From the 1970’s a vital sociological interest on arts and culture has raised. One can speculate about the multiple reasons for the renewed interest in the social organization of arts (production, distribution, consumption, valuation, archiving), and the diversity and plurality of different theoretical perspectives is indeed remarkable. Putting the focus on “how” modern societies organize various artistic activities implies references to formation and institutionalization but also to transformations and unforeseen and unintended ruptures. This focus explains why theories on the social organization of arts stand in an inherent nexus to general social theories.

This insight has motivated us to look closer and analyze the emergence and reception of 7 particular perspectives on the social organization of arts: the interactionist approach, the structural field theory, the systems theory of arts, the production of culture perspective, the neo-institutionalism, the cultural institution studies which has been inspired by practice-theory and pragmatist approaches, and the sociological network theory. All these approaches depart from an anti-essentialist understanding of arts and apply contextual and relational thinking on their research questions. However, they have emerged from very different theoretical foundations and scholarly contexts. Our analysis and comparison will not be evaluative – creating a ranking of theories –, but epistemological, which presupposes an appreciation of each distinct perspective aiming to advance the understanding of theory building and theoretical innovation.