Economics of Convention and the History of Economies. Towards a Transdisciplinary Approach in Economic History

Abstract

Economie des conventions und die Geschichte von Okonomien. Perspektiven fur einen transdisziplinaren Ansatz in der Wirtschaftsgeschich te.«. This introduction and the contributions of the HSR issue intend to develop and to demonstrate the potentialities of the economics of convention (EC) for a transdisciplinary approach to the history of economies. Convention has be come a core concept in the renewal of French social sciences from structural ism towards pragmatism. Conventions are interpretative schemes for action and coordination that persons and actors use in situations under conditions of uncertainty. Through repeated interaction they become an intimate part of the history, incorporated into justifications, behaviours and social objects like in stitutions. In contrast to neoclassic economics and to new historical institution alism, the EC starts from assumptions of a plurality of economic frameworks of action, of the socio-historical construction of concepts, categories, and data. It rejects dichotomies, adopts a broad conception of the economy, conceives institutional change as the change of the conventional foundations for the pragmatic use and interpretation of institutions. Its methodology is that of a complex pragmatist situationalism, dedicated to a comprehensive approach aiming at reconstructing the internal going-on of historical processes. This spe cial issue offers a set of contributions on: the origins of the approach, its meth odological standpoint, its possible developments towards a sociology of en