Industrial model of the MBS market, 1993-2007 - The Causes of theCrisis - The Impact of the Strategic Action Field based on the Industrial model onother strategic action fields - ConclusionChapter 6 MethodsIntroductionThe RoadmapHow to Tell if a Strategic Action Field ExistsEmergence, Stability, and Crisis, Part 1The Problem of the State in Relation to Strategic Action FieldsEmergence, Stability, and Crisis, Part 2Social Skill, Strategic Action, and the Question of EntrepreneurshipConsidering Different Philosophies of Science and Methodological StrategiesA Positivist Approach to Strategic Action FieldsRealist Approaches to Strategic Action FieldsThe Problem of EmpiricismConclusionChapter 7 A Theory of Strategic Action FieldsSo what is new here?The Problem of the Accumulation of Knowledge in the Social SciencesThe Surprising Discovery of FieldsToward a Collaborative Program of Theory and Research on FieldsBibliography