Why do you need to know about this?
Given the discussion above there have been two major waves in political science methodology. The traditional methodological wave of research is that of institutionalism. Institutionalism involves the study of institutions within a society. Indeed, Peters (2019) explains that political science emerged from the study of history due to its almost exclusive focus on institutions. There was a desire by philosophers to understand the governing mechanisms of society and private life.
Thus, political science became the study of how the government works, the study of laws and the process of lawmaking. It also included normative discussions on how these institutions should be structured and what best practices should be incorporated within the machinery of government.
North (1991) defines institutions as, “the humanly devised constraints that structure political, economic, and social interaction”. In other words, institutions often reflect the bargains made between actors in each society that determine how the rules of society should look like. A good example is the Electoral College, an institution that most students grapple with understanding. To best understand the Electoral College, one must accept that it was a compromise at the Constitutional Convention. The smaller states, such as New Jersey, proposed that the President be selected by the state legislators. They feared that a direct popular vote, which was favored by New York & Virginia, would always be dominated by larger, more populous states. The Framers of the Constitution compromised and came up with an institution that tried to solve this impasse - Electors. The Electors would be chosen by the state legislatures, giving the smaller states what they wanted. Whereas the total number of electors each state would be given would in large part be dependent on the state’s population, thereby giving the larger states more Electors, and thus satisfying their desire more influence.
At first, Electors were able to vote their conscience. Today, Electors must vote for the candidate that their state citizens have voted for. In the end, what has developed is an institution where citizens vote directly at the state level for a presidential candidate in November. Then in December, the Electors gather in Washington, D.C. to tell each other how each of their states voted. In today’s wired world, where election results are reported in near time, the process of having an Electoral College (college means in Latin - a collection of individuals, or to gather) is rather archaic. However, institutions are built to last as they represent the compromises made in a society, compromises that sometimes are hard fought. In sum, institutions are about perseverance. Rhodes et al (2008) referred to institutions as “dried cement” where “cement can be uprooted when it has dried, but the effort to do so is substantial”.
The Electoral College is a good example of why political scientists study institutions. Institutions live on, sometimes even past their expiration date. In other words, once institutions are developed, deviation is uncommon and thus the actions and decisions made by institutional leaders can be predictable. In addition, David (1994) discusses that institutions do not just spontaneously appear. They are often the codification of preexisting socially established “convention”, or the use of social norms for negotiations within a society. Thus, the high costs associated with the formalization of social norms can help explain why institutions are longlasting.
Yet even though the importance of institutions is evident, the institutional wave in the political science has ebbed and flowed over the discipline. As mentioned, institutionalism had its heyday before the behavioral wave crashed onto the shores of the discipline in the 1950s. Peters (2019) refers to this as “old” institutionalism, which is often considered atheoretical. By this we mean that traditional institutionalism was not as interested in developing theories. Theories in political science are defined as “some general, internally consistent statements that could explain phenomena in a variety of settings” (Guy Peters 2019). A benefit of the behavioral revolution was the shift in thinking towards theory development. The study of micro-level political behavior allowed for such inferential statements to be made regarding individual behavior.
The behavioral wave almost washed out institutionalism in political science. However, the tendency in behavioralism to reduce all collective behavior to individual behavior left many researchers unfulfilled. Clearly, institutions must influence people’s behavior. Not every action could be scaled down to individual desires or wants. If society remains organized, there will be rules, norms and expectations of behavior. These structures exist in every society and will prevent individuals from pursuing any activity that they want. We can say that their behavior has been bounded, or that their decision-making process has been conditioned. The desire to bring institutions back into the discussion on politics has been referred to as neoinstitutionalism.
Neoinstitutionalism has its roots in the 1980s and as a wave in political science has been gaining force. The desire to explain the role of a country’s formal and informal institutions, such as the military, voting regulations, criminal legal codes has inevitably led scholars to study the state. Now, when students think of state, they think of the state of California, or the state of Nevada. And if you do, you would be partially right. In political science, when we say state we mean the centralized authority in a given area, also referred to as sovereignty (O’Neil 2017). The more common word we use today to describe this centralized authority is country.
Yet even if you look at the name of the country this book is published in - the United States of America (USA) - you will notice the word state. Each state, such as Texas, is effectively a centralized authority in each area, with its own police forces, laws, and social programs. Thus, the USA is really a union of independent countries that have come together to form a larger political union. And indeed, much of the discussion at the Constitutional Convention was how much power each state would retain vis-a-vis the newly created federal government. Then, neoinstitutionalism is about ‘bringing the state back in” when discussing politics and political behavior.
