ABSTRACT
It is a basic precept of economic sociology that economic arrangements are instituted and regulated by various means. Market exchanges, network relations, commodities, contracts and currencies are all organised by specific institutional forms, rules of conduct and conventional norms. An economy, as Polanyi (1992) put it, is an ‘instituted process’, held together by a variable mix of formal and informal relations, explicit and tacit rules, legal devices, social custom and policy measures. This article of faith for economic sociologists sits in an interesting relation to contemporary processes of globalisation that at times are seen as unbound and ungovernable.
