ABSTRACT
In modern societies, complex authority structures and hierarchical forms have emerged alongside individual and collective rights to act. These structures have been analyzed from many different theoretical perspectives, especially from that of the individualistic approach, in relation to the problem of social order. The first theoretical attempt to take an individualistic approach to the study of formally free and intentional actors was developed by the social theorist Thomas Hobbes at the time that modern society emerged (see Hobbes [1651] 1984). Because traditional social bonds and ways of regulating behavior (family networks, tradition, and religion) lost more and more relevance in modern societies, a central topic of sociology has been the foundations and limits of rational coordination and social mechanisms. The question ofwhich institutions andmechanisms support social life and what effects may be connected to them has become central to various analyses and has informed the explication of different problems and specific mechanisms of social action.
