9 Institutional analysis: progress and

problems
B. Guy Peters

1 INTRODUCTION: THE TRADITION OF

INSTITUTIONAL ANALYSIS

Institutions and institutional analysis was at the core of political science

from the time of Aristotle until the middle of the twentieth century.
In this long-standing tradition of analysis, the formal structures of the
public sector were assumed to dominate governing. Further, there was an
assumption embedded in this approach that institutions could be designed
and if they were designed properly then governments would be effective, if
not necessarily beneficent. Therefore, all we really needed to know about
the public sector was what the constitution, or analogous rules forming
the institutions of government, said. In this tradition of comparative poli-
tics, analysis was dominated by legal discussions of constitutions with the
assumption that what those documents said actually happened as designed
by their framers or at least provided an (idealist) measure to judge the ‘best
practices’ (Rhodes 2008).
This formal-legalism in comparative analysis was largely unchallenged
until the beginning of the twentieth century. Then, beginning with scholars
such as Arthur Bentley (1908), the dominance of institutions was chal-
lenged, especially within the context of democratic political systems. That
challenge to the dominance of institutional analysis was expanded in the
‘behavioral revolution’ in political science that shifted the focus for analy-
sis away from formal structures toward the individuals who inhabit those
structures, and who vote for the political leaders who inhabited the formal
structures. That individualistic foundation for political analysis was, albeit
differently argued, reinforced in the 1980s through the development of
rational choice theory (Hindmoor 2015), which also was characterized
by methodological individualism (March and Olsen 1989). In both cases,
however, the preferences of the individuals involved in the institutions
were exogenous to those institutions, with the institution merely being an
arena for their actions (Keman 1998).
The remainder of this chapter addresses four major dimensions within
the ‘new’ institutionalism. The first is contemporary institutional theory

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in political science, discussing the varieties now in use. The second section
discusses the consequences of institutional choices for making public
policy and the management of conflict. This discussion is followed by
a section on the challenges to institutions and institutional theory, and
finally there is a brief conclusion emphasizing the principal points of the
analysis.

2 NEO-INSTITUTIONALISM AND THE REVIVAL

OF INSTITUTIONAL ANALYSIS

The dominance of behavioral and rational choice approaches within

political science led scholars, predominantly in the US, to advocate other
approaches that could serve as alternative paradigms for political science.
In particular, James March and Johan Olsen (1989) argued for a return
to the organizational and institutional foundations of political science.
Their discussion was particularly targeted at rational choice approaches,
arguing that a logic of appropriateness developed within an institution
could be contrasted to the logic of consequentiality that served as the
foundation of rational choice approaches. Hence, in this approach to
institutions – normative institutionalism – the preferences of members
are endogenous to the institution and are learned through organizational
socialization. Likewise, decisions are made by appeals to the values,
myths, symbols and routines of the institution, rather than to more
‘rational’ criteria. This perspective on institutions depends on the capac-
ity of institutions to create commitment on the part of their members to
the goals and values of the institution. Rather than being shaped by legal
norms or by personal desires for maximization, behavior within the insti-
tution is shaped by understandings of what is the right thing to do given
the values of the institution.
The assertion of the importance of institutions by March and Olsen
opened the ‘new institutionalism’ in political science (see Peters 2010).
The normative institutionalism was followed rather quickly by histori-
cal institutionalism, stressing the role of path dependency in defining the
persistence of institutions and their policies (Thelen et al. 1992). Further,
rational choice theory, albeit operating with very different assumptions
than the other versions of institutionalism, continued to develop impor-
tant perspectives on institutions stressing the use of rules (Ostrom 1990;
Scharpf 1997) and the constraints imposed by formal structures (Czada
et al.1998; Tsebelis 2000).
These various approaches contained in the ‘new institutionalism’ had
some features in common with the old institutionalism, notably the

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recognition that structure does matter for behavior and that individuals
may not be quite as atomistic in their political behaviors as assumed by
some theorists. But these approaches also departed significantly from the
mold of the old institutionalism (Radaelli et al. 2012). One of most impor-
tant deviations is the explicit concern with theory, and the integration of
a variety of theoretical approaches into the more general concern with
institutions.
For example, the normative theory has a very strong foundation in
organizational sociology, especially the work of scholars such as Philip
Selznick, W.W. Powell, and Berger and Luckman. In the work of all these
scholars institutions are defined, often in large part, by the values held by
their members and propagate by the institution. Likewise, rational choice
institutionalism brings in a number of standard economic arguments
about organizations and institutions, such as principal–agent theory and
transaction cost analysis (see Peters 2010), as well as the more general ques-
tion of solving collective action problems. Also a relative newcomer to the
literature – discursive institutional theory (Schmidt 2010) – integrates dis-
course theory and to some extent constructivism into the analysis (see also
Rhodes 2008, p. 92ff.).
The above integration of social science theory into institutional analysis
alters substantially the formalism that characterized the old institution-
alism in the discipline, but that is not the only change of importance.
Another is the recognition that there are important informal elements in
institutions, much as in organizations and traditions. Again, this involves
importing ideas from organizational sociology into the study of political
institutions, but in political science these informal relationships are also
crucially with social actors. Rather than being largely autonomous and
legalistic, institutions have come to be theoretically considered closely
connected to political actors of all sorts and their interactions.
In addition to understanding the interactions of public sector institu-
tions with actors in their environment, the concern with informal insti-
tutions in institutional theory has also considered the manner in which
formal and informal institutions interact to produce governance. For
example, Helmke and Levitsky (2004) analyzed the possible combination
of formal and informal action in producing governance. These interac-
tions were analyzed in terms of the effectiveness of the institutions and
the extent to which their goals are compatible. For example, if their goals
are compatible, informal institutions can substitute for ineffective formal
institutions, whereas if their goals are divergent they function in a com-
petitive relationship.
Finally, the new institutionalism also began to raise questions about
measurement, attempting to make institutionalism more compatible with

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other components of the social sciences. Rather than an institution simply

existing as a formal structure, the more social scientific approach raises
questions such as the extent to which it is an institution–institutionalization
(Thornton et al. 2012) and the likelihood of the institution surviving in
what can be a competitive environment with a limited number of niches
for institutions and organizations. And indeed the approach raises ques-
tions about the difference between an organization and an institution.1
Finally, the approach has become more concerned with the consequences
of institutional choices made in the past (Pierson 2000) in relation to proc-
esses of political decision-making and public policy performance (Schmidt
2002).
Whereas much of the formal approach to institutions focused on the
internal processing of those institutions, the new institutionalism tends
to focus more on the effects that institutional choices have on political
behavior and on the outcomes of political process. These consequences
may result from constitutional choices (Sartori 1997) and they may
also result from lower-level design choices. Elinor Ostrom’s work on
institutional analysis and design (Ostrom and Basutro 2011) demon-
strates the linkage among these levels of choice and the differential
consequences that institutional choices of different types may have for
public policies.
The emphasis on the consequences of institutional choices extends to
some aspects of the institutions themselves, as well as to the public policies
produced by those institutions. Unlike older versions of institutionalism,
however, the analysis driven by New Institutionalism is directed more
at social scientific questions and is carried out using the theories and
methods of the contemporary social sciences (Vis et al. 2007). The norma-
tive institutionalism, for example, focuses on the capacity of institutions to
create predictability of behaviors through creating an internal normative
structure (see Wildavsky 1987).
One of the more important of the issues for designing institutions is
the desire to create equilibrium within institutions that might otherwise
be incapable of producing stable patterns of decision-making. The logic
of institutional capacities to general equilibrium was initially advanced
by William Riker and then developed further by Kenneth Shepsle (2008).
For example, although there may be multiple opinions of a special policy
issue, voting rules within institutions limit the political to make policy
and to maintain political stability (Scharpf 1997). Although institutional
equilibrium is desirable, it also may lead to excessive rigidity.

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3 CREATING INSTITUTIONAL DIFFERENCE AND

ITS CONSEQUENCES
As well as creating stability and making political equilibria possible,
political institutions also produce differences in political behaviors and
public policy. The differences that emerge may reflect underlying politi-
cal, social and economic differences, but differences in institutions permit
those forces to have varying levels of impact on the decisions made by the
public sector. Further, political institutions may shape the capacity of the
public sector to govern effectively, as well political stability (Weaver and
Rockman 1993; Keman 1998)

3.1 Parliamentary versus Presidential versus Semi-Presidential

One of the most commonly cited differences among institutions is the

difference between presidential and parliamentary government (Colomer
and Negretto 2005). The familiar argument is that the fusion of powers in
a parliamentary government, with the executive dependent upon a major-
ity in the legislature, provides for greater governance capacity. On the
other hand, that separation of powers provides a constraint on excessive
action by any institution, and enhances the capacity for, or necessity of,
consensus over policy (Lijphart 2008).
As well as those familiar statements about the differences between presi-
dential and parliamentary systems, there has been a continuing debate
on the ‘perils of presidentialism’. Especially for less-developed political
systems, Juan Linz (1994) has argued that presidential systems are more
unstable than parliamentary systems. The inability to change the political
executive legally between elections, it is argued, tends to generate extra-
legal changes. Other scholars (see Carreras 2014) have argued that presi-
dential systems have tended to be more open to ‘outsider’ presidents and
tend to be less effective in governance.
The competing advantages and disadvantages of both presidential
and parliamentary forms of government led to the development of semi-
presidentialism in France, a pattern that was then copied in a number
of other countries (see Elgie 2011). However, even that trichotomy of
formats for relationships between the legislature and the executive does
not take into account the variety of institutional designs attempting
to balance the powers of legislative and executive actors in governing
(Tavits 2009). Thus, institutional analysis can move beyond the rather
simple analyses of the past and develop more precise measurements of
institutional patterns (see below; see also Colomer 2001; Woldendorp and
Keman 2010).

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3.2 Federal versus Unitary

The distinction between federal and unitary states is another of the classic
dichotomies in comparative politics that emphasizes differences among
political institutions, and the capacity of those institutions to reflect and
manage difference. The foundations of federal or unitary government
are constitutional, with some division of the tasks of government and
a sharing of sovereignty generally enshrined in basic legal documents.
Further, there are marked differences within each of these formal catego-
ries, with some unitary systems permitting their subnational governments
substantially greater freedom than some federal governments.
The dichotomy between federal and unitary structures is increasingly
being supplanted by a more general institutional conception of ‘multi-level
governance’ (Bache and Flinders 2004). Originally developed to describe
patterns of governance in the European Union, the concept has become
generalized as a means of understanding the complexities of political
interactions among levels of government within virtually all governments.
Further, the varieties of these interactions are increasingly being conceptu-
alized and the structural implications further explored as means of analyz-
ing how governance functions territorially (Hooghe et al. 2010).
Whether expressed in structural constitutional forms or in more
dynamic political forms, the manner in which governance occurs in space
is an important institutional feature of any political system. It shapes not
only opportunities for political participation but also the policy choices
made by the governments involved. Further, it can be important for
nation-building by either creating uniformity of services or allowing for
differences that reflect the wishes of various segments of the population
(Castles 2007).

3.3 Electoral Laws

Although it has been understood for some time that electoral laws can
influence the outcome of elections, this understanding has been elaborated
and the linkages made more explicit. First, this analysis emphasizes the
extent to which law is an institution, and electoral laws in particular are
crucial for shaping electoral outcomes and party systems (Taagepera and
Shugart 1989). Those electoral outcomes will in turn influence the possible
coalitions in government and the policies that will be adopted by those
governments. For example, most two-party systems would be difficult to
maintain without the single-member district and a plurality voting system.
Further, the consequences of electoral laws for outcomes of elections
demonstrates the extent to which institutions exist in an environment

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composed of other institutions. At a more macro-level electoral laws can

also determine to some extent the possibilities for coalitions within the
parliament, and therefore the types of governments and policies that will
be selected. There will, of course be other influences on those outcomes,
but electoral laws represent the beginning point for the creation of govern-
ing coalitions.

4 INSTITUTIONS FOR MANAGING DIFFERENCE

As well as creating differences among types of political systems, political

institutions have also developed in ways that can manage and minimize
social and economic conflicts. Politics is about difference – whether that
difference is based on more or less objective characteristics of individuals
and groups or whether it is based on ideas. Those differences are inevi-
table but if they are unmanaged or are allowed to become too intense
then breakdown of political systems becomes possible if not probable.
Therefore, just as institutional rules in potentially unstable legislatures,
so too can rules manage instability in society taken at large (Lijphart
2008).
Although any number of such institutional arrangements for creating
stability have been developed, two have been of particular relevance – one
for dealing with social differences and the other for coping more with
economic differences. Consociationalism has been conceived as a means
of coping with deeply divided societies, whether those divisions are based
on religion, language or ethnicity (Lijphart 2008; but see Selway and
Templeman 2012).
The basic idea of consociationalism is to create relative peace among
social groups by creating integration and trust among each of the social
groups (for example, the pillarization in the Netherlands), and then
cooperation among the elites of each group. That cooperation among the
elites depends heavily on conducting many of their interactions in private
(secrecy). Without this the elites would not be able to bargain successfully
and to, in effect, give away some of the interests of the mass supporters
they represent.2
More recently social pacts have been utilized in post-conflict societies
as mechanisms for creating and maintaining peace among ethnic groups.
The instruments used to achieve that end are not dissimilar to those used
within consociationalism (Higley and Gunther 1992). Just as was true
for consociationalism, the success of these agreements tended to be the
separation of the elites from their ethnic supporters. Also, similar to con-
sociationalism, the success of these arrangements has been variable, with

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some producing enduring peace and other breaking down with new ethnic
or religious conflict (for example, Lebanon).
While consociationalism and social pacts are institutions designed to
manage social conflicts, corporatism in its several variants is designed
to manage economic conflicts, or at least to involve economic actors in
making policy decisions (Molina and Rhodes 2002). Just as different
social groups are represented by their elites in consociational processes,
so too are economic groups – especially business and labor – represented
in making economic policies that will affect them. Their role in policy-
making is institutionalized and legitimized, so that the concerns of major
interests in society will not be ignored (Woldendorp 2005).
In both consociational and corporatist solutions to social difference, the
development of effective institutions is crucial. While these institutions are
less formalized than legislatures and bureaucracies, these are patterns of
institutionalized behaviors designed for resolving conflicts. Further these
patterns of interaction evolve and persist, and have been able to adapt to
changing social and economic conditions. They have not, however, been
able to be exported to all countries that have these internal conflicts but
which lack other apparent preconditions, such as organized socio-cultural
parties of centralized trade unions, for successful conflict resolution.

5 CHALLENGES TO INSTITUTIONAL ANALYSIS

Although institutional analysis has made a number of contributions to the

study of contemporary politics and government, there are several impor-
tant challenges that remain for this approach, especially if it is to function
as a paradigm for political and policy analysis. These challenges are espe-
cially important if institutionalism is to be understood as an alternative
paradigm to rational choice and behavioralism in political science. While
it is easy to say that institutions do matter (Weaver and Rockman 1993),
it is more difficult to move beyond rather impressionistic arguments about
the importance of structures and institutions in political life.

5.1 Measurement

The first vexing question about institutions is a measurement question –

when does an institution become an institution? The literature often tends
to treat institutions as dichotomies, with the institution existing or not or
the one or the other type (see section 3). If, however, we think of these struc-
tures more as variables, then the degree of institutionalization of the struc-
ture will vary. Some structures may be strongly institutionalized, and some

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only weakly institutionalized. Likewise, institutions may vary across time –

consociationalism or corporatism differs in degree or simply faded away as
an institutional arrangement or as a political modus (Lijphart 2012).
The above argument, however, begs the question because it depends
upon a workable definition of institutionalization and with that a clear
definition of what constitutes an institution. For example, Selznick (1957)
discusses institutionalization as infusing a structure with values and that
definition would appear to work well for normative institutionalism in
political science. For historical institutionalism the extent to which the
established ‘path’ is being followed appears to be a viable measure of insti-
tutionalization, but that in turn requires a rather precise definition and
measurement of the path dependency (Pierson 2000). Huntington (1965,
p. 364) argues that four variables – adaptability, complexity, autonomy
and coherence – can be employed to measure the level of institutionaliza-
tion of a structure. An institutionalized structure will need to be able to
adapt to its environment and at the same time find means of maintaining
some autonomy from that environment (see Chapter 6 in this volume).
For instance, public bureaucracies must maintain autonomy in order to
regulate society, but must also understand society they rule.
While Huntington’s measures are defined in terms of institution-
alization and the stability of structures, they might also be employed as
a more general means of gauging the nature of public sector institutions
(Ragsdale and Theis 1997). For example, the variable of autonomy has
become important in understanding the behavior of organizations in the
public bureaucracy (see Laegreid et al. 2008) and theoretical approaches
to complexity in the public sector also have come to occupy an increas-
ingly important position in public policy and administration (Duit and
Galaz 2008). More recently various data collections have been developed
to measure (often comparatively) the degree of institutionalization and
differences.

5.2 Change

Change represents a second significant challenge for institutional theory.

The strength of institutionalism is that it can describe and explain stabil-
ity. While stability can be an important attribute for structures in the
public sector, it can also be a problem for structures that must adapt
to changing environments and demands. Therefore, a major theoretical
challenge is to identify ways to accommodate change in theories that
emphasize permanence, while the practical challenge is how to design
institutions that can provide stability while at the same time being capable
of effective adaptation to a changing environment (Scharpf 1997).

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The challenge of accommodating change is especially pressing for the

historical institutionalism. As already noted, the fundamental logic of this
version of institutional theory has been that patterns of policy or of struc-
tures in the public sector will persist unless there is some significant inter-
vention. The original emphasis on punctuated equilibria as the mechanism
for change appeared to deny the possibility of more incremental change
that typifies most policy and organizational change in the public sector
(Pierson 2000).
Scholars working in this tradition have argued that a least four types of
more adaptive change occur within institutions – displacement, layering,
drift and conversion (see Mahoney and Thelen 2010). These mechanisms
for change maintain much of the existing programs but are also character-
ized by some forms of transformation of these programs. The identifica-
tion of these forms of change helps in the theoretical interpretation of
change, but they may be more descriptive than explanatory. Further, the
relationship between these forms of change and more dramatic formats of
change that was central to the original versions of historical institutional-
ism is still an issue for debate.
The major theoretical question that remains for change is providing
explanations for the adoption of change, and explanations for resistance of
change. In historical institutionalism resistance is central to the approach
and may be based on positive returns of the participants in the institution,
on perceived costs of change, or simply on habit. Change, however, can
be brought about if there is a viable alternative to the status quo that can
be used to motivate alterations in the existing patterns (Peters et al. 2005).
Given the ideational and behavioral foundations of the sociological and
discursive versions of institutionalism, the motivation for change will also
involve having some set of ideas or values that can be considered superior
to the status quo (Rhodes 2008). The superiority of those values and prac-
tices, however, may be assessed on pragmatic grounds as well as on more
abstract criteria.3

5.3 Individuals and Institutions

This relationship is to some extent a version of the classic structure and

agency question in the social sciences. More exactly, however, this is a ques-
tion of the extent to which individuals can shape the institutions of which
they are members, and in turn the extent to which they are shaped by those
institutional memberships. Paradoxically, institutions are human inven-
tions but then we allow our behaviors and our beliefs to be shaped by those
institutions and to resist change in those structures (see also Keman 1998).
The several versions of institutional theory provide different answers to

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this basic question about the linkages of individuals and institutions. The
argument that preferences of individuals are endogenous – shaped by their
membership in the institution – is central to the logic of normative versions
of institutionalism. This can be contrasted with the logic of exogenous
preferences in rational choice versions, where individuals maintain their
basic utility maximization values during their membership in the institu-
tion. Although perhaps less clearly stated, historical institutionalism also
assumes that individuals will to some extent be shaped by their involvement
with an institution, if only to create a set of habits that they will follow and
that assist in the maintenance of path dependency (Sarigil 2009).
Institutions are also shaped and adapted by their members. This shaping
of institutions may occur through conscious actions taken by the leaders
and designers of institutions. Some scholars, especially those coming from
the rational choice perspective, argue that institutions can develop due to
incentives and disincentives for behaviors (Hall and Soskice 2001). For the
normative version (for example, Rothstein 1998), as well as for construc-
tivist institutionalism (see Hay 2008), individuals within the institution
bring with them ideas, values and behaviors that may, over time, alter
the institution (March and Olsen 1989). If, for example, the individuals
joining an institution at one point in time are markedly different from
those in previous periods, the institution may have to adapt to the impor-
tation of new members, or perhaps fail. For constructive versions of insti-
tutionalism the coordinative discourses within the structures will continue
to shape the nature and change of the institution.

6 CONCLUSION: THE PROMISE OF

INSTITUTIONAL ANALYSIS

Institutions and institutional analysis have been central to political science

since its inception, and this mode of analysis remains crucial. Institutional
analysis has been able to move away from its formal and legal foundations
to utilize a range of theoretical perspectives and to contribute to theoreti-
cal developments in the field. With those developments institutional analy-
sis is not only capable of describing the institutions central to governance
but can make more analytically interesting statements about the dynamics
of institutions, and about the dynamics of institutional fields that shape
governance.
Institutional analysis deals with both theoretical discourses and abstract
analyses, as well as with more descriptive analyses of the effects of particu-
lar institutional arrangements on systemic political processes and policy
formation. These both are important for understanding the ways in which

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structure influences the outcome of political processes. Although they are

both important elements of institutional approaches they are sometimes
difficult to link effectively. However, both versions of institutionalism
contribute to the understanding of politics and governance.
Although institutional theory has made a number of contributions to
political science, a number of significant questions and challenges remain. As
noted, an approach largely premised on explaining persistence does encoun-
ter some difficulties when attempting to cope with change. Also, an approach
that has been developed in contemporary political science as an alternative to
atomistic approaches may find integrating individual action into structural
explanations a challenge. Perhaps most fundamentally, identifying an insti-
tution and measuring the extent of institutionalization remains crucial for
including institutional analysis in contemporary political science.

NOTES

1. One standard answer to this question is given by Douglass North (1990) with institutions
being the rules of the game, and organizations being the teams playing the game.
2. This method of managing social difference was successful in the Netherlands but enjoyed
variable success in other cases such as Malaysia, Belgium, Canada and Colombia.
3. That is, do the new values work better for the institution, enabling it to reach its goals
more effectively than the values and practices that are being replaced?

FURTHER READING

March, J.G. and J.P. Olsen (1989), Rediscovering Institutions: The Organizational Basis of
Politics, New York: Free Press.
North, D.C. (1990), Institutions, Institutional Change and Economic Performance, Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
Ostrom, E. (1990), Governing the Commons: The Evolution of Institutions of Collective Action,
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Peters, B.G. (2010), Institutional Theory in Political Science; The New Institutionalism, 3rd
edn, London: Continuum.
Shepsle, K.A. (1986), ‘Institutional equilibrium and equilibrium institutions’, in H. Weisberg
(ed.), Political Science: The Science of Politics, New York: Agathon.
Weaver, R.K. and B.A. Rockman (1993), Do Institutions Matter? Government Capabilities in
the United States and Abroad, Washington, DC: Brookings Institution.

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