ABSTRACT
Macro-phenomenological institutionalism enables us to gain deeper insights into fundamental institutional changes and transformations of contemporary society. However, in order to be applicable in qualitative research some analytical presumptions and features of macro-phenomenological institutionalism must be specified in more detail than has thus far been done by the proponents of world-polity research. This requires, first and foremost, a more differentiated definition and a clearer conception of one of its central analytical concepts, namely the notion of ‘institutional diffusion’ (1). Second, it requires a more specific and detailed elaboration of the assumption of an endemic global diffusion of ‘world culture’ in relation to an increasing ‘cultural significance’ of scientific knowledge in contemporary society (2). Third, it requires a clearer outline of the link between the notion of world-cultural diffusion and the spread of development, or rather development practice, all around the world (3). And before these analytical presumptions are sketched out in more detail in the two subsequent empirical parts of this book, some major methodological implications of a macro-phenomenological research perspective will be briefly summarized in the final sub-section of this chapter (4).
