This book examines and compares the two major traditions of institutionalist thinking in economics: the 'old' institutionalism of Veblen, Mitchell, Commons, and Ayres, and the 'new' institutionalism developed more recently from neoclassical and Austrian sources and including the writings of Coase, Williamson, North, Schotter, and many others. The discussion is organized around a set of key methodological, theoretical, and normative problems that necessarily confront any attempt to incorporate institutions into economics. These are identified in terms of the issues (...) surrounding the use of formal or non-formal analytical methods, individualist or holistic approaches, the respective roles of rational choice and rule-following behavior, the relative importance of the spontaneous evolution and deliberative design of institutions, and questions concerning the normative appraisal of institutions. The old and the new institutionalism have often been paired on opposite sides of these issues, and the issues themselves presented in a series of sharp dichotomies. Professor Rutherford argues, however, that matters are both more complex and more challenging. Although each tradition embodies fascinating insights into the study of economic institutions - their functioning, evolution, and impact on human welfare - neither has as yet provided fully satisfactory answers to the problems identified. (shrink)

The author deals with the legal theoretical approach that has been labelled “legal institutionalism.” An old and a new version of this approach are singled out: The old one is identified with the theory defended by the Italian public lawyer Santi Romano in the first half of this century; the second one is seen in the recent work by Ota Weinberger and Neil MacCormick. After a short presentation of Romano's work, his ideas and the development proposed by MacCormick and (...) Weinberger are compared. Similarities and differences between the two versions of institutional theory are worked out. A coda hints at an ambiguity in the definition of institution proposed by the “new” institutionalism. (shrink)

In The Aesthetic Function of Art, I was mainly concerned to show how my “new aestheticism” can meet standard objections to aestheticism, but I have come to realize that, since it is as much a new institutionalism as it is a new aestheticism, its institutionalist aspect requires defense as much as its aestheticist aspect does. In this article, I show how a judicious aestheticizing of George Dickie's second version of the institutional theory of art, incorporating fundamental features of my (...) own view, can meet what seems to me to be the most serious objection to institutionalism in general, the dilemma famously proposed by Richard Wollheim. (shrink)

volume 1. Developing institutional theory -- volume 2. New research agendas -- volume 3. Applying institutional theory.

This paper makes the case for an inhabited institutionalism by pondering questions that continue to vex institutional theory: How can we account for local activity, agency, and change without reverting to a focus on individual actors—the very kinds of actors that institutional theory was designed to critique? How is change possible in an institutional context that constructs interests and sets the very conditions for such action? Efforts to deal with these questions by inserting various forms of individual, purposive actors (...) into institutional frameworks have created inconsistencies that threaten the overall coherence of institutional theory and move it farther from its sociological roots. To provide alternative answers, we turn to the growing line of work on “inhabited” institutions. Our exegesis of this literature has two goals. The first goal is to shift focus away from individuals and nested imagery and towards social interaction and coupling configurations. This move opens new avenues for research and helps to identify the spaces—both conceptual and empirical—and the supra-individual processes that facilitate change. This shift has important theoretical implications: incorporating social interaction alters institutional theory, and our second goal is to specify an analytic framework for this new research, an inhabited institutionalism. Inhabited institutionalism is a meso-approach for examining the recursive relationships among institutions, interactions, and organizations. It provides novel and sociologically consistent means for dealing with issues of agency and change, and a new agenda for research that can reinvigorate and reunite organizational sociology and institutional theory. (shrink)

This paper deals with the concepts of science and social control to be found within interwar institutional economics. It is argued that these were central parts of the institutionalist approach to economics as the key participants in the movement defined it. For institutionalists, science was defined as empirical, investigational, experimental, and instrumental. Social control was defined in terms of the development of new instruments for the control of business to supplement the market mechanism. The concepts of science and social control (...) were joined via John Dewey's pragmatic and instrumental philosophy. These ideas provided important links to the ideals of foundations, such as Rockefeller, and thus to access to research funding. Institutionalist concepts of science and social control were, however, displaced after World War II by Keynesian policy and positivist ideas of scientific methodology. (shrink)

The purpose of this study is to conceptualize and theorize the circulation-chain model as an education policy implementation framework systematically. The circular-chain education policy implementation process and effect evaluation analysis model are a theoretical innovation model and practical exploration path to explore the implementation and effect evaluation of education policies according to the new problems and trends in the implementation of education policies. In particular, the connotation, the theoretical basis, the elements, the value, and the objective and significance of the (...) circulation-chain education policy implementation model have been explored and analyzed in this study. (shrink)

This article seeks to explain and conceptualise certain aspects of industrial and technological change at the regional level, using the Baltic region as a case. The concept of new institutions is applied to understand recent attempts to stimulate organised behaviour, trustrelations and co-operation at the level of low policy. New regional institutions deal with competing pressure groups, but their strength lies mostly in the ability to orchestrate and influence pressure groups in a formative way. The article identifies potential starting points (...) for this regional involvement. It is divided into three parts. First, some of the economic problems and potentials of the Baltic states are scrutinised. Second, some features of new institutions are explored at the theoretical level. Third, some aspects of international policy-making are briefly discussed, especially the concept of low policies and bottom-up approaches. (shrink)

In this article, the hypothesis according to which the institutional change is determined by the mobilization of social capital is exposed. It is analysed what consequences derived from this fact in relation to the processes of deinstitutionalization of the policy. It proposes an interpretation of academically relevant results about the meaning of the term ‘deinstitutionalization’, explains some of the most important antecedents on institutional theory and, fially, proposes some fundamental ideas to advance the philosophical reflction about the so-called new (...) class='Hi'>institutionalism. (shrink)

This book provides a selective and somewhat cheeky account of prominent positions in legal theory, such as American legal realism, modern legal positivism, sociological systems theory, institutionalism and critical legal studies. It presents a relational approach to law and a new perspective on legal sources. The book explores topics of legal theory in a playful manner. It is written and composed in a way that refutes the widespread prejudice that legal theory is a dreary subject, with a cast of (...) characters that occasionally interact in order to illustrate the claims of the book. Legal experts claim to know what the law is. Legal theory-or jurisprudence-explores whether such claims are warranted. The discipline first emerged at the turn of the 20th century, when the self-confidence of both legal scholarship and judicial craftsmanship became severely shattered, but the crisis continues to this day. (shrink)

This work analyzes the centrality of law in nineteenth-century historical and institutional economics and is a prehistory to the new institutional economics of the late twentieth century. In the 1830s the 'new science of law' aimed to explain the working rules of human society by using the methodologically individualist terms of economic discourse, stressing determinism and evolutionism. Practitioners stood readier than contemporary institutionalists to admit the possibilities of altruistic values, bounded rationality, and institutional inertia into their research program. Professor Pearson (...) shows that the positive analysis of law tended to push normative discussions up from the level of specific laws to that of society's political organization. The analysis suggests that the professionalization of the social sciences - and the new science's own imprecision - condemned the program to oblivion around 1930. Nonetheless, institutional economics is currently developing greater resemblances to the now-forgotten new science. (shrink)

While it is well known that SME owner–managers’ sustainability values and attitudes impact their company’s sustainability activities, they often face profit-driven institutional orders. In a qualitative study, we investigate which identities are critical for their engagement in sustainability and how these identities interrelate with their institutional environment. We applied a qualitative design with narratives from 29 owner–managers of hospitality businesses who belong to a New Zealand-based sustainability network. Our study revealed no single overarching sustainability identity; instead, six identities could be (...) identified as sustainability-related and be linked to different institutional orders. By analyzing the interplay between the identities and the institutional environment, we also found mechanisms on how SME owner–managers impact on their business’ sustainability. We revealed that an adequate institutional environment can foster the development of sustainability-related identities, which in turn can lead to cultural evolution towards more sustainability. By integrating identity theory with organizational institutionalism, we contribute to theoretical development and to further sustainability research at individual and institutional level. (shrink)

I investigate contemporary Russia's real, but shallow success in implementing two borrowed capitalist institutions—a monetary system and the joint-stock company. Even though money and shares of stock in Russia are exchanged in voluntary transactions, they fail to play the legal roles ordinarily expected of them, resulting in weak corporate governance and nonmonetary exchange. Via a criticism of game-theoretic approaches to institutions in the New Institutional Economics, I argue that the roots of this shallow marketization lie in the distinct social foundations (...) of the transactional and legal roles of money and corporate stock. Arguments drawn from sociological institutionalism then illuminate why Russia displays this limited isomorphism to authoritative international models of market institutions. The article concludes by discussing implications for a third body of institutional theory, historical institutionalism, and the possible broader relevance of the pattern of shallow marketization in contemporary relatively backward countries. (shrink)

In what way do the corporatist and authoritarian legacies that modelled some Latin American labor institutions influence the opportunities for and restrictions on organizing workers in a new context? To what extent did institutional designs, together with other economic and political factors, influence the characteristics that currently distinguish the union organizations in the countries of the region? Taking into consideration the existence of a broader debate about the consequences of globalization and political democratization for unions, the contribution of historical (...) class='Hi'>institutionalism and previous research, in this Article I compare the institutional and organizational dynamics of unions in four countries with authoritarian legacies and corporatist traditions. The Article argues that in spite of these shared traditions, the differences in the institutional designs — which have scarcely been considered in the specialized literature — have historically imposed distinctive features on the associational power of workers and unions. These features not only persist to the present day, but also translate into dissimilar trajectories of the labor movement and opportunities for organizing workers in the last decade. (shrink)

Poststructuralist discourse theory is enjoying increasing recognition for its potential to contribute to the study of institutional change and continuity. Yet the most fruitful approach to realizing this potential has hitherto not been found. The main proposition so far has been to operationalize DT’s insights and concepts by adopting them into the framework of discursive institutionalism. However, an ongoing debate about the compatibility of the ontologies underlying DT and DI has cast doubts over whether such a combination is theoretically (...) feasible. The critical literature review in the first part of this article indeed finds insurmountable ontological differences between the discourse-theoretical and the discursive-institutionalist traditions, as their clashing notions of what is understood as a ‘discourse’ result in diverging views on power, agency, and subjectivity. Instead of merging DT into DI, I suggest to empower the former as a self-sufficient paradigm for institutional analysis. To achieve this, the second part of this article re-articulates the ‘logics framework’ proposed by Jason Glynos and David Howarth into a middle-range theory for the study of institutionalization and politicization in a discourse-theoretical fashion. The purpose of this re-articulation is to dispel various arguments against the viability of an autonomous poststructuralist approach to institutions. (shrink)

Caroline New is an energetic activist who has interpolated critical realist ideas into the front-line of political activism. In this wide-ranging interview, she begins by reflecting on her life and how she became a realist and her account is illustrated with personal anecdotes recalling memories of well-known philosophers and activists from the time. She discusses how her position set her apart from other feminists and she examines the interacting threads of longstanding debates on the political left, as well as longstanding (...) debates within critical realist circles, such as the relative importance of quantitative methods in social research and the scope for agency as a source of intentional change. Finally she brings some of her ideas to bear on contemporary issues. This engaging interview notably provides some of the social context in which critical realism developed, while also pointing towards its future potential. (shrink)

Caroline New is an energetic activist who has interpolated critical realist ideas into the front-line of political activism. In this wide-ranging interview, she begins by reflecting on her life and how she became a realist and her account is illustrated with personal anecdotes recalling memories of well-known philosophers and activists from the time. She discusses how her position set her apart from other feminists and she examines the interacting threads of longstanding debates on the political left, as well as longstanding (...) debates within critical realist circles, such as the relative importance of quantitative methods in social research and the scope for agency as a source of intentional change. Finally she brings some of her ideas to bear on contemporary issues. This engaging interview notably provides some of the social context in which critical realism developed, while also pointing towards its future potential. (shrink)

Wherever a government or state is concerned with the welfare of its citizens, there will probably also exist policies which compel the individual citizen to undertake or abstain from activities which affect that citizen alone. The set of theories behind such policies is collectively known as ‘paternalism’. It is not hard to understand why this term has developed strong pejorative overtones. Policies of this type appear to offend a fundamental tenet of liberal societies: namely, that the individual is best placed (...) to know what is in his or her interests. Paternalistic policies imply, and are concerned with correcting, failures of precisely this kind of judgement. And yet, at the same time, there is a popular consensus that compelling people to wear a seat belt when driving a car is a reasonable restriction of personal liberty. Paternalism may be difficult to accept in principle, but it is equally difficult to avoid in practice. Not surprisingly, the literature reveals a long heritage of debate in a wide range of academic disciplines. This debate reveals a failure to make progress in two areas in particular. First, analyses of paternalism often confuse policies which are actually concerned with correcting failures of market exchange — in particular, those concerned with insufficient or imperfect information — with those which are genuinely paternalistic. One objective of this paper will be to clarify the difference between these two kinds of policy. (shrink)

In this article we challenge the notion that diversity serves as a good proxy for educational justice. First, we maintain that the story about how diversity might be accomplished and what it might do for students and society is internally inconsistent. Second, we argue that a disproportionate share of the benefits that might result from greater diversity often accrues to those already advantaged. Finally, we propose that many of the most promising and pragmatic remedies for educational injustice are often rejected (...) by liberal proponents of “diversity first” in favor of remedies that in most cases are practically impossible, and often problematic on their own terms. We argue that schools that are by geography and demography not ethnically or socioeconomically diverse still can successfully confront the obstacles that their students face in creating a life they have reason to value. (shrink)

Feminist Standpoint Theory claims that by virtue of their social positioning women have access to, or can achieve, particular and/or better knowledge of gendered social relations. The epistemology, various versions of which are reviewed in the paper, has been criticised for over homogenising women. In its simplest form this critique claims that women’s diversity rules out communality and collective interests, and that FST unawarely takes white middle class Western women as representative. In its stronger, postructuralist form this critique undermines feminism (...) by reducing the category ‘women’ to an effect of discourse whose referent is, and should be, constantly shifting. The paper argues for the reality of sex difference and puts forward a realist defence of a modified Feminist Standpoint Theory. (shrink)

Why is there no sustained tradition of argument concerning the existence of a supreme (omniscient and omnipotent) being who is perfectly evil, as there is about one who is perfectly good? Arguments which are reflections of the ontological, cosmological and teleological arguments, and arguments based on personal experience or the occurrence of antimiracles (harmful events not explicable by science) could have provided at least as good grounds for belief in such a being (ie for antitheism) as their originals in fact (...) provide for theism. An imaginary encyclopedia entry, in which fictional antitheistic arguments and thinkers are presented, illustrates this point. The reason for the nonexistence of a tradition of antitheism seems therefore to be that it is merely emotionally, not that it is rationally, less inviting than theism. (shrink)

When a normative moral theory collides with our beliefs, we must change either our beliefs or our theory. It is not always clear which we should change; but it is clear that we must change something. I shall consider two collisions between utilitarianism and what we believe, or are supposed to believe. About the first collision, I am going to say that the belief is false and that therefore there is no call to change utilitarianism. About the second, I am (...) going to say that if the belief is true, utilitarianism cannot be changed to accommodate it; I shall leave it open, though, whether the belief is true. The two collisions are related, though different. They both concern the utilitarian thesis about self-sacrifice. (shrink)