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The Eclectic Center of the New Institutionalism

Axes of Analysis in Comparative Perspective

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 January 2016

Philip Ethington  and
Eileen McDonagh
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Extract

This special section of Social Science History launches a series of five articles illustrative of what we believe is an eclectic center in the development of historical studies of institutions and policies, often termed the “new institutionalism.” The new institutionalism emerged in the early 1980s in reaction to “a long season in which social forces and processes were the predominant topics of study” (Orren and Skowronek 1986). While the precise role of institutions varies according to the practitioner, hallmarks of the new institutionalism include a portrayal of institutions as semiautonomous actors; a contextualization of institutions within sociohistorical processes (and vice versa); a recognition of inefficiency, contingency, and accident in history; and a recognition of the relative autonomy of ideas and symbolic action in historical development (March and Olsen 1984, 1989; Krasner 1984; Smith 1988; Katznelson 1992). As is expected of new paradigms, the entry of the new institutionalism into the intellectual community has been marked by an array of polemics against its predecessors, “old” schools defined by “old institutionalism,” behaviorism, and structural functionalism. It has also generated a wave of spirited counterattacks (Mitchell 1991; Bendix et al. 1992; Ethington and McDonagh forthcoming).

Type
Special Section: Institutions and Institutionalism
Information
Social Science History , Volume 19 , Issue 4 , Winter 1995 , pp. 467 - 477
Copyright
Copyright © Social Science History Association 1995 

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