Social Norms: From Attempts of Definition Towards New Theoretical Questions and Theories of Normanivity

Social Norms: From Attempts of Definition Towards New Theoretical Questions and Theories of Normanivity


Deviatko I.F.

Dr. Sci. (Soc.), Full Professor, National Research University Higher School of Economics; Chief Researcher, Institute of Sociology of the Federal Center of Theoretical and Applied Sociology of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia deviatko@gmail.com

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Deviatko I.F. Social Norms: From Attempts of Definition Towards New Theoretical Questions and Theories of Normanivity. Sotsiologicheskie issledovaniya [Sociological Studies]. 2016. No 12. P. 35-43




Abstract

While many past theoretical discussions on nature of social norms were centered on problem of their precise definition, I propose an analysis of peculiar character of sociological theorizing about norms which is grounded in a wider interdisciplinary context (particularly, in sociologically relevant implications from H.L.A. Hart’s and H. Kelsen’s works on law and norms) and based on systematization of principal norm-related questions which varying types of theories attempt to answer, i.e., nature of norms, social mechanisms of their support and change, analytic and empiricallybased distinctions between norms and rules and conventions, irreducible complexity of norms, etc.


Keywords
social norms; conventions; rules; sociological theories; rational choice; legal theory
Content No 12, 2016