INSTITUTIONALISM

The study of political institutions was dominant within political science in Britain and the

US in the early twentieth century. Until the 1950s, institutionalism enjoyed a privileged

status within the discipline-its assumptions and practices as well as its methodological

and theoretical premises were rarely questioned, let alone subject to the behavioralist

critique (Lowndes 2002).

The institutional approach can be understood as a subject matter, as a method, and as

a theory. As a subject matter, the study of political institutions is central to the identity of

the discipline of political science (Rhodes 1995).

To quote Rhodes (1995, 43), "If there is any subject matter at all that political scientists

can claim exclusively for their own, a subject mater that does not require acquisition of

the analytical tools of sister fields and that sustains their claim to autonomous existence,

it is, of course, formal-legal political structure."

Public administration, a subdiscipline within political science, has the study of

institutions as its key characteristic. Public administration is the study of "the institutional

arrangements for the provision of public services" (Hood 1987,504, in Rhodes 1995, 52)

or "the study of public bureaucracies” (Rhodes 1979, 7, in Rhodes 1995, 52). William

Robson (1975, 195, in Rhodes 1995, 52) describes the dominant approach in public

administration as institutional:

It concentrated attention on the authorities engaged in public administration, analyzed

their history, structure, functions, powers, and

relationships. It enquired how they worked and the degree of effectiveness they

achieved.

As a method, the traditional or classic institutional approach is "descriptive- inductive,

formal-legal, and historical-comparative." It is descriptive because it employs the

techniques of the historian and explores specific events, eras, people, and institutions

and inductive because inferences are drawn from repeated observations (Rhodes 1995,

43).

As such, the classic institutional approach systematically describes and analyzes

phenomena that have occurred in the past and explain contemporary political

phenomena with reference to past events. The goal is to explain and understand but not

to formulate laws (Kavanagh 1991, 482, in Rhodes 1995, 42).

The institutional approach also applies the formal-legal inquiry. Formal because it

involves the study of formal governmental organizations, and legal because it includes

the study of public law (Eckstein 1979, 2, in Rhodes 1995, 44). An example of formal-

legal methods in the study of political institutions is constitutional studies (Rhodes

1995).

The classic or traditional institutional approach is also comparative. Woodrow Wilson

(1989, xxxiv, in Rhodes 1995, 45) argued that one's "institutions can be understood and

appreciated only by those who know other systems of government... By the use of a

thorough comparative and historical method... a general clarification of views may be

obtained."
As a theory, the classic or traditional institutional approach does not only make

statements about the causes and consequences of political institutions. It also espouses

the political value of democracy (Rhodes 1995).

Proponents of the approach treat the functioning and fate of democracies (dependent

variable) as a function of, or influenced by legal rules and procedures (independent

variable). Moreover, the approach offers an opportunity for infusing into the empirical

study of politics the analysis of political values (Rhodes 1995). Influenced by the political

philosophy of Michael Oakeshott, Johnson (1975, 276-7, in Rhodes 1995, 47) describes

the rationale for the study of political institutions in the following manner.

political institutions express particular choices about how political relationships ought to

be shaped; they are in the nature of continuing injunctions to members of a society that

they should try to conduct themselves in specific ways when engaged in the pursuit of

political ends. This is to define political institutions as necessarily containing a normative

element.

Critics to the classic or traditional approach attack the approach's limitation both in

terms of scope and method. Peters (1999, 6-11, in Lowndes 2002, 92) describes the

"proto-theory of the traditional approach as "normative (concerned with good

government'), structuralist (structures determine political behavior), historicist (the

central influence of history), legalist (law plays a major role in governing) and holistic

(concerned with describing and comparing whole systems of government)" (Lowndes

2002, 92).
Similarly, Roy Macridis, a comparativist in political science, critiques the approach's

subject matter and method while focusing on the study of comparative government. He

claims that, comparative government was "excessively formalistic in its approach to

political institutions," did not have a sophisticated awareness of the informal

arrangements of society and of their role in the formation of decisions and the exercise

of power", was "insensitive to the nonpolitical determinants of political behavior"; was

"descriptive rather than problem-solving, or analytic in its method"; was insensitive to

hypotheses and their verification, and therefore, was unable to formulate a comparative

"political theory of dynamics" (Macridis 1963, 47-8, in Rhodes 1995, 48).

The historical methods and legal analysis of the classic institutional approach are

inadequate. Historical methods cannot explain systematically the structure and

behaviour of governments due to its focus on the unique. The gap between the formal

statements of the law and the practice of government renders legal analysis ineffective

(Rhodes 1995).

David Easton, the most influential critic of the traditional study of politics, found the

classic institutional approach wanting on two grounds.

First, the analysis of law and institutions could not explain policy or power because it did

not cover all the relevant variables (Easton 1971, ch. 6) Second, "hyperfactualism," or

"reverence for the fact" (75), meant that political scientists suffered from "theoretical

malnutrition" (77), neglecting "the general framework within which these facts could

acquire meaning" (89) (Rhodes 1995, 49).

Other critics noted that the approach was concerned with the institutions of government,

and yet operated with a restricted understanding of its subject matter. Its focus was on

formal rules and organizations rather than informal conventions and on official

structures of government rather than broader institutional constraints on governance

(within and outside of the state (Lowndes 2002).

By the 1980s, the traditional or classic institutional approach has declined in its

importance in political science. March and Olsen (1984,734 in Lowndes 2002, 94, and

Rhodes 1995, 53) coined the term "new institutionalism" critiquing the traditional or

classic institutional approach as having "receded in importance from the position they

held in the earlier theories of political scientists." Asserting that political institutions

played a more autonomous role in shaping political outcome, they make claims that:

The bureaucratic agency, the legislative committee, and the appellate court are arenas

for contending social forces, but they are also collections of standard operating

procedures and structures that define and defend interests. They are political actors in

their own right (March and Olsen 1984, 738, in Lowndes 2002, 94, and Rhodes 1995,

53).

In contrast to the traditional or classic institutional approach, now referred to as the "old

institutionalism," new institutionalism has a much broader, yet sophisticated definition of

its subject matter.

Political institutions are no longer equated with political organizations: 'institution' is

understood more broadly to refer to a 'stable, recurring pattern of behavior (Goodin

1996, 22). The new institutionalists are concerned with the informal conventions of
political life as well as with formal constitutional and organizational structures. New

attention is paid to the way in which institutions embody values and power relationships,

and to the obstacles as well as the opportunities that confront institutional design.

Crucially, new institutionalists concern themselves not just with the impact of institutions

upon individuals, but with the interaction between institutions and individuals (Lowndes

2002, 91).

New institutionalists argue that institutions do matter. In their seminal article on new

institutionalism, March and Olsen (1984) emphasized the central value of institutions

vis-a-vis individual choices in explaining political phenomena. They argue that political

behavior is "embedded in an institutional structure of rules, norms, expectations and

traditions that several limited the free play of individual will and calculation" (March and

Olsen 1984, 736). Burnham et al., (2004, 18) captures it succintly: "political phenomena

could not be simply reduced to the aggregate consequences of individual behavior";

rather, "the choices that people make are to a significant extent shaped by the

institutions within which they operate."

There are several variants of new institutionalism reflecting the divide between

"normative" approaches and a new, more sophisticated version of rational choice.

Normative institutionalism argues that political institutions influence actors' behavior by

shaping their "values, norms, interests, identities and beliefs" (March and Olsen 1989,

17). Hence "normative” refers to a concern with norms and values as explanatory

variables (owing much to the traditions of sociological institutionalism), and not to

'normative theory' in the sense of promoting particular norms.

Rational choice institutionalism denies that institutional factors "produce behavior" or

shape individuals' preferences, which they see as endogenously determined and

relatively stable (favoring utility maximization). Political institutions influence behavior by

affecting the structure of a situation" in which individuals select strategies for the pursuit

of their preferences (Ostrom 1982, 5-7). Institutions provide information about others

likely future behaviour, and about incentives (and disincentives) attached to different

courses of action (Lowndes 2002, 95).