| Institutions have long been considered an important unit of analysis in sociological inquiry, despite the relative ambiguity surrounding their definition and dynamics. The dissertation below offers an integrative definition of what an institution is and turns our focus towards the process and dynamics of institutional autonomy. While many sociological theorists have discussed autonomy in the past, it has often been imprecisely or with a set of taken for granted assumptions. Indeed, more often than not institutional autonomy and differentiation have been used synonymously when in fact differentiation is one macro structural dimension of autonomy along with modes of integration and self-governance. Ultimately it is argued that understanding institutional autonomy provides a more effective way of understanding how individual and corporate actors choose lines of action, set goals, and make decisions. The first part of the dissertation delineates what institutional autonomy is, how it can be measured, and what consequences result from institutional domains growing in autonomy. The second part seeks to place the general and abstract theory in the context of sociocultural evolution beginning with the emergence of political autonomy in places like ancient Egypt, ancient China, and Mesopotamia and ending with an examination of the rather recent growth of scientific autonomy. |
