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Understanding Public Policy: Theories and Issues 2 nd^ ed Paul Cairney
Chapter 5
Institutions and New Institutionalism
Key themes of this chapter :
Institutions are formal and informal rules which influence political behavior Formal rules are usually written and highly visible, such as the ‘structures of government’ that vary across policymaking systems. Informal rules are unwritten, less visible, and profoundly important but difficult to detect ‘New institutionalism’ is the study of ‘institutions’, but both terms are difficult to define. We know that institutions matter, but often struggle to define institutions. Instead, we focus on the different messages provided by key variants of institutional studies: historical, rational choice, normative, constructivist, feminist, empirical, network.
‘New institutionalism’ identifies the rules, norms, practices, and relationships that influences patterns of behaviour in politics and policymaking. ‘Institution’ once described policymaking organizations such as legislatures, courts and executives (Judge, 2005: 2). Now, it describes the formal and informal rules that guide action. Institutions are not the buildings or arenas within which people make policy. They are the rules of behaviour that influence how they make it. Formal rules of political systems include the US federal model and its constitution which sets out the rules governing the separation of powers between the executive, legislative and judicial branches and guarantees a degree of subnational policymaking autonomy. We may compare these rules with those of other political systems, such as the ‘Westminster model’ which has an executive, within the legislature, and less automatic subnational autonomy. Or, a focus on particular formal rules may allow comparisons of policymaking ‘styles’. For example, Lijphart (1999) differentiates between the styles in ‘majoritarian’ systems with first-past-the-post electoral rules and ‘consensus’ democracies which use proportional representation. Informal rules are more difficult to define, identify, and study. Broadly speaking, they are the norms of behavior that we find in many different settings, from societal norms on gender roles to the expectations about policy goals that are taken for granted in specific organizations. Although we write and speak about them, rules are often unwritten, unspoken, and difficult to unearth. They ‘exist in the mind’ of people who may know
what they are but struggle to describe their meaning and effect (Ostrom, 2007: 23). As in Chapter 3’s discussion of power, the impact of some rules is measurable, while others rely on theory and interpretation. Our aim is to identify patterns of behavior, then relate them to the relationships and share understandings that policy actors develop. Institutionalism studies are tricky because no-one is entirely sure what an institution is and what new institutionalism means. Lowndes (2010: 65; 2017) lists nine approaches, which suggests that it represents an umbrella term. Studies may be held together by the belief that institutions are the ‘central component of political life’ and that ‘they matter more than anything else that could be used to explain political decisions’ (Peters, 2005: 164). However, we may have to work hard to make sure that we are talking about institutions in comparable ways. There are two main ways to do so. First, describe the key messages associated with each variant. Second, identify the ‘causal mechanisms’ of institutions: how exactly do they cause patterns of behavior – such as via socialization or enforcement – and why do institutions change? Key messages include: many institutions are akin to structures which endure for many decades (historical); they provide incentives or constraints on action (rational choice); and, they are communicated via socialization (normative). Some approaches seek to go beyond these three variants to add new insights: rules and norms are communicated via the spread of ‘ideas’ (Chapter 11) which are more flexible than structures (discursive/ constructivist); and, institutions generally make it easier for men to engage in politics and policymaking (feminist). Others are better understood in terms of specific debates, such as when empirical institutionalism identifies formal rules as the cause of different policy styles, while network institutionalism emphasises common informal rules and policy styles across many political systems. Overall, we can agree quite easily that institutions matter, but have to work harder to say how and why.
Identifying formal and informal institutions
Newton and van Deth (2010: 9) describe formal institutions as ‘structures of government’. For example, constitutions represent a ‘set of fundamental laws that determines the central institutions and offices, and powers and duties of the state’ (2010: 71). In this context, the list of rules and associated organizations is long, and the potential for different policy outcomes in different political systems appears to be considerable:
Confederal and federal. Confederal arrangements exist when countries give some powers to supranational bodies to work in their common interests, but retain significant autonomy. Federal suggests a greater integration of territories, with common institutions more likely to have enforcement powers (2010: 107–9). Federal and unitary. In federal systems, there is a balance of power between the executive, legislature and judiciary, and between central and territorial levels of government. The latter have powers and rights guaranteed in a written constitution. In unitary systems, the central government controls, and can reform
Rules of government formation and executive–legislative relations. The need for minority or coalition government is more prevalent under multi-party PR systems (Newton and van Deth, 2010: 272–7). It combines with different rules in different countries regarding, for example, how long parties are given to negotiate government formation, how susceptible they are to motions of no confidence, and the extent to which parties can have policy influence in opposition (Strøm, 1990; Shugart, 2006). Group – government relations. ‘Corporatism’ refers to a close relationship between government and groups representing labour and business, in which ‘umbrella’ organizations are integrated within government policymaking structures. This is joint decision making, with the results often implemented by groups (e.g. by trade unions enforcing wage agreements on members). ‘Tri-partism’ is a less formal arrangement. ‘Pluralism’ describes groups competing with each other to influence government. In this case, informal ‘rules of the game’ are more important than formalized arrangements. Groups are ‘para-governmental’ when they receive money from governments to deliver public services (Newton and van Deth, 2010: 213 – 7; see also Martin and Swank, 2004; Martin and Thelen, 2007). Structures of public bureaucracies. Bureaucracies are subject to rules to ensure that they are powerful enough to be efficient but also accountable and not too powerful or autonomous. This balancing act inspires continuous civil service reform, including ‘new public management’ based on applying private business methods to government (Kettl, 2006).
These formal rules are crucial, but should be qualified in three ways. First, they largely describe variations across economically developed and Western liberal democracies, which tend to be the focus of most policy studies. Political systems which do not conduct regular free-and-fair elections, and low-and-middle-income countries, have only recently become subject to significant empirical study using the theories described in this book (Chapter 13). Second, semi-formal rules have resulted from policy decisions ‘institutionalized’ in some way. Economic institutions refers to the system of state country-level rules governing the operation of economic organizations. For example, there may be a US (adversarial) or UK (self-regulation and oversight) model for government agencies to regulate large corporations. There may also be Anglo-American, Rhineland, and East Asian models of capitalism, each of which involve different relationships between the state and the market (Moran, 2006). Regulatory state refers to the collection of rules governing economic organizations and interest groups, agencies and other organizations involved in the delivery of public services (Braithwaite, 2006). Welfare states represent a complex system of rules governing the provision of social security and public services. Third, our analysis is complete only when we consider informal rules, or shared understandings and standard operating procedures. For example, intergovernmental
relations within federal and devolved systems involve formal dispute resolution mechanisms (intergovernmental committees, the courts) and informal contacts between political parties, civil servants and individuals (Horgan, 2004; Watts, 2007). In some systems, including the UK, the norm is to avoid formal dispute resolution (Cairney, 2012). While federal systems are ‘cooperative’ (the centre and states share power and must coordinate policy efforts) or ‘dual’ (powers are separated), in practice most are administratively and financially interdependent and cooperate in similar ways (Newton and Van Deth, 2010: 114; Galligan, 2006: 274).
Box 5.1. Descriptions of institutions ‘Most of the major actors in modern economic and political systems are formal organizations, and the institutions of law and bureaucracy occupy a dominant role in contemporary life’ (March and Olsen, 1984: 734)
‘A major confusion exists between scholars who use the term to refer to an organizational entity such as the US Congress, a business firm, a political party, or a family, and scholars who use the term to refer to the rules, norms and strategies adopted by individuals operating within or across organizations’ (Ostrom, 2007: 23)
‘The formal rules, compliance procedures, and standard operating procedures that structure conflict’ (Hall in Thelen and Steinmo, 1992: 2)
‘Building blocks of social order … organizing behaviour into predictable and reliable patterns’ (Streek and Thelen, 2005: 9)
‘Humanly devised constraints that shape human interaction’ (North in Sanders, 2006: 42)
‘Institutions …can be interpreted as reflecting habits and norms, more likely to be evolved than to be created. But institutions also may be seen as architecture and as rules that determine opportunities and incentives for behaviour’ (Rhodes et al ., 2006: xiii)
‘Discursive institutionalism is an umbrella concept for the vast range of works in political science that take account of the substantive content of ideas and the interactive processes by which ideas are conveyed and exchanged through discourse’ (Schmidt, 2010: 3).
‘The majority of new institutionalist research is gender blind, failing to consider issues of gender and rarely drawing on feminist political science, despite a wide-ranging body of feminist work that is primarily concerned with political institutions’ (Kenny, 2007: 95)
What exactly is an institution? What is institutionalism?
inevitable that institutions endure over time, and we may question the extent to which they represent shared ideas. Instead, they may be reproduced in different ways by individuals who understand rules differently and act differently (Bevir, 2009). This makes the identification of institutions really tricky! They ‘exist in the minds of the participants and sometimes are shared as implicit knowledge rather than in an explicit and written form’ (Ostrom, 2007: 23). Further, the rules followed implicitly within organizations may contradict the rules described explicitly in written statements (2007: 23). Therefore, while we can perhaps agree that institutions represent sets of rules and norms, this may be where the agreement ends: ‘the range of theoretical approaches underlying the contemporary study of institutions is remarkably diverse, let alone the range of empirical and methodological orientations’ (Rhodes et al , 2006: xiii). At best, we can ask questions (box 5.2) and identify an answer in each variant.
Box 5.2 Key questions for new institutionalism Lowndes (2010: 65; 2017) and Schmidt (2006: 115) provide a list of new institutionalisms and explore the differences between them. However, there are no hard-and-fast distinctions between each version and it would be misleading to provide a table of definitions with strong dividing lines. There is too much disagreement on which texts fit into which camps (Peters, 2005: 108), too much variation within them, and general problems of measurement and conceptualization are common to all of them (Peters, 2016: 134-6). Instead, particular texts provide different answers to five questions:
1. What is an institution? They are the rules, norms and ‘standard operating procedures’ that influence behaviour, but some only identify formal rules or treat rules as fixed structures more than others. For example, Streek and Thelen (2005: 10–11) describe institutions as ‘formalized rules that may be enforced by calling upon a third party’, not ‘a more or less voluntarily agreed social convention’. Others include formal rules (as ‘exogenous constraints’) and the informal rules enforced by ‘players’ (Shepsle, 2006: 24– 5). Hay and Wincott (1998: 952) also warn against treating institutions as real, fixed structures. 2. How does an institution influence individual behaviour? Hall and Taylor (1996: 939 –40) distinguish between the ‘calculus’ and the ‘cultural approach’ (compare with the cognitive shortcuts in Chapter 4). ‘Calculus’ suggests that individuals make strategic decisions based on their preferences. Institutions provide the payoffs or negative consequences of their actions (e.g. the ‘penalties for defection’). ‘Cultural’ suggests that individuals follow ‘established routines or familiar patterns of behaviour’ based on their ‘worldview’ or ‘interpretation of a situation’. Institutions provide ‘moral or cognitive templates’ to inform that interpretation. 3. How does an institution become established? Approaches present different ideas on, ‘intentional design, accident or evolution’ (Goodin in Lowndes, 2010: 75–6). 4. How does an institution change? While most accounts suggest that institutions can be challenged or modified by agents: some treat institutions as structures that are
relatively resistant to change; others focus on less-fixed rules agreed informally between participants, or the ‘institutionalisation’ of ideas. This difference helps produce a distinction between quick versus gradual changes to institutions. Four key terms - ‘drift, layering, conversion, and displacement’ - help explain gradual changes to rules when they are subject to continuous challenge and revision, in contrast to the crisis and profound challenge that we associate with ‘punctuated equilibrium’ (St Denny, 2016: 83; Waylen, 2014: 217; Thelen, 20 04 ; Mahoney and Thelen, 2010).
5. How does institutionalism inform comparative public policy? While ‘empirical institutionalism’ uses institutions as variables to explain country level differences, many ‘network institutionalism’ accounts identify similar ‘policy styles’ or ‘rules of the game’ in many countries.
Key variants of New Institutionalism
Historical institutionalism Historical institutionalism treats institutions as ‘the formal rules, compliance procedures, and standard operating procedures’ that ‘structure conflict’ (Hall in Thelen and Steinmo, 1992: 2) or ‘structure and shape behaviour and outcomes’ (Steinmo, 2008: 188). Its key terms are ‘historical contingency’, ‘path dependence’ (Thelen and Steinmo, 1992: 2) and ‘critical juncture’. Historical contingency refers to the extent to which events and decisions made in the past contributed to the formation of institutions that influence current practices. Path dependence suggests that when a commitment to an institution has been established and resources devoted to it, over time it produces ‘increasing returns’ and it becomes increasingly costly to choose a different path (Pierson, 2000a; Peters, 2005: 74; Greener, 2005; Kay, 2006). Therefore, institutions, and the practices they encourage, may remain stable for long periods of time. A ‘critical juncture’ is the point at which certain events and decisions led to the introduction of - or major change to - an institution. The timing of these decisions is crucial, because it may be the order of events that sets an institution on its path. Note the phrase ‘sensitivity to initial conditions’ (also a feature of complexity theory in Chapter 6):
The analogy is a thought experiment with two balls – one black and one red – in a container. What happens if, each time we take a ball from the container, we add another black or red ball to the container? If a black ball is chosen we add another black ball to the container and therefore increase the probability of a black ball being chosen next time (from 1 in 2 to 2 in 3). The more we choose, the greater the cumulative effect of this first event or choice. Choosing a black ball at this
Bale (2017) combines a discussion of the common pressures on immigration policy in Europe with the identification of different policies which have endured for decades. Sources of common pressure include: the new freedom of movement of European Union nationals within the EU; the legacy of decolonialization (many EU countries once colonized African and South American countries); a rise in asylum applications, particularly from people in Africa and the Middle East; attention to levels of unemployment and benefit-seeking among native and foreign born residents; rising ‘Islamophobia’ and new stereotypes of ‘migrants and minorities as terrorists’; the rising popularity of radical right-wing parties seeking strong immigration controls; and, shifting ideas, from multiculturalism (the promotion of diverse cultures within states) to integration (the promotion of a common culture) (2017: 328-62). We can identify similar policies in many countries, such as the lack of attention to, or rejection of, the status of Roma travellers (2017: 359-60). However, we can also identify different policies based on their historical origins. For example, Germany’s post-war policy of liberal immigration (initially to encourage Germans to return to Germany, followed by attempts to ‘demonstrate its liberal credentials’) but differential status (granting citizenship based on blood links, not birth or residence) has produced a population which includes millions of people described as ‘foreigners’. Its broad policy response is often described as ‘multiculturalism’. Chancellor Angela Merkel recently described it as a failure, although the same leader then oversaw major immigration from Syria in 2017, suggesting that this language does not mark a major policy shift (2017: 357). Bale (2017: 357) contrasts Germany with France, which has a history of granting citizenship more easily to so-called ‘illegal’ immigrants, linked to issues such as decolonization in North Africa and previous fears about under- population. The policy context is often different, and the agenda is more about being tough on illegal immigration and promoting national integration. The biggest contrast may soon be with the UK, following a critical juncture in 2017, in which 52% of voters chose to leave the European Union, and many expressed support for greater restrictions on immigration from Europe (2017: 337).
Rational choice institutionalism Rational choice theory (Chapter 7) employs ‘methodological individualism’ or a commitment to explain socio-political outcomes as the aggregation of the decisions of individuals. Its aim is to establish what proportion of political outcomes one can explain with reference to the choices of individuals pursuing their preferences under particular conditions (the ‘calculus’ approach). Their preferences provide the ‘motivation of individual action’ and institutions provide the ‘context’ within which they operate (Dowding and King, 1995: 1). Individuals know that actions have different consequences in different contexts and it affects how they pursue their preferences. They ask themselves, ‘which action produces payoffs closest to my preferences?’ and institutions affect behaviour by providing the payoffs or information regarding the consequences of
their actions. For example, institutions may provide the ‘enforcement mechanisms for agreements’ and ‘penalties for defection’ (Hall and Taylor, 1996: 939–40). Sets of rules, influencing choices, often produce regular patterns of behaviour. ‘Equilibrium’ describes a stable point at which there is no incentive to divert from these patterns of behaviour. Institutions may be treated as solutions to at least three public policy problems identified by rational choice. First, to solve a ‘collective action problem’: the potential for choices made by individuals to have an adverse societal effect when there is an absence of trust, obligation or other incentives to cooperate with each other (see Chapter 7 on the IAD). The institution gives individuals that incentive if the rule dictates that they will be punished (e.g. if they flout the rules of the road), or provides a positive inducement (e.g. individuals are rewarded financially if they recycle) (Peters, 2005: 49). Second, to reduce ‘transactions costs’. In economics, institutions represent a set of - often formal and enforced - rules governing relationships between individuals or organizations. The aim is to reduce the likelihood that agreements between actors are broken. If so, they help reduce uncertainty and the costs associated with wasted effort on joint tasks that are not fulfilled. Studies have explored the relationship between legislative committees and government agencies, the rules of coalition government formation, and the development of EU institutions governing the interactions between member states (Hall and Taylor, 1996: 943). There is also a large literature identifying the incentives for governing bodies to cooperate with each other to produce more effective governance (see Institutional Collective Action i n Chapter 7). Third, to address the instability of choice. As Chapter 7 suggests, there is no perfect rule to aggregate individual preferences into social preferences. Instead, there is always the potential for ‘intransitive’ policy decisions because different choices can win according to the order in which they are presented (Riker, 1982). Imagine the policymaking equivalent of a 2-player game, in which scissors beats paper, paper beats stone, but stone beats scissors! If so, we might expect ‘cycling’ from one decision to another: as soon as one choice is made, there is a more-preferred alternative ready to be selected as its replacement. It’s fine for a fun game, but not in policymaking if each choice involves major upheavals in organizations and resources. In this case the role of an institution is to help manage how, and how often, we make choices (Dowding and King, 1995: 3). For example, a rule to ensure that elections take place once every four years, producing a governing majority with a relatively fixed policy programme, limits cycling.
Normative and sociological institutionalism Peters (2005: 26) describes March and Olsen’s work as ‘normative’ because they identify the ability of ‘norms and values within organizations’ to influence behaviour. March and Olsen (1984: 739) reject the idea that we should explain political behaviour primarily in terms of strategic choices based on the preferences of individuals. Instead, they refer to the role of political structures, defined as collections of ‘institutions, rules of behavior, norms, roles, physical arrangements, buildings, and archives that are relatively invariant
One key description is ‘institutional isomorphism’. DiMaggio and Powell (1983) revisit Weber’s argument that competition among firms in a capitalist system, and between states, would cause bureaucracies to converge on the most efficient model. Hierarchical and unified bureaucracies, with strict rules to enforce formal roles, develop because they are ‘technically’ superior (Weber, 1978: 973). Rather, DiMaggio and Powell (1983: 147) argue that organizations converge without becoming efficient. They emulate the successful organizations that they compete with for resources, power and legitimacy within a common legal and political framework. Or, they become driven by the rules and norms of public sector professions, developed through education and professional networks and encouraged by selective hiring practices (1983: 152). Indeed, if the professional network is homogeneous, these rules and practices may be taken for granted, akin to Bourdieu’s concept of ‘habitus’ or everyday, normal, embodied action based on actors’ similar perceptions of the world (Wang, 2016: 351). They become part of institutional ‘culture’ (Alasuutari, 2015). Such practices are not challenged routinely, particularly when the aims of an organization are unclear and oversight is performed by people who are not particularly aware of the organization’s activities. Although we might expect inefficient organizations to be ‘weeded out’ in a process of ‘natural selection’, economic efficiency is difficult to judge and organizations are often judged on their political performance (DiMaggio and Powell, 19 83: 157). Or, they are valued for their symbolic or social value than their efficiency (Hall and Taylor, 1996: 949).
Discursive and constructivist institutionalism Schmidt (2010: 2) uses the label ‘discursive institutionalism’ to describe studies which ‘take ideas and discourse seriously’. It includes ‘constructivist’ institutionalism, which draws on an approach to science that prompts us to consider the status of our knowledge: ‘whether things are simply given and correctly perceived by our senses (empiricism) or whether the things we perceive are rather the product of our conceptualizations (constructivism)’ (Kratochwil, 2008: 80; compare with the NPF in Chapter 4). In this context, Schmidt (2008:
- suggests that constructivism presents an ontological challenge: ‘about what institutions are and how they are created, maintained, and changed’. It distinguishes between institutions that are real structures that influence the interests of agents, and institutions as ideas created by agents and used to inform their perceptions of their interests. People’s actions are not simply a ‘reflection of their material interests but, rather, a reflection of particular perceptions of their material interests’ (Hay, 2006a: 68). Or, if enough people believe a particular idea or argument, it becomes important as a means to explain behaviour, regardless of its relation to the ‘real’ world (Blyth (2002: vii–viii). Shared beliefs give people a common
Ontology – a theory of reality (is there a real world and how does it relate to the concepts we use to describe it?). Related terms are epistemology (a theory of knowledge and how we can gather it) and methodology (the analysis of methods used to gather knowledge).
aim or reason to believe they have shared interests. Ideas are often institutionalized; they are taken for granted and rarely questioned, or at least accepted as the starting point when we consider policy problems (see Chapter 11 on paradigms). Therefore, discursive or constructivist accounts may identify path dependence, but relate it as much to ideas as governmental structures: ‘it is not just institutions, but the very ideas on which they are predicated and which inform their design and development, that exert constraints on political autonomy’ (Hay, 2006a: 65). As such, institutionalized ideas are not as rigid as structures. They are ‘constantly in flux, being reconsidered and redefined as actors communicate and debate with one another’ (Béland and Cox, 2010: 4). Institutions-as-ideas influence action but ‘exist’ in terms of the way that actors understand them. Hay (2006a: 65) notes that constructivists examine how actors ‘interpret environmental signals’. Institutions represent ‘established ideas’ or ‘paradigms’ which act as ‘cognitive filters’ or the primary means through which people understand their environment. The agenda of constructivist institutionalism is to understand how such ideas are ‘contested, challenged and replaced’. Discursive institutionalists describe historical, rational choice, and sociological/ normative institutionalism as ‘much better at explaining continuity than change. In all three … institutions serve primarily as constraints’ (Schmidt, 2010: 2) They treat institutions as stable or relatively fixed, only to be changed radically – during a period of ‘punctuated equilibrium’ - before another stable institution forms (Blyth, 2002: 7; Hay, 2006a). Or, they are ‘overly structuralist’ and do ‘not grant purposeful actors a proper role’ (Olsen, 2009: 3; Hindmoor, 2010). The solution is to relate institutional stability to the maintenance of dominant ideas; change results from successful challenges to those ideas. This approach helps explore how institutions influence agents and how actors challenge ideas and beliefs. For example, Schmidt (2006: 2010: 3; Schmidt and Radaelli, 2004: 193) argues that stability and change relates to ‘coordinative’ or ‘communicative’ discourse. ‘Coordinative’ refers to the role of individuals, groups or networks ‘who generate the ideas that form the bases for collective action and identity’ and compete with each other to have their ideas accepted. ‘Communicative’ refers to the use of those ideas in the wider public sphere, from elites using policy platforms to persuade voters, to debate among social movements or local voters. Institutions represent the most established ideas that are used to frame discussions and dominate debates, while coordinative and communicative processes suggest that these ideas can be challenged when debated. However, the role of ideas is not absent in other accounts (Peters, 2005: 75; Hay, 2006a: 66; Hall and Taylor, 1996: 942; Sanders, 2006: 42; Blyth, 1997: 229). Rather, Schmidt (2006: 113–14) suggests that discursive may be viewed as a supplement to other
Discourse. The verbal or written exchange or communication of ideas. In some cases, it has a more ambitious meaning, linking discourse to the power to decide which forms of knowledge are legitimate or acceptable.
sufficient ‘critical mass’ of women in an elected assembly to influence its culture (Mackay, 2004: 101-2). For example, in legislative committees, women are ‘tokens’ in the US, segregated in Germany, but validated in Sweden which has the highest proportion of women in elected positions (Bolzendahl, 2014: 869- 70 ; compare with the less clear relationship between gender and corruption, Stensöta et al, 2015). Rational choice. Men and women may adopt the same ‘calculus’ approach but face very different rewards and punishments for action. Normative. The transmission via socialisation of gendered norms – relating to participation in public policy - can be traced across many generations. The ‘gendered logic of appropriateness’ has been used to keep women in subordinate roles in public life and undermine challenges to this practice (Chappell and Waylan, 2013: 602-3) Discursive. The use of discourse to reinforce ‘racial or gendered stereotypes’ may help maintain social inequalities (Kenny, 2007: 96; compare with Chapter 4 on SCPD). Network. The ‘velvet triangle’ describes the policy communities of ‘feminist bureaucrats, trusted academics and organized voices in the women’s movement’ that develop partly because women are excluded routinely from the positions of power (Woodward, 2004: 78; Chappell and Waylan, 2013: 599).
However, feminist institutionalism also offers a more profound link to the ‘guiding principles of feminist methodology’ which include a continuous focus on ‘gender and gender asymmetry as a basic feature of all social life, including the conduct of research’ and ‘the empowerment of women and transformation of patriarchal social institutions through research and research results’ (Fonow and Cook, 2005: 2213). Research often focuses on the ‘codes of masculinity and femininity’ which underpin institutions and political action (Lovenduski, 1998: 337; Chappell and Waylen, 2013: 600- 1 ). Examples range from openly expressed stereotypes of historically male roles (the aggressive soldier or police officer, the calculating bureaucrat) and female roles (the ‘the caring nurse, the compliant secretary’), to the informal rules which represent the ‘hidden life of institutions’ (2013: 608). For instance, although there developed a formal commitment to recruiting more women – in, say, their 50s - to the most senior positions in the UK civil service, it was undermined by an informal requirement to work intensively as a ‘private secretary’ in their 20s or 30s, which generally favoured men with fewer caring responsibilities (2013: 611). Formal measures by EU institutions to foster greater gender equality were generally overshadowed by its unstated preference to focus on economic development (Weimar and Macrae, 2014). New formal measures for gender equality in reformed or newly formed institutions often do not ‘stick’ because they are ‘nested’ in a wider set of rules and practices which undermine them (Mackay, 2014: 550-4). Further, the distinction between
the new ‘rule-makers’ versus the established ‘rule-enforcers’ who ‘can slip back into old ways’ (especially when the new rules are ambiguous) resembles the incomplete implementation and ‘old way of doing things’ in Chapter 2 (Waylen, 2014: 219; Carey et al, 2019; Mamudu et al, 2015).
Empirical versus network institutionalism? Diverging and converging policy styles A focus on policy style allows us to compare the effects of formal and informal institutions on policymaking. Empirical institutionalism identifies country-level differences in styles based on formal institutions within political systems. Network institutionalism highlights similar styles in different countries based on their adherence to the same informal ‘rules of the game’. The former is exemplified by Lijphart’s (1999) Patterns of Democracy (Table 5.1).
Table 5.1 Lijphart’s majoritarian–consensus dichotomy Institutional divisions
Majoritarian democracy
Consensus democracy Executive power Concentrated in single party majority cabinet
Shared in broad multiparty coalition Executive-legislative relationship
Executive is dominant Balance of power between executive and legislature Party system Two-party system Multiparty system Electoral system Majoritarian & disproportional (based on a plurality of votes)
Proportional
Interest group system Pluralist free-for-all and competition among groups
Coordinated and corporatist, exhibiting compromise and concertation Federal–unitary Unitary and centralized
Federal and Decentralized Legislative power Concentrated in unicameral legislature
Divided between two equally strong houses Constitutions Flexible constitutions that can be amended by simple majorities
Rigid constitutions that can be changed only by large majorities Constitutionality of laws
Decided by legislatures
Subject to judicial Review Central banks Dependent on the executive
Independent
Policy style – the way that governments make and implement policy
making appears to be more unilateral’ even though it, ‘has institutions which are rather of the more consensus-democratic type’, while the European Union is ‘less co-operative than it appears at first sight’. Cairney, Ingold, and Fischer (2018) find that the majoritarian/ consensus distinction between the UK and Switzerland has only a subtle effect on policy community dynamics. Cairney (2008; 2009b; 2019b) produces a similar assessment of majoritarian-UK versus consensus-devolved government (in Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland), while Cairney and Widfeldt (2015) find many similarities between the UK and Sweden (again, compare with Richardson, 2018; see also Larsen, Taylor-Gooby and Kananen, 2006; Atkinson and Coleman, 1989; Bovens et al ., 2001; John, 1998: 42–4; Freeman, 1985). Barzelay and Gallego (2010: 298) also criticize historical institutionalist accounts which focus too much on national character traits (in France, Spain and Italy) at the expense of knowledge of their sub-systems. Of course, a global comparison would test this argument to its limits. Howlett and Tosun’s (2019) edited volume identifies potentially major differences in, for example, countries with or without elections, and more or less supportive of interest groups and non-governmental-organisations (NGOs). Still, the evidence we have so far suggests that we need to demonstrate such differences systematically rather than assume that major differences in policymaking will be caused necessarily by formal institutional differences.
Conclusion
Institutions are not the bricks-and-mortar arenas within which decisions are made. Rather, we study the rules, norms and conventions that influence individual behaviour. While this research agenda has raised the status of institutional studies, it has also produced much soul searching about what an institution is and how we should study it. We may agree that institutions matter and that they evolve and change, but explaining how and why is another matter. We can focus on the formal rules that are enforced, such as the written constitutions that set out a political system’s separation of powers. Or, we can identify norms of behaviour and informal rules. We can regard institutions as sets of incentives used by individuals pursuing their preferences, or structures that influence those preferences. We can emphasize stability or change. Institutions can be relatively stable and durable structures that live longer than individuals, or unstable sets of ideas that are taken for granted on one day only to be challenged the next. We can treat them as structures that exist in the real world or as constructs that only exist in the minds of policy participants. We may identify historical differences to explain why public policy is different in different political systems or current practices which seem to be very similar. These theoretical problems and debates have the potential to distract us from the value of institutional analysis. Alternatively, we can identify a basic common understanding that institutions are important, and a set of questions to guide public policy research: how are institutions formed by agents? Why, and under what circumstances, do agents accept or follow rules? What patterns of policymaking behaviour can we attribute to those rules? (Peters, 2005: 156). The solution for ‘problem-oriented scholars’ is not to
ignore the debate. Rather, it is to get enough of a sense of perspective to allow us to conduct theory-driven public policy research. A key theme of this book regards the extent to which we can use the same theories to explain policy developments in countries with different institutions. For example, the policy process in a federal US may contrast with a devolved but unitary UK. While Germany has a federal structure, its size and relationship with the EU undermines direct comparisons with the US. Australia’s system is federal but also parliamentary, not presidential. The checks and balances in the US system ensure a key policy role for the courts and a second legislative chamber; in the UK there have been few avenues for judicial policy influence (at least until EU legal procedures developed) and the second chamber is comparatively weak. The US’ reliance on plurality voting (producing a two- party system) is shared by the UK (Westminster elections) and Canada but not Germany or Japan. Its ‘weak’ party structure, in which the main national parties do not control their state or local counterparts (Atkinson and Coleman, 1989), is shared by Canada but not Germany which has integrated parties and formal links to coordinate policy (Horgan, 2004). Using these formal differences as a basis of comparison, we may produce questions relating to the application of theories of public policy to different countries. For example, are political systems with formal checks and balances the most conducive to pluralism (Chapter 3)? Are political systems with diffused powers and extensive ‘veto points’ less conducive to radical rather than incremental change (Chapter 4 )? Is ‘venue shopping’ a feature of federal systems modelled on the US, but not unitary systems modelled on the UK (Chapter 9)? On the other hand, as the policy styles debate shows, countries with different formal institutions may produce similar ‘standard operating procedures’ when the behaviour of participants is driven by informal rules and norms. Further, much of the US literature combines a discussion of specific US institutions with universal themes. For example, Baumgartner and Jones’ (1993) study is based largely on the bounded rationality of policymakers (Chapter 9). The advocacy coalition framework relates primarily to the belief systems that bind policy participants together (Chapter 10). Kingdon’s (1995) multiple streams analysis explores policymaker receptivity to ideas (Chapter 11). The policy transfer literature combines a discussion of the widespread adoption of similar policy ideas with the institutional differences that ensure that they are formulated and implemented in different ways (Chapter 12). In other words, the remaining chapters recognize the difference that institutions make, but also highlight the policy processes that transcend formal institutional boundaries, and the informal rules – such as on gender roles in public life – found in all systems. Then, in Chapter 13, we note that such analyses are largely of countries in the Global North. Policy theories have only begun to compare their institutions and experiences with countries in the Global South.
