In this paper, you will apply the four sociological mechanisms described by Dobbin—institutions, networks, power, and cognition— to explain a single phenomenon or event described by either Cronon or Abolafia. First, you will choose a phenomenon or event to explain. Both the Cronon and Abolafia readings offer a large number of possible choices, ranging from long historical narratives to small aspects of individual behavior. Some possible choices from Cronon include: • the practice of cornering a futures market (or the attempt to eliminate this practice) • the origin of futures trading (for example, you could start with the formula from lecture: “to-arrive” contracts + standardized grading = futures markets) • the need for insurance (or the shift away from it) in water-based grain trading • some aspect of Illinois farmers’ struggle against grain elevators that culminated in the Supreme Court decision in Munn v. Illinois Examples from Abolafia include: • the prevalence of opportunism in s bond markets • hyper-rationality as a practice among bond traders • CBOT’s battle against bucket shops These lists are not exhaustive; they are just examples. You are free to choose any event or phenomenon described by Cronon or by Abolafia as long as you can find examples of each of the four mechanisms to help explain it. After you have chosen an event or phenomenon, you should then find one example of an institution, one example of networks, one example of power, and one example of cognition that you can use to explain your chosen event or phenomenon. These are all enormous, complex events that sociologists and historians have spent years trying to explain. We do not expect you to give a comprehensive explanation of any of these things in such a short paper. Instead, your paper will be evaluated based on your ability to identify examples of institutions, networks, power, and cognition and apply those concepts as part of an explanation. Some examples described above are quite big; you are welcome to focus on a narrower aspect of any of these examples. One straightforward way to structure your paper is as follows: . Describe the basic phenomenon that you plan to explain. This can be the first paragraph or two of your paper; you don’t need a separate introductory section, because this is your introduction— you’re describing the basic event or phenomenon that the paper is about. Every paper you write should have an argument (a thesis), and this paper is no exception, but we’ve made it easy on you here. For this paper, everyone will be making the same basic argument: the last sentence of these introductory paragraphs should say something like, “In this paper, I use the concepts of institutions, networks, power, and cognition to explain .” Your argument is that these four mechanisms explain your chosen event. . Define what an institution is, describe one example of an institution that relates to your chosen phenomenon, explain why the thing you chose is an institution, and talk about how that institution helps to explain your chosen event or phenomenon. . Define what a network is, describe one example of an network that relates to your chosen phenomenon, explain why the thing you chose is an example of a network, and talk about how that network helps to explain your chosen event or phenomenon. . Define power, describe one example of a power that relates to your chosen phenomenon, explain why the thing you chose demon- strates the use of power, and talk about how your example of power helps to explain your chosen event or phenomenon. . Define cognition, describe one example of cognition that relates to your chosen phenomenon, explain why the thing you chose is an example of cognition, and talk about how your example of cognition helps to explain your chosen event or phenomenon. . Briefly conclude. This should be a few sentences that concisely summarize your fourfold explanation. We have seen a variety of definitions of these four mechanisms in lecture and throughout the Dobbin reading. These definitions are broad and often have multiple components. Sometimes the mechanisms can overlap with one another. We’ve seen many examples of power and networks operating together and many examples of institutions and cognition operating together, for example. It is fine for you to choose examples that fit in multiple categories; just place it in the mechanism you think best describes it, and make sure you have one example for all four mechanisms. For example, if you choose a mechanism that fits under both networks and power but the network aspect is what you want to describe, you can put it in the part of your paper about networks. When you then describe how that network helps to explain your chosen event, you don’t have to pretend that power doesn’t exist; you can talk about both. But you’ll still need a separate section that defines power and gives a different example of power (so you should have four different examples for your four different mechanisms). You were only responsible for reading pg. – of Dobbin, but the full chapter is posted on the website. If you’re having trouble understanding any of the four mechanisms or want more examples, the rest of the chapter contains a lot more detail on each of them. (Look in particular for the intro sections on each mechanism: networks on pg , power on pg , and cognition on pg .) Still, the most concise explanation of each mechanism is in the first seven pages that we read. If you want examples of using the four mechanisms together to explain a phenomenon of interest, there are two in the Dobbin reading: on pg. , he talks about how all four mechanisms work to explain the shift away from big, diversified conglomerate firms in the U.S., and on pg. –, Dobbin uses the four mechanisms to explain how the American railroad industry abandoned cartels and shifted instead to mergers that created regional monopolies. These examples are shorter than your papers, but they provide good models for what we mean by using the four mechanisms to explain some phenomenon.
Length and Formatting The paper should be 1300–1600 words. (This is about 4–5 double spaced pages.) Be clear and concise; you will not be rewarded for padding your word count with unnecessary words and sentences. You do not need to include a title page or even a title. Just write your name, Paper 1, and your TA’s name and section time at the top. You should double-space your paper. All other default settings should be fine (12-point font, 1-inch margins); we won’t nitpick about these things, since the paper length is defined by word count, not by number of pages. Use a professional-looking, readable font (Garamond, Times New Roman, Palatino, Arial, or similar). Essays will be graded on a numerical scale. Style counts, so please proofread and edit your essay carefully.
References and Quotations You do not need to include a “References” or “Bibliography” section for this paper, since you’ll be using readings directly from the syllabus. You may use direct quotations from Dobbin, Cronon, and Abolafia to support your arguments. You should keep these short (probably no more than one sentence in any given quote). For the most part, you should explain things in your own words, but sometimes the reading summarizes something concisely better than you can paraphrase it, and a direct quotation makes more sense. You should put these quotations inside quotation marks, followed by the author’s name, year of publication, and page number in parentheses. For example: “Social institutions create mental maps of the world in individuals” (Dobbin 2004, pg. 31). For the three readings you’ll be using, Dobbin is from 2004, Abolafia is from 1996, and Cronon is from 1991.