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The core of traditional political science was the study of institutions and of political philosophy. The behavioral revolution swept both aside and focused political scientists on the study of political behavior. Then came the onslaught of rational choice theory. To the surprise of political scientists, these efforts concluded that many fond beliefs about the effects of institutions lacked firm theoretical foundations based on individual choice. The past decade has witnessed a flurry of new scholarship in the rational choice tradition flying the banner of "The New Institutionalism." The flood of work produced in this tradition facilitates a return to the core of the discipline, namely institutions and the nature of political orders.
Renewed interest in institutions has, however, generated a simmering theoretical debate about what institutions are. The debate is healthy and likely to lead to a clarification of core concepts used in political science. The institutional grammar introduced here is based on a view that institutions are enduring regularities of human action in situations structured by rules, norms, and shared strategies, as well as by the physical world. The rules, norms, and shared strategies are constituted and reconstituted by human interaction in frequently occurring or repetitive situations.(1) Where one draws the boundaries of an institution depends on the theoretical question of interest, the time scale posited, and the pragmatics of a research project. One example of an institution encompasses the regularities of action and outcomes in the U.S. Congress. Another limits the focus to only one house or one committee or subcommittee. Likewise, analysis of institutional statements can target broad prescriptions (e.g., Congress may pass legislation regulating interstate commerce) or focus on a narrower prescription (e.g., a cloture rule). We shall introduce a grammar that provides a theoretical structure for analysis of the humanly constituted elements of institutions (i.e., rules, norms, and shared strategies).
INSTITUTIONS
Several approaches have been taken to answer the question, What is an institution? One major approach to this question is the institutions-as-equilibria approach drawing on the work of Menger (1963) and von Hayek (1945, 1967) for its intellectual foundations and Schotter (1981), Riker (1980), and Calvert (1992) for contemporary views. Works in this approach focus on the stability that can arise from mutually understood actor preferences and optimizing behavior....