Emmanuel Lazega

Emmanuel Lazega focuses primarily on organizational and social networks analysis as a means to explain collective action, with the overarching aim of contributing to the development of a neo-structural sociology. His approach combines observation, modeling, correlation and comparison of the generic social processes of social life at the meso level, for instance particularistic solidarity and exclusion, collective socialization and learning processes, social control and conflict management and regulation and institutionalization, in order to better understand how the contemporary "organizational society" works.

E.Lazega developed this approach at two levels: intra- and inter-organizational. For example, he studied the different kinds of collective action among peers, with work on collegial organization and the links between bureaucracy and collegiality for lawyers, judges, researchers and priests, among others. He also conducted a study on cooperation between competitors, which looked at the simultaneous regulation of markets and the business world. This theoretical and analytical framework provides an insightful lens for looking at the shifting border between the public and private spheres and the way private actors are increasingly taking the place of public authorities in a number of areas of economic and social life.

A number of interdisciplinary collaborations are at the root of the development of this neo-structural approach, notably with network statisticians. Models also had to be developed in order to produce robust and reliable analyses of complex data, for example in the field of multi-level network dynamics. E.Lazega co-directs a research group on intra- and inter-organizational networks (orio.dauphine.fr/), which aims to help PhD students and researchers maintain the methodological and technical skills necessary to carry out such analyses.

E.Lazega teaches the course in Organizational Sociology for second-year undergraduate students at Sciences Po, as well as a master''s course called Capital relationnel et capital social (Relational and social capital).
At the PhD level, he co-teaches a seminar, which also functions as a public lecture series, called Réseaux et Régulation (Networks and Regulation).

Teaching Activities

Organizational Sociology, second-year undergraduate course at Sciences Po.

Capital relationnel et capital social (Relational and social capital), master''s level course for the Master in Sociology at Sciences Po.

Other Activities

Professional activities

Co-director of the Intra- and inter-organizational networks research group (ORIO)
Co-teacher of the public seminar Réseaux et Régulation (Networks and Regulation) since 1996.
Member of the Programmatic Steering Board, Hague Institute on the Internationalization of Law.

Awards

Fellow of the European Academy of Sociology, since 2010.
Senior member of the Institut Universitaire de France, class of 2003.
Wiarda Award and Wiarda Chair Professor, Faculty of Law, Utrecht University, 2003-2004.

Education

Post-doctoral fellow, then lecturer (1988-1991), Departments of Sociology at Yale University (1988-1991) and Columbia University (1988-1989).
Specialized in quantitative methods, intra- and inter-organizational network analysis and economic sociology.

Visiting graduate student and research assistant, Wolfson College, Centre for Socio-Legal Studies, Oxford University (1986-1988).
Specialized in sociology of professions.

Habilitation, University of Versailles, St-Quentin (1994). Coordinator: Alain Chenu.

PhD in economic and social sciences, University of Geneva (1988). Thesis advisor: Christian Lalive d''Epinay.