IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hal/journl/hal-04446410.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Interdisciplinary Research Programme of Methodological Individualism: Back to Its Foundations

Author

Listed:
  • Francisco J. Bellido

    (NOVA - Universidade Nova de Lisboa = NOVA University Lisbon)

Abstract

According to methodological individualism any scientific explanation in the social sciences should have recourse to individual beliefs, wishes, intentions and actions. This article sets forth two practical reasons to endorse a clear-cut, classical version of methodological individualism as a research programme in the social sciences. The first one is that methodological individualism should lead to fundamental heuristic hypotheses. The second reason is that methodological individualism has the epistemological strength of producing statements open to logical refutation. The present article questions highly sophisticated accounts of methodological individualism. It suggests instead four tenets to be a valid research programme in the social sciences underscoring an intuitive language to analyze social phenomena. By doing so, it reviews some distinctive features of methodological individualism: Max Weber's ideal types, Joseph Schumpeter's notion of given behaviour, Friedrich Hayek's concept of individual action and Jon Elster's account of explanatory mechanisms.

Suggested Citation

  • Francisco J. Bellido, 2024. "The Interdisciplinary Research Programme of Methodological Individualism: Back to Its Foundations," Post-Print hal-04446410, HAL.
    • Handle: RePEc:hal:journl:hal-04446410
    DOI: 10.46298/jpe.13056
    Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://hal.science/hal-04446410v3
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://hal.science/hal-04446410v3/document
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.46298/jpe.13056?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. G. Hodgson, 2007. "What Are Institutions?," Voprosy Ekonomiki, NP Voprosy Ekonomiki, issue 8.
    2. Svetlana Kirdina, 2015. "Methodological individualism and methodological institutionalism for interdisciplinary research," Montenegrin Journal of Economics, Economic Laboratory for Transition Research (ELIT), vol. 11(1), pages 53-67.
    3. Hodgson, Geoff, 1986. "Behind Methodological Individualism," Cambridge Journal of Economics, Cambridge Political Economy Society, vol. 10(3), pages 211-224, September.
    4. Friedel Weinert, 2014. "Social mechanisms and social causation," The Journal of Philosophical Economics, Bucharest Academy of Economic Studies, The Journal of Philosophical Economics, vol. 8(1), November.
    5. Boettke, Peter J. & Coyne, Christopher J., 2005. "Methodological individualism, spontaneous order and the research program of the Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 57(2), pages 145-158, June.
    6. Yuichi Shionoya, 1990. "Instrumentalism in Schumpeter's Economic Methodology," History of Political Economy, Duke University Press, vol. 22(2), pages 187-222, Summer.
    7. Gregor Zwirn, 2007. "Methodological Individualism or Methodological Atomism: The Case of Friedrich Hayek," History of Political Economy, Duke University Press, vol. 39(1), pages 47-80, Spring.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Agnieszka Lipieta & Andrzej Malawski, 2016. "Price versus quality competition: in search for Schumpeterian evolution mechanisms," Journal of Evolutionary Economics, Springer, vol. 26(5), pages 1137-1171, December.
    2. Nastasi, Federico & Spagano, Salvatore, 2023. "Institutionalist Clues in Celso Furtado’s Economic Thought," MPRA Paper 120242, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    3. Maximiliano Marzetti & Rok Spruk, 2023. "Long-Term Economic Effects of Populist Legal Reforms: Evidence from Argentina," Comparative Economic Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Association for Comparative Economic Studies, vol. 65(1), pages 60-95, March.
    4. Robert Roßner & Dimitrios Zikos, 2018. "The Role of Homogeneity and Heterogeneity Among Resource Users on Water Governance: Lessons Learnt from an Economic Field Experiment on Irrigation in Uzbekistan," Water Economics and Policy (WEP), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 4(03), pages 1-30, July.
    5. Mika Kallioinen, 2017. "Inter‐communal institutions in medieval trade," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 70(4), pages 1131-1152, November.
    6. Luis Alfonso Dau & Aya S. Chacar & Marjorie A. Lyles & Jiatao Li, 2022. "Informal institutions and international business: Toward an integrative research agenda," Journal of International Business Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Academy of International Business, vol. 53(6), pages 985-1010, August.
    7. Valentin Seidler, 2017. "Institutional Copying in the 20th Century: The Role of 14,000 British Colonial Officers," Journal of Contextual Economics (JCE) – Schmollers Jahrbuch, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin, vol. 137(1-2), pages 93-119.
    8. Masahiko Aoki, 2013. "Institutions as cognitive media between strategic interactions and individual beliefs," Chapters, in: Comparative Institutional Analysis, chapter 17, pages 298-312, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    9. Marletto, Gerardo, 2011. "Structure, agency and change in the car regime. A review of the literature," European Transport \ Trasporti Europei, ISTIEE, Institute for the Study of Transport within the European Economic Integration, issue 47, pages 71-88.
    10. Simon Hartmann & Thomas Lindner & Jakob Müllner & Jonas Puck, 2022. "Beyond the nation-state: Anchoring supranational institutions in international business research," Journal of International Business Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Academy of International Business, vol. 53(6), pages 1282-1306, August.
    11. George Liagouras, 2016. "From Heterodox Political Economy to Generalized Darwinism," Review of Radical Political Economics, Union for Radical Political Economics, vol. 48(3), pages 467-484, September.
    12. Zoltán Bartha & Andrea S. Gubik, 2014. "Characteristics Of The Large Corporation-Based, Bureaucratic Model Among Oecd Countries – An Foi Model Analysis," DANUBE: Law and Economics Review, European Association Comenius - EACO, issue 1, pages 1-20, March.
    13. Renato Garcia & Ulisses Pereira dos Santos & Wilson Suzigan, 2020. "Industrial upgrade, economic catch-up and industrial policy in Brazil: general trends and the specific case of the mining industry [Upgrade industrial, catch-up econômico e política industrial no Bras," Nova Economia, Economics Department, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais (Brazil), vol. 30(spe), pages 1089-1114, December.
    14. Elsner, Wolfram & Heinrich, Torsten, 2009. "A simple theory of 'meso'. On the co-evolution of institutions and platform size--With an application to varieties of capitalism and 'medium-sized' countries," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 38(5), pages 843-858, October.
    15. Thierry Baudassé & Rémi Bazillier & Ismaël Issifou, 2018. "Migration And Institutions: Exit And Voice (From Abroad)?," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 32(3), pages 727-766, July.
    16. Magdalena Owczarczuk, 2020. "Institutional competitiveness of Central and Eastern European countries and the inflow of foreign direct investments," Catallaxy, Institute of Economic Research, vol. 5(2), pages 87-96, December.
    17. Garofalo, Maria Rosaria, 2011. "Il volontariato può sostenere lo sviluppo? Riflessioni metodologiche per la costruzione di un frame work teorico [Can the voluntary sector sustain the development path of an economy? Suggestions fo," MPRA Paper 40008, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    18. Orihuela, José Carlos & Mendieta, Arturo & Pérez, Carlos & Ramírez, Tania, 2021. "From paper institutions to bureaucratic autonomy: Institutional change as a resource curse remedy," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 143(C).
    19. Hans-Bernd Schaefer & Rok Spruk, 2024. "Islamic Law, Western European Law and the Roots of Middle East's Long Divergence: a Comparative Empirical Investigation (800-1600)," Papers 2401.14435, arXiv.org, revised Mar 2024.
    20. Gustafsson Kurki, Pär, 2025. "Putin’s Military Clergy: Organisation, Work Tasks, Purpose, and Propaganda," SocArXiv hk6mj_v1, Center for Open Science.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    methodological individualism; research programme; social sciences; social phenomena; explanatory mechanisms;
    All these keywords.

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:hal:journl:hal-04446410. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: CCSD (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.