Political Institutions (2)

Political Institutions (2)

1. Definitions

   • Formal & informal rules, that are enforced and observed by the people who identify with the institutions
     • Allows for order and predictability, and formation of stable expectations of norms of interaction and reciprocity
     • Provides codes of appropriate behaviour, affective ties, and a belief in legitimate order
     • Shape, enable, constrain actors into logic of appropriateness

2. Jepperson, 1991)

   • Three primary carriers of institutionalisation
     • 1. Formal organisation (work org. with formal organisation structure, hierarchy, SOP)
     • 2. Regime (Explicitly codified rules and sactions institutionalised in some central authority system, without being embodied in formal org.)
     • Culture (Rules, procedures and goals w/o primary representation in formal org., no monitoring)
   • Degree of Institutionalisation
     • 1. Deeply embodied in a framework of institutions
     • 2. Has been in place for a long time
     • 3. High level of taken-for-grantedness
     • 5. Linked to some trascendental moral authority or presumed laws of nature
     • 4. General acceptance of its appropriatness
     • 6. Central to its system
   • Characteristics of Institutions
     • 1. Resistant to change - order-generating epitome of continuity (some, say inefficiency)
     • 2. not static, made up of rules, regulations, routines, political actors
     • 3. However, cautions against the tendency to see institutions as self-enforcing rules and procedures with little to no possibility of change

3. Unit of analysis in institutionalism

   • 1. Rules 2. Routine 3. Norms 4. Identities of an institutions
     • This measures, the effectiveness, impact on outcomes, why and how institutions emerge, evolve, change, become obsolete, rejuvenated, replaced & when do institutions not change

4. Four types of institutional change

   • 1, Institutional formation = consolidation of rules and disavowment of social entropy
   • 2. Institutional development - institutional continuation with change within the institution
   • 3. Deinstitutionalisation - breakdown in institution
   • 4. Reinstitutionalisation - Exiting from existing institutional form and establishment of another institutional reform

5. (March & Olsen, 1989)

   • Change catalyst (M&O, 1989)
     • 1. Rule-governed and institutionalised in specific sub-units
     • 2. Generated by routine interpretation and implementation of rules
     • 3. Reallocation of resources
     • i) M&O silent about role external actors, factors, and environment played
     • ii) transformative change can be the result of incremental, step-wise shifts that are barely visible at the outset
   • In-built coping mechanism
     • 1. Institutional specialisation
     • 2. Autonomy
     • 3. Sequential attention
     • 4. Local rationality
     • 5. Conflict avoidance
   • What are political institutions for?
     • 1. Provides sense of continuity and rhythm to political life
     • 2. Simplifies political life by allowing people to take things for granted
     • 3. Enshrine's society's decisions and serves as a repository of society's consensus on acceptable rules and norms that govern political behaviour
     • 4. Viewed as legitimate if the people, value accept, and consent to the rules set down and enforced by the political institutions
   • Critiques
     • 1. Tendency to be reductionist in analysis
     • 2. Privileges the sinstitution as a self-interested, political actor at the expense of diversity of individual self-interests
     • 3. Failure to disentangle institutionalisation from actor interests
     • 4. Downplays and fails to consider the impact of external environments on institutions

6. Types of Political Institutions

   • Refers to the entire machinery of government
   • 1. Executive - Primary branch that implement laws
   • 2. Legislative - Elected representatives that make laws and represent the citizens in the law making process
   • 3. Military - Protects and defends the integrity of the state, enforces law, and ensures order
   • 4. Bureaucracy - Network of state organs that advises political decision-makers
   • 5. Judiciary - Adjudicates (makes formal judgement on) the law of the land