NEW INSTITUTIONALISM

By the 1970s and 1980s, comparative politics scholars increasingly became

concerned with the shortcomings of the behavioural approaches of the post-
World-War II era, namely the political systems and political culture
approaches. This resulted in a resurgence of interest, in comparing politics of
various countries through a study of their institutions. Within the discipline of
Political Science, the new institutional approach was brought to the focus by
works of James G. March and Johan P. Olsen. This institutional study, while
retained some characteristics of the old Institutional approach, however, was
different from it in several counts, which made it acceptable to a wider section
of scholars.

➢New institutionalism is a post behavioural approach which become

prominent in the 1980s among the scholars of US politics.

➢American political scientist James G. March and Norwegian political

scientist Johan P. Olsen often considered as the two leading founders
of the new institutionalism.

➢ “The New Institutionalism: Organizational Factors in Political Life”

(1984)

➢ Rediscovering Institutions: The Organizational Basis of Politics

(1989).

➢ Democratic Governance (1995).

➢ Other prominent thinkers- John W Meyer, Paul DiMaggio, Walter W

Powel, Douglas C North, William Scott etc

➢ Both March and Olson emphasize the theoretical importance of

institution.
➢ The main slogan of new institutionalism are ‘Bringing the state back
in’ and ‘Structuring politics’.

➢New institutionalism tries to combine the interests of traditionalist

scholars, who focused on studying formal institutional rules and
structures, with behaviouralist scholars, who examined the actions of
individual political actors.

➢Institutionalism has been the major subject matter and approach to

comparative politics before 1950s.

➢But after 1950s , institutionalism almost become dead as an approach

to comparative politics on the wake of behavioural movement.

➢ Institutionalism was regarded as descriptive, normative, speculative

and incapable of scienti c analysis and theory building.

➢New institutionalism brought back the institution back into forces. It

synthesized institutionalism with behaviouralism.

➢ New institutionalism help understand politics by comparing

institutional system and their impact on political behaviour, process and
outcomes in different countries, region and cultures.

INSTITUTION
➢Institution is different from organization.

➢ Organization formed based on institution or established norms, rules,

values, beliefs, customs, practices etc, while organization can change
institution. For example – parliament can change any established rules.

➢Institution always exist for a purpose. It doesn’t exist in vacuum.

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➢Institution are permanent but the people work in it are replaced or not
permanent. For example – forefather’s did this therefore we should
also do it .

➢ there are two kinds of institutions1) Hard – hard institutions are legal
and have certain kind of framework. For example- parliament which is
based on rules and regulations. 2) Soft – soft institutions are not very
much legal, not rule bound, but people unknowingly follow it. For
example- caste system, culture etc.

WHY/HOW INSTITUTION MATTER

➢Politics is constructed in form of institutional structure.

➢Institution are the vehicles through which the practice of politics is

transmitted.

➢Institution constrain and shape behaviours of individual.

➢Institution provide the environment or eld within which individuals

organize themselves for purposeful activities.

HISTORY:

From the 1930s through the 1950s, traditionalist scholars dominated

political science as a discipline, especially in the United States. Those
scholars were most interested in examining the formal structures and
rules that were the foundation of political and governmental institutions
such as the executive, legislative, and judicial branches. Traditionalist
studies were often descriptive in nature, used mostly qualitative
methods, and usually did not use broad theories to ground their
observations in a larger theoretical perspective. Often, traditionalist
scholars were quite normative in their desire to describe how political
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 institutions ought to function, as opposed to the empirical study of how
things actually worked in practice.

Beginning in the 1960s, political scientists began to move away from

focusing on political institutions and instead almost exclusively studied
the actions of individual political actors. That so-called behavioral or
behavioralist revolution strove to make the study of politics more
scienti c, and quantitative methods came to predominate in political
science. Behavioralists would, for example, focus on speci c decisions
of individual judges or choices made by individual members of Congress
rather than on the rules and structures of the courts and the role of
Congress in the broader system of government. The hope was that
political scientists would develop broad theoretical approaches that
would be validated by quantitative empirical methods, thus moving
political science away from the disciplines of history, law, and philosophy
and instead bringing it closer to the scienti c approaches of economics,
sociology, and psychology.

By the mid-1980s many political scientists had begun to question

whether the discipline should continue to ignore the traditionalist interest
in political institutions—but without abandoning what behavioralists had
learned in examining the choices of individuals. They also worried that
behavioralism could bring the eld only so far and that perhaps nothing
more could be learned from that approach. Therefore, a
“postbehavioralist” movement, neoinstitutionalism, arose, designed in
part to bring the study of institutions back into the discipline.

The new institutionalist approach has its roots in the early to mid-1980s.
Often considered two of the leading founders of the new institutionalism,
American political scientist James G. March and Norwegian political
scientist Johan P. Olsen published a very in uential piece, “The New
Institutionalism: Organizational Factors in Political Life” (1984), followed
by a book, Rediscovering Institutions: The Organizational Basis of
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 Politics (1989). They continued to argue for further institutional analysis
in Democratic Governance (1995). In each piece, March and Olsen
argued that political scientists needed to rediscover institutional analysis
in order to better understand the behaviour of individual political actors
within political institutions. In other words, according to those authors,
studying individual political behaviour without examining institutional
constraints on that behaviour was giving scholars a skewed
understanding of political reality.

OLD VS. NEW INSTITUTIONALISM

Old institutionalism
▪ Studying institution as distinct autonomous political entities.
▪ Formal, legal, descriptive, normative, philosophical, historical.
▪ Less focus on explanatory theory/hypothesis
. ▪ Focus on hard institution, formal aspect.
▪ Con ned mostly to studying liberal democratic institutions of west
ethnocentric.
▪ Considered as traditional approach to comparative politics.
▪ No systematic cross country or cross culture comparison is done.
▪ Aims at inductive reasoning.

New institutionalism
▪ Study institution in relation to individual behaviour (micro) and social
structure (macro) , and other institution.
▪ Analytical, explanatory, empirical.
▪ Focus more on explanation and explicit theory building.
▪ Focus on soft institution, informal aspect as well as hard institution.
▪ Much wider geographical spread, attempt to study institutions of
overall socio economic context.
▪ More inter-disciplinary.
▪ Aims at deductive reasoning.
▪ Much more comparative focus.
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New Institutionalism and the Developing World

The new Institutionalism is also applied in understanding and analysing the

politics in the developing world. We have seen that how the international
bodies like World Bank or International Monetary Fund have emphasised on
the institutions in the developing world while allocating the funds for
development purposes. In the analysis of these international bodies sound,
effective and the institutions of good governance are prerequisites for the
development. It is believed that sound and effective institutions can bring
about the desired results. However, the major problems in such
understanding
of institutions was that it ignored the uneasy relationship between externally
assisted and designed formal institutions on the one hand and deeply
embedded local institutions on the other.
Some scholars, like Sangmpan, are suspicious of the institutional analysis of
politics in the developing world. He maintains tha
t ‘empirical evidence reveals
that outcomes in developing countries consistently defy institutions as
explanation and prescription’.6 Sangmpan wan
ts to distinguish three aspects
of the political system
–
politics, institution and the state. And he argues that in
developing countries it is society rooted politics the in uence and even
determines the other two aspects of political system. He is of the opinion that
an institutional approach marginalises such factors like competition for
property, power, goods and services which actually determine the politics.
However, Lisa Rakner and Vicky Randall believes that Sangmpan is
deliberately
ignoring one of the key features of new Institutionalism, that is, it focuses on
the informal institutions and its interactions with the formal institutions. In
conclusion we can say that new institutionalism offers insightful analysis of
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how some institutions function and guide political behaviour in the developing
world while others do not. It could also help us answer questions like why and
under what circumstances informal norms and practices dominate the
practices of formal institutions.

https://www.academia.edu/37809764/New_Institutionalism_pdf

RATIONAL CHOICE INSTITUTIONALISM

➢It focuses on choices. It may both individual choice or collective choice.

➢ It is very much linked with the idea of economy, pro t and losses. The
support for a institution depends on one’s pro t or loss.
➢ The whole idea of rational choice institutionalism is about rationality.
➢ It is based on the idea of methodological individualism, which based on
conscious choice.
➢ Every individual knows well what is good or bad for him. Thus its focus
primarily on individual not collectivity.
➢ It assumes individual as predominantly self centred. Achieving of
personal goal whether material or non material is the main aim of individual.
➢ Its basic idea is that choices of individuals act is maximising his/her
pleasure along with rational.
➢ It also stressed the idea of cost and bene t ( lesser cost , more bene ts).
➢ The idea of rational choice institutionalism was very much argued by
Adam Smith.
➢ Adam Smith in “Wealth of Nations”, argues that institution is pursued by
self interest which is good for any society. The state institution should not
interfere in economy, distribution. For him the role of the state is minimal
and individual should play important role. Thus he argues market as a
institution very important , that basically works through demand and supply.
➢ But the major problem is how do you deal with collective action?
➢ There is problem of ‘Free Riders’ . Free riders means certain people just
seek to get bene t without taking part in the process.
➢ The whole idea of management of collective good/actions very much
depends on Free riders. So the idea of Free Riding become very important.

CULTURAL INSTITUTIONALISM
➢Individual choices are not very autonomous, rather determined by the
social environment.
➢ The role of ideas, ethics, culture play a determining role in individual
choice.
➢ In the broader environment, people do certain things and behave in
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 certain manner. So here the focus is on group process.
➢ Group Process is about methodological holism or collectivism.
Methodological holism means that people de ne their interest according to
certain kind of cultural practices, symbols. Therefore culture de ne people’s
interest.
➢ It argues also internalization of cultural norms and practices. Thus it is
not based on rational calculation rather based on sentiment, continuity .
➢ It gives importance on that individual make decision based on cultural
norms in certain context. Therefore context plays important role.
➢ Micheal Foucult in “Discipline an Punish” 1979, argues that our lives
revels around discipline and punishment. The idea of discipline essentially
linked with the idea of power and state . The core features of the state is
coercion.
➢ Antonio Gramsci was very critical about state. For him jail is supposed to
be reform not punishment.

STRUCTURAL INSTITUTIONALISM
➢It focuses on both the rational choices and cultural institutionalism.
➢ Its basic argument is that both institution and individual choices matter
and important.
➢ But any kind of decision making invariably linked with social structure
and depends on the whole working of the institution.
➢ Thus the individual and institution are determined by structure.
➢ Structure means a certain kind of framework that is broadly permanent.
One can not replaced by other structure.
➢ A structure is a result of individual practices, social practices and
environment. It acts as a pressure on institutional behaviour.
➢ No institution work neutrally. It continuously in uenced by domestic
forces, international factors.
➢ According to Marxist , institution work under the pressure of capitalist .
➢ Institution very in structure, character. But institution don’t work
independently.
➢ Both hard and soft institution work in collaboration with domestic and
world politics.
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