Economic sociology in political times

Jeanne Lazarus
This issue concludes a series exploring how economic sociology can contribute to public and political debates through its concepts, methods, and empirical insights. The aim is not to politicize economic sociology in a normative sense but to examine how the field can enrich contemporary discussions, illuminate major social challenges, and shed light on the power relations that structure economic life.

Timur Ergen, Olivier Pilmis, and Marcin Serafin
This essay grows out of a sense that the sociology of markets, once an intellectual center of gravity in the new economic sociology, no longer occupies the place it used to. In turn, economic sociologists have shifted their attention away from developing sociological takes on the workings of the market to elsewhere. We suspect that most readers share the intuition.

Benjamin Lemoine
Tracing back my research trajectory, I open up avenues for connecting international political economy to political sociology of financial administration and science and technology studies (STS). I argue for an approach that wields granularity as a banner without forsaking the analysis of macro-structural transformations: by following the contested and reversible sedimentation of instruments through which financialization of the state is accomplished – and might be otherwise.

José Ossandón and Leonard Seabrooke
What follows is a dialogue between José Ossandón and Leonard Seabrooke. José’s background is in sociology and he has specialized in economic sociology. He also tends to write about issues like neoliberalism, the impact of economics on the economy, and finance, all in the zone of intersection with political economy literature. Len combines political economy and economic sociology to study a range of issues, often from a micro-foundations approach.

Michael Albertus · 2025
Land Power: Who Has It, Who Doesn’t, and How That Determines the Fate of Societies
New York: Basic Books
Reviewer: Franklin Obeng-Odoom

Thea Riofrancos · 2025
Extraction: The Frontiers of Green Capitalism
New York: W. W. Norton & Company
Reviewer: R. Hayden Courtney

James D. G. Wood · 2026
States of Innovation: Driving the American Economy in the 21st Century
Bristol: Bristol University Press
Reviewer: Justin Kollar