There has been a trend called “new institutionalism” in political science, in which people identify various formal and informal institutions that cause, change course of, or are resulted from, all sorts of social phenomena. The “new institutionalism” is a huuuuge tent that exceeds the range of even the whole field of comparative politics. Some famous scholar said “everyone does institutions.”
As you can easily imagine, the concept of institutions is overstretched and there is no consensus on what institutions are, and how people should study them. It almost feels like, because the “new institutionalism” is in trend, we should call whatever we study “institutions,” and take advantage of the funding/job opportunities.
I was talking with C about his prospectus ideas recently, brainstorming possible theoretical frameworks — of course, including new institutionalism (His research has a great potential to offer a very new approach to it). Neither of us think there is much value added even if we use the word “institutions” and it probably makes better sense to replace it with more specific terms. It might be, however, marketable if he uses the term institutionalism as a political scientist.
We made fun of this “institution” of “new institutionalism” in political science that makes people adopt it for calculative benefits but gradually imposes a certain identity to them. Here’s the tongue twister that he came up with — ‘I’m looking at the institutionalization of the new institutionalism, and I look at the institutionalization of the new institutionalism as an institution.”
Hi, sayaka, how are u? do u remenber me?
I’m fine from yesterday I started my holiday.
Im interested in ‘new institutionalism’
what this idea is distingish from coventional insititutionalism ?
plitical approch or sciological ?
if you may ,tell me books or papaers of new insitutinalism.
see ya
Hi. Thanks for your comment. There are hundreds of articles written on the new institutionalism, but I think everyone starts with this article: Peter Hall and Rosemary Taylor, “Political Science and the Three New Institutionalisms,” Political Studies, December 1996. Other introductory books include: Douglas North, “Institutions, Institutional Change, and Economic Performance” and Kathleen Thelen et al, “Structuring Politics.”
The “old institutionalism” is basically detailed descriptive studies of different administrative, legal and political structures: Often very normative, little comparative or generalizing analyses. The new institutionalism is a bit more theoretical and “scientific” in that it tries to systematically compare and generalize features of institutions.