Should (American) Institutionalists Read (French) Sociologists?

Focusing on studies of the European Union, this paper deals with (dis)agreements between the new institutionalism and Bourdieu-inspired political sociology. The aim is to suggest concrete ways to integrate the sociological tradition into the neo-institutionalist literature. To do so, it first shows how the importance given by neo-institutionalists to rules and norms gives way to a broader theory of fields in French sociology. It then proposes to add conflict and domination (which are dominant in political sociology) to the institutionalist toolbox of mechanisms of institutional change, including unanticipated consequences, entrepreneurship, social innovation, and isomorphism. Finally it argues that it would be sound for neo-institutionalists to go beyond the abstract dichotomy between the logic of consequences and the logic of appropriateness by adopting a more generic conception of practice tested by fieldwork.