I’m teaching a Ph.D. level course this semester on institutions and politics, which is intended to provide our students with an introduction to the three main varieties of institutionalism as I see them – rational choice, historical institutionalism and sociological and ideational approaches – with a few classes at the end devoted to comparing the different ways in which they tackle the same, or similar phenomena. I’d be grateful to any interested CTers who have comments on things that I should or shouldn’t be including in the syllabus – it’s the first time I’m teaching it, and there may likely be interesting stuff out there that I’m not aware of. NB that the reason that I include a couple of pieces of my own in the syllabus isn’t because I think that these are classics of modern thought on the topic, but because I’m better aware of the strengths and flaws of these pieces as applications of institutional theory, and can thus use them to provide guidance for students contemplating how to deal with their own dissertation projects etc. The reading list is beneath the fold.
Update: This “syllabus”:http://wage.wisc.edu/uploads/Courses-Fall06/Soc%20915%20syllabus%20_1_.pdf for a course that Jonathan Zeitlin teaches in sociology is a very helpful alternative, covering some debates in depth that my syllabus only touches in passing, if at all.
1 – Introductory Class. Jan 18.
No assigned readings
2 – Different Approaches to Institutions. Jan 26
Hall, Peter A. and Taylor, Rosemary C. R. Political Science and the Three New Institutionalisms. Political Studies. 1996; 44:936-957.
Katznelson, Ira and Weingast, Barry R. Intersections Between Historical and Rational Choice Institutionalism. in Katznelson, Ira and Weingast, Barry, eds. Preferences and Situations: Points of Intersection Between Historical and Rational Choice Institutionalism. New York: Russell Sage; 2005; pp. 1-26.
DiMaggio, Paul. The New Institutionalisms: Avenues of Collaboration. Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics. 1998; 154(4):697-705.
Adcock, Robert, Bevir, Mark and Stimson, Shannon. Historicizing the New Institutionalism(s). in Adcock, Robert and Bevir, Mark and Stimson, Shannon. Modern Political Science: Anglo-American Exchanges since 1880. Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press. 2007.
3- Rational Choice Theories of Institutions I – Institutions, Cycling and Stability of Choice (Organization of Congress) February 1.
Diermeier, Daniel and Krehbiel, Keith. Institutionalism as a Methodology, Stanford University Press Research Papers, 2001, available at http://www.wcfia.harvard.edu/seminars/pegroup/diermeier.pdf.
Schofield, Norman. Democratic Stability. in: Knight, Jack and Sened, Itai, eds. Explaining Social Institutions. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; 1995.
Shepsle, Kenneth A. Institutional Arrangements and Equilibrium in Multidimensional Voting Models. American Journal of Political Science. 1979; 23( 1):27-59.
Weingast, Barry R. and William J. Marshall. The Industrial Organization of Congress; or, Why Legislatures, Like Firms, Are Not Organized as Markets. 1988. Journal of Political Economy 96( 1):132-163.
Riker, William H. Implications from the Disequilibrium of Majority Rule for the Study of Institutions. American Political Science Review. 1980; 72( 2):432-446.
4 – Rational Choice Theories of Institutions II – Institutional Origins and Change (Economic Development in the Americas). February 8.
Knight, Jack. “Models, Interpretations and Theories: Constructing Explanations of Institutional Emergence and Change. In Jack Knight and Itai Sened, eds. Explaining Social Institutions. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press. 1995.
North, Douglass C. Institutions, Institutional Change and Economic Performance. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; 1990. Chapter selections
Greif, Avner and David Laitin. “A Theory of Endogenous Institutional Change.” American
Political Science Review. 2004; 98:633-652.
Sokoloff, Kenneth L. and Engerman, Stanley. Institutions, Factor Endowments, and Paths of Development in the New World. Journal of Economic Perspectives. 2000; 14(3):217-232.
de Soto, Hernando The Mystery of Capital: Why Capitalism Triumphs in the West and Fails Everywhere Else. New York: Basic Books. 2000. Chapter selection.
5 – Rational Choice Theories of Institutions III – Institutional Consequences (institutions and theories of trust and cooperation). February 15.
Milgrom, Paul R.; North, Douglass C., and Weingast, Barry R. The Role of Institutions in the Revival of Trade: The Medieval Law Merchant, Private Judges, and the Champagne Fairs. Economics and Politics. 1990; 2(1):1-23.
Miller, Gary J. Monitoring, Rules, and the Control Paradox: Can the Good Soldier Svejk be Trusted? in: Kramer, Roderick M. and Cook, Karen S., eds. Trust and Distrust in Organizations: Dilemmas and Approaches. New York: Russell Sage Foundation; 2004.
Calvert, Randall L. Rational Actors, Equilibrium, and Social Institutions. in: Knight, Jack and Sened, Itai, eds. Explaining Social Institutions. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; 1995.
Levi, Margaret. A State of Trust. in: Braithwaite, Valerie and Levi, Margaret, eds. Trust and
Governance. New York: Russell Sage Foundation; 1998; pp. 77-101.
Farrell, Henry and Knight, Jack. Trust and Institutional Compliance. Unpublished paper. 2007.
6 – Historical Institutionalism I – Macro-Institutions (Society and the State). February 22.
Thelen, Kathleen and Steinmo, Sven. Historical Institutionalism in Comparative Politics. in: Steinmo, Sven and Thelen, Kathleen, eds. Structuring Politics: Historical Institutionalism in Comparative Analysis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; 1992.
Katznelson, Ira. Structure and Configuration in Comparative Politics. in: Lichbach, Mark I. and Zuckerman, Alan S., eds. Comparative Politics: Rationality, Culture and Structure. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; 1997.
Skocpol, Theda. Doubly Engaged Social Science: The Promise of Comparative Historical Analysis. in: Mahoney, James and Rueschmeyer, Dietrich, eds. Comparative Historical Analysis in the Social Sciences. New York: Cambridge University Press; 2003.
Hall, Peter A. Governing the Economy: The Politics of State Intervention in Britain and France. Oxford: Oxford University Press; 1986. Chapter selection.
Tilly, Charles. War Making and State Making as Organized Crime. in: Evans, Peter B.; Rueschemeyer, Dietrich, and Skocpol, Theda, eds. Bringing the State Back In. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; 1985.
7 – Historical Institutions II – The Politics of Path Dependence (Varieties of Capitalism). March 1.
Arthur, W. Brian. Increasing Returns and Path Dependence in the Economy. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. 1994. Chapter Selection.
Pierson, Paul. Path Dependence, Increasing Returns, and the Study of Politics.” American Political Science Review. 2000; 33, 6/7:251-67.
Mahoney, James. Path Dependence in Historical Sociology. Theory and Society. 2000; 29(4):507-548.
Hall and Soskice. Varieties of Capitalism. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 2000. Chapter One.
Crouch Colin and Farrell, Henry. Breaking the Path of Institutional Development: Alternatives to the New Determinism in Political Economy. Rationality and Society. 2004; 16(1):5-43
8 – Historical Institutionalism III: Beyond Path Dependence: Identifying Specific Mechanisms of Historical Institutional Change (The Welfare State). March 8.
Pierson, Paul. The New Politics of the Welfare State. World Politics. 1996; 48:143-79.
Hacker, Jacob S. Policy Drift: The Hidden Politics of US Welfare State Retrenchment. in: Streeck, Wolfgang and Thelen, Kathleen, eds. Beyond Continuity: Institutional Change in Advanced Political Economies. New York: Oxford University Press; 2005.
Thelen, Kathleen. How Institutions Evolve: Insights from Comparative-Historical Analysis. in:
Mahoney, James and Dueschemeyer, Dietrich, eds. Comparative Historical Analysis in the Social Sciences. New York: Cambridge University Press; 2002.
Huber, Evelyn and Stephens, John. Development and Crisis of the Welfare State: Parties and Policies in Global Markets. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 2001. Chapter Selection.
9- Ideational and Sociological Accounts of Institutions I (Political Sociology of The European Union). March 22.
March, James G. and Johan P. Olsen, Rediscovering Institutions. The Organizational Basis of Politics. 1989. New York: Free Press. Chapter One.
Olsen, Johan P. “The Many Faces of Europeanization,” ARENA Working Paper 01/02 available at http://www.arena.uio.no/publications/wp02_2.htm (also published in the Journal of Common Market Studies).
Neil Fligstein and Alec Stone Sweet. Constructing Markets and Politics: An Institutionalist Account of European Integration. American Journal of Sociology. 2002. 107:1206-43.
Schimmelfennig, Frank. The Community Trap: Liberal Norms, Rhetorical Action and the Eastern Enlargement of the European Union. International Organization 55:47-80. 2001.
Kathleen McNamara, “Where Do Rules Come From?: The Creation of the European Central Bank.” In Stone-Sweet, Alec and Wayne Sandholtz eds., The Institutionalization of Europe (Oxford University Press 2001).
10 – Ideational and Sociological Accounts II (Economic Ideas in the US and Europe). March 29.
Berman, Sheri. The Primacy of Politics: Social Democracy and the Ideological Dynamics of the Twentieth Century. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 2006. Chapter Selection.
Blyth, Mark. Great Transformations: Economic Ideas and Political Change in the Twentieth Century. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Chapter Two, Conclusions.
Hall, Peter A. The Role of Interests, Institutions, and Ideas in the Comparative Political Economy of the Industrialized Nations. In Lichbach, Mark and Zuckerman, Alan eds. Comparative Politics: Rationality, Culture and Structure. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1997.
Culpepper, Pepper. Institutional Change in Contemporary Capitalism: Coordinated Financial Systems since 1990. World Politics 57,2: 173-209. 2005.
11 – Comparing Accounts of Institutions I (Crisis and Continuity in the Former Warsaw Pact Countries). April 5.
Shleifer and Vishny, The Grabbing Hand: Government Pathologies and Their Cures. Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press 1999. Chapter selection.
Allio, Lorene et al. Post-Communist Privatization as a Test of Theories of Institutional Change. In Weimer, David L. ed. The Political Economy of Property Rights: Institutional Change and Credibility in the Reform of Centrally Planned Economies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1997.
Bunce, Valerie. Subversive Institutions: The Design and the Collapse of Socialism and the State. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1999. Chapter Seven.
Appel, Hilary. The Ideological Determinants of Liberal Economic Reform: The Case of Privatization. World Politics 52, 4:520-549.
12 – Comparing Accounts of Institutions II – The Origins and Consequences of International Human Rights Norms. April 12.
Finnemore, Martha J. Constructing Norms of Humanitarian Intervention, In Katzenstein, Peter J. ed. The Culture of National Security: Norms and Identity in World Politics. New York: Columbia University Press. 1996.
Fioretos, Orfeo. Historical Institutionalism in International Relations. Unpublished Paper.
Moravcsik, Andrew. The Origin of Human Rights Regimes. International Organization 54,2:217-252. 2000.
Jack L. Goldsmith and Eric A. Posner. Moral and Legal Rhetoric in International Relations: A Rational Choice Perspective. The Journal of Legal Studies 31:115-39. 2002.
13 – Competing Accounts of Institutions III – The Institutional Politics of Delegation. April 19.
Carpenter, Daniel. The Forging of Bureaucratic Autonomy: Reputations, Networks and Policy Networks in Executive Agencies. Conclusion: The Politics of Bureaucratic Autonomy. Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press. 2001.
Barnett, Michael and Finnemore, Martha. Rules for the World: International Organizations in Global Politics. Ithaca: Cornell University Press 2004. Chapter selection.
Epstein, David, and O’Halloran, Sharyn. Asymmetric Information, Delegation and the Structure of Policy-Making. Journal of Theoretical Politics 11,1:35-56. 1999.
McCubbins, Mathew D. and Schwartz, Thomas. Congressional Oversight Overlooked: Police Patrols versus Fire Alarms. American Journal of Political Science 28,1, 165-179. 1984.
14. Concluding Class – Studying Institutions in Practice.
Peter A. Hall. Aligning Ontology and Methodology in Comparative Research. In Mahoney, James and Rueschmeyer, Dietrich eds. Comparative Historical Research in the Social Sciences. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2004.
Rosenthal, Howard and Voeten, Erik. Measuring Legal Systems. Unpublished Paper. Available at http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=924175.
Farrell, Henry. Trust and Political Economy: Comparing the Effects of Institutions on Inter-Firm Cooperation. Comparative Political Studies, 38,5, 459-483. 2005.
[Discussion of students’ dissertation projects as appropriate]
{ 22 comments }
Eric 01.13.07 at 8:34 am
Looks interesting, Henry. You might consider working the Moe perspective in early on (week 2, perhaps). Several of his pieces from the late 80s/early 90s are read and cited a lot, but my personal favorite is: “Political Institutions: The Neglected Side of the Story” Journal of Law, Economics, & Organization, Vol. 6,(April 1990), pp. 213-253
You might also consider the Bendor-Meirowitz APSR article, “Spatial Models of Delegation” for the delegation week. American Political Science Review (2004), 98: 293-310.
Also, a nit. Diermeier and Krehbiel is published and available online: Journal of Theoretical Politics, Vol. 15, No. 2, 123-144 (2003)
Matt 01.13.07 at 9:53 am
It’s not my field and perhaps I don’t understand what’s meant by ‘institution’ very well but it surprises me to not see anything by Jon Elster at all. I would have thought he’d have something here, and that it would be quite good.
mullaghman 01.13.07 at 10:00 am
I’m a generation or two removed from academic reading lists but a minor “institutions” text from way back then which I think has become more significant over time is Hirschman’s “Exit, Voice & Loyalty.” Presumably, many PhD students would be familar with his analayis, but perhaps not. Is it still read? Hirschman’s option-analyis can be quite useful: think how memebers of the Catholic Church (as an institution) have responded to its recent crises.
PLN 01.13.07 at 11:18 am
Really a great syllabus. I was surprised to see only that one Greif/Laitin piece, because I found parts of Greif’s new book to be far better than most any other rational-choice institutionalism I’d come across. (I thought I remember seeing you mention the book; were you disappointed?)
patrick 01.13.07 at 11:24 am
I’m surprised you don’t have anything by Acemoglu/Robinson. It seems like they’ve had a huge role in how (at least economists) understand the development, maintenance, and impact of political institutions. Maybe it doesn’t qualify as a classic yet, since their work has really only been in the last decade, but it certainly will.
Henry 01.13.07 at 11:53 am
Eric – I thought I had put you on an email list this morning soliciting comments, but clearly I screwed up; many thanks anyway! Managed not to include Robert Adcock either, somehow. The Moe recommendation is great, as is the Bendor one; although Bendor’s piece in the ARPS might be a more accessible supplement for non-rat choice students.
Matt – I love Elster’s work – my own Ph.D. work might in large chunks be described as footnotes to _The Cement of Society_ but his relevant work is more on norms than on institutions.
Patrick S. O'Donnell 01.13.07 at 12:02 pm
Matt mentions Elster: I’d probably say the same thing about Russell Hardin.
By way of background, you might include the SEP entry on ‘social institutions’ by Seumas Miller (basic bibliography; not yet archived): http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/social-institutions/
The list you’ve assembled is quite interesting and I’ve not read everything there, but I would add three titles:
Bicchieri, Cristina. The Grammar of Society: The Nature and Dynamics of Social Norms. (CUP, 2006).
Goodin, Robert E., ed. The Theory of Institutional Design. (CUP, 1996).
Schatzki, Theodore R. The Site of the Social: A Philosophical Account of the Constitution of Social Life and Change. (University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2002).
[In addition, and optional, I’d probably want to include a few items treating social science methodology or the philosophical foundations of the social sciences, which would mean including items from Elster, as well titles by Harold Kincaid, John Dupre, and Richard Miller (and perhaps Ian Shapiro).]
Patrick S. O'Donnell 01.13.07 at 12:04 pm
Re: comment to Matt
The interface and interactions between norms and institutions is half the fun (cf. Cass Sunstein’s work)
P O'Neill 01.13.07 at 12:43 pm
If you’re going with Sokoloff & Engerman in Part 4, which brings up the whole recent economics literature on the link between colonial institutions and development, then I’d recommend something like this Jeff Sachs paper as a counterweight. As you’ll see, Sachs is arguing that the literature linking institutions to development via settler mortality data is confounding the effect of current health conditions on income with that of institutions.
Sunita 01.13.07 at 12:43 pm
I would use more works in which the authors are utilizing their theory or approach rather than writing about what the approach is, e.g., the first couple of chapters from Thelen’s book, rather than her article in the Mahoney and Rueschemeyer. I also second the Moe piece in JLEO; it’s old, but it gives you an excellent sense of the debate within the American/rat choice side. For sociological/organizational institutionalism, there are some very good articles in the Annual Review of Sociology volumes: Stinchcombe 1997, Clemens and Cook 1999, Ingram and Clay 2000. And of course Dimaggio and Powell’s book, The New Institutionalism in Organizational Analysis. It’s from 1991, I think, but it was influential in these debates and discussions.
Kieran Healy 01.13.07 at 12:51 pm
Something by Frank Dobbin, like the first chapter of his Forging Industrial Policy would be good. Or the summary of that argument, “How the Economy Reflects the Polity” which is in Granovetter and Swedberg’s _The Sociology of Economic Life_ (2nd Edition).
Something from John Meyer and his collaborators, perhaps “World Society and the Nation State,†American Journal of Sociology, 103 (1997), pp.144–81.
I’ll think of more later.
Henry 01.13.07 at 1:20 pm
Thanks all – this is really helpful. I may ditch one of the final classes for a deeper take on sociological institutionalism building on Sunita’s and Kieran’s suggestions – some of these readings look really helpful (I’m kicking myself in particular for not including Dobbin – I’ve been planning this course for years, and had always meant to have something by him in there). Patrick – again Hardin’s work has been hugely important for me (my favorite “piece”:http://www.henryfarrell.net/distrust.pdf of anything I’ve ever written is in large part an extension of his work on trust) but he doesn’t usually write about institutions, at least not in the sense that this course uses the concept (when Russell talks about institutions, he’s usually talking about organizations). The Trust and Institutional Compliance piece with Jack Knight is a response to his work though, so the students will get some indirect exposure to his thought. The Bicchieri book sounds fascinating – I hadn’t come across it, but clearly should read it. Acemoglu and Robinson will be going on somewhere when I figure out how to shoehorn em in – one of my colleagues has recommended the book as well (it’s on my must-do shelf, but I haven’t had a chance to read it). Would have loved to have more Greif in there, but decided that for the purposes of the class the Randy Calvert piece is a better summary of the general class of institutional models that Greif talks about. There is a slightly weird review of his book over at _Reason_ which I want to respond to when I get half a chance. But again, thanks all – this is incredibly helpful.
terence 01.14.07 at 12:18 am
Someone mentioned Sachs up above: around 2002/03 he was involved in a duel (econometrics at 12 paces) with Daron Acemoglu and Dani Rodrik over the ‘primacy’ of institutions in determining long-run economic performance. My econ prof reckoned the king hit was Acemoglu’s ‘Colonial Reversals’; I certainly finished the paper where we covered this thinking that, while the truth was probably a bit of both, institutions were the bigger ‘bit’.
Anyhow, each of the main protagonists wrote a vox pop explanation of their case for Finance and Development, and they are – in my opinion – good, clear explanations of the arguments at hand.
The links are: ‘Acemoglu’, ‘Rodrik’, ‘Sachs’
For what it’s worth, as I understand it (and IIRC), Acemoglu’s argument about the interaction between geography and institutions and development differs from Sokolof too. Instead of factor endowments, it’s disease environment and its impact on settler mortality that determined the nature of future institutions.
Tim B. 01.14.07 at 9:58 am
For the unlearned (ignorant like me) who would like to read a brief overview of what is meant by “institutionalism,” would you be kind enough to provide a paragraph or two of general explanation? By that term, do you mean modes or shapes of collective-being-in-the-world?…ways of carving out mutually positive space for the entrenchment of a comfortable mundane, as against the mystical wildness of Being as such?
As you can see, I’m adrift on this particular intellectual stream.
Fr. 01.14.07 at 11:02 am
I may be missing something, but I cannot find the seminal ‘Organizational Factors‘ article by March & Olsen.
Fr. 01.14.07 at 11:16 am
Also, my feeling is that the Hall book could be replaced his Paradigms article.
Are your students supposed to study just this course for the semester? If you want them to read these texts with a critical eye, then they should go chase additional references in the bibliography by themselves, and do some additional reading which they select through their own appraisal of the literature.
My feeling is that this bibliography gives more than just the key readings, which I always feel as a bit of a shame since it incites students to stick just to the course literature and, conversely, does not incite them to go ref-chasing through journals, authors, reviews, etc. In my opinion, three or four texts per session should do the trick and trigger ‘additional curiosity’, but that’s just me.
Robin 01.14.07 at 1:19 pm
I know the book is old, but David Lewis’ Convention (1969) is good, especially for a better understanding of the history of the rational and strategic study of institutions.
I would suggest Putnam’s Making Democracy Work, with all its flaws, just as a treatment of to what extent formal institutions matter and to what extent their consequences depend on something else.
Also, the Philip Petit chapter in Goodin’s Theory of Institutional Design, which has been mentioned, is great in connecting institutions at the explanatory level (relationship between institutions and practice), assumptions of behavior and behavioral posits, and normative claims. To that I would add, Bo Rothstein’s Just Institution’s Matter.
On the ideational side–and in the sense of coherence or a “fit” between the ideas and knowledge of the creators of institutions and those that shape the practice of people who “live under” them, James Scott’s Seeing Like a State is good. Sam Bowles piece “Endogenous Preferences: The Cultural Consequences of Markets and other Economic Institutions” is also great in this vein.
Sam Bowles’ work on communities and pro-social norms, and on institutions as ecological niches, on institutional and behavior co-evolution seems are interesting attempts at explaining institutions and institutional development in evolutionary and bio-evolutionary terms are certainly worth looking at.
What seems to be missing in the list is work on deliberation in politics–both in institutional design and the effect of institutions on. Sabel’s “Design, Deliberation, and Democracy: On the New Pragmatism of Firms and Public Institutions” I recall being a good piece, but it’s been years.
Matthew Shugart 01.14.07 at 2:08 pm
Looks like a really good course. I agree with Eric that Moe’s “Neglected Side” deserves to come in sooner. It is a terrific cautionary tale to some of the earlier moves to “import” economic understandings of institutions into political science without much regard for the differences in what the two disciplines are trying to explain. (Short answer: In politics it is rarely possible for institutions to make all players better off; winners and losers and all that.)
Two great short lit reviews are in the first Cox and McCubbins book (Legislative Leviathan) and in Brian Crisp’s Democratic Institutional Design (Stanford, 2000). I like the latter because it has one of the best efforts I know of to show that “rational choice” and “historical” institutionalism need not be seen as opposing camps. Indeed, I have always seen my own work as combining both perspectives, though I have never spelled out the synthesis as well as Crisp does.
Of course, nothing on institutions is complete without Madison or a good review of Madison’s contributions.
Henry 01.14.07 at 2:48 pm
fr – I have the first chapter of March and Olsen’s book, which covers much the same ground as I recall. I’ll think again about which is better. Robin – I like the Lewis book, but there is a brief discussion of his arguments in Knight as far as I remember, which should be sufficient for a grad level intro course. You are right that I don’t have anything on institutional design or pragmatism – the Zeitlin syllabus referenced above is better on these. It’s impossible to shoehorn everything into 14 weeks … Would love to assign Seeing Like a State because it’s such a powerful, extraordinary book, but it’s more or less orthogonal to the debates that the syllabus sets out. I’d like to do a class one day on origins and evolution of the state which would surely have that as a key reading.
tim b – institutionalism, in political science usually (but by no means always, refers to the study of the rules that govern political and social life. The encyclopedia entry linked to in 7. is a great intro.
TradS 01.15.07 at 5:31 am
Hanck̩, Bob, Martin Rhodes and Mark Thatcher (eds.) 2007. Beyond Varieties of Capitalism: Conflict, contradiction and complementarities in the European Economy. (Oxford UP forthcoming). РParticularly the introduction; it serves as an encompassing summary of recent work within the new institutionalism.
Also, Campbell, John L 2004. Institutional Change and Globalization. (Princeton University Press). Chapter four is rather enlightening in its discussion of ideational causes of institutional change.
Robin 01.15.07 at 12:03 pm
The introduction from from Masahiko Aoki’s Towards and Comparative Institutional Analysis is good a capturing the espistemological, deliberative and practical issues in the study of institutions in a few pages.
Michael Greinecker 01.15.07 at 1:20 pm
If think it may be insightful to show the abstract economic approach to institutions, mechanism design. The classic paper is:
Leonid Hurwicz 1971 “Centralization and Decentralization in Economic Processes” in Eckstein (ed.), Computation of Economic Systems
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