Social Action and Economic Institutions:

achievements for sociological research

Abstract

The “metamorphosis of the world” has shaken established economic institutions, demanding that the researcher recognize the changes in the map of economic activity. The purpose of this article is to examine the contributions of the concept of “social action” to the sociological investigation of transformations in economic processes, particularly in realities such as the Brazilian which experience such transformations without having fully constituted modern capitalist institutions. Progress of different formulations and emphases of the concept has allowed complementarities to examine the active construction of concrete economic relations by agents in the face of institutional resistance. These developments have instigated the understanding and analysis of processes of reproduction of power relations as well as the production of cooperative relations that initiate the rise of economic activities and establish normative frameworks. The argument presupposes that crisis situations in the markets require the observation of the significant actions of the agents for the reconstruction of economic relationships and organizations whose basis is found not only in the search for material interests but also in the legitimacy of social conventions and legal norms. The predominance of economic action for instrumental purposes leads, after a certain point, to the instability of economic relations and orders, requiring the reconstruction of arrangements between conventions and norms to stabilize economic relations and systems.