@article{ref1,
title="Multiple levels of analysis and the limitations of methodological individualisms",
journal="Sociological theory",
year="2011",
author="Jepperson, Ronald and Meyer, John W.",
volume="29",
number="1",
pages="54-73",
abstract="This article discusses relations among the multiple levels of analysis present in macro-sociological explanation--i.e., relations of individual, structural, and institutional processes. It also criticizes the doctrinal insistence upon single-level individualistic explanation found in some prominent contemporary sociological theory. For illustrative material the article returns to intellectual uses of Weber's &quot;Protestant Ethic thesis,&quot; showing how an artificial version has been employed as a kind of proof text for the alleged scientific necessity of individualist explanation. Our alternative exposition renders the discussion of Protestantism and capitalism in an explicitly multilevel way, distinguishing possible individual-level, social-organizational, and institutional linkages. The causal processes involved are distinct ones, with the more structural and institutional forms neither captured nor attainable by individual-level thinking. We argue more generally that &quot;methodological individualisms&quot; confuse issues of explanation with issues about microfoundations. This persistent intellectual conflation may be rooted in the broader folk models of liberal individualism.<p /><p>Language: en</p>",
language="en",
issn="0735-2751",
doi="10.1111/j.1467-9558.2010.01387.x",
url="http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9558.2010.01387.x"
}