Chapter 2 What Difference Does it Make? An Institutional Perspective on Actors and Types Thereof

Abstract While some institutionalists have highlighted the explanatory power of organizational actors, others stress their social construction. In line with the latter perspective, the author states in the first part that, except from meta-theoretical reflections, the social sciences tend to utilize actor concepts without further reflection. The author also shows how actors are reproduced in social practice, excessively in media semantics and more rigid in legal affairs, and that experts and professional helpers constantly reproduce actor images and identities. The second part focuses on the differences between the three dominant types of actors: states, organizations, and individuals. Although rationalization constructs the three different types of actors, which share much in common as institutionally derived entities, each type – still – has its own distinctive qualities: welfare issues are crucial for states; emotional qualities are a characteristic feature of individuals; and stakeholder sensitivity is paramount for organizational actors.