John W. Meyer

John Wilfred Meyer is an American sociologist, born in 1935, who spent his career at Stanford University, where he is now emeritus professor. Beginning in the 1970s he developed the neo-institutional perspective on globalization known as world society theory or World Polity Theory, arguing that a shared global cultural and institutional order, carried by science, education systems and international organizations, leads nation-states and other actors around the world to adopt strikingly similar formal structures regardless of their local conditions. His work reshaped the sociology of education, organizations, and global and transnational sociology. In 2015 he received the American Sociological Association's highest honor, the W. E. B. Du Bois Career of Distinguished Scholarship Award.