Institutional approach 1

Institutional approach
(excerpted from: Kesselman, M., Krieger, J. & Joseph, W.A. (2005). Introduction to comparative politics. 4th edition. USA:
Wadsworth Cengage Learning)

The module introduces you to what institutional approach is, the reason for its use in the study of politics, and the
foci whenever it is applied as a tool for analysis. What you understood about this approach will be applied in the given
country case study.
After reading the excerpted materials, you should be able to:
a. identify the strengths and weaknesses of the institutional approach
b. demonstrate their understanding of the institutional approach by applying it in comparing the legislatures and
executives of parliamentary and presidential systems
c. reflect on the applicability of parliamentary and presidential institutions in the Philippines
Key Concepts to Understand:
empirical approach institutions institutionalism institutionalization logic of appropriateness
logic of consequence new institutional approach normative approach

The institutional approach. The study of governing institutions is a central purpose of

political science in general, and of comparative politics in particular; hence the mantra often
seen in studies of politics that ‘institutions matter’. Institutionalism provides the original
foundation of the discipline and lies at the core of the discipline, xxx.
Institutions: In the political sense, these are formal organizations or practices with a
political purpose or effect, marked by durability and internal complexity. The core
institutions are usually mandated by the constitution.
Institutionalism: An approach to the study of politics and government that focuses on
the structure and dynamics of governing institutions.
What, then, is an institution? In politics, the term traditionally refers to the major
organizations of national government, particularly those specified in the constitution such as the
legislature, the judiciary, the executive, and, sometimes, political parties xxx. Since they often
possess legal identity, acquiring privileges and duties under law, these bodies are treated as
literal ‘actors’ in the political process. However, the concept of an institution is also used more
broadly to include other organizations which may have a less secure constitutional basis, such
as the bureaucracy and local government. It is also used more widely to denote virtually any
organization (such as interest groups) or even any established and well-recognized political
practice. For instance, scholars refer to the ‘institutionalization’ of corruption in Russia or
Nigeria, implying that the abuse of public office for private gain in these countries has become
an accepted routine of political life – an institution – in its own right. When the concept of an
‘institution’ is equated with any and every political or social practice, however, it risks over-
extension (Rothstein, 1996).
Institutional analysis assumes that positions within organizations matter more than
the people who occupy them. This axiom enables us to discuss roles rather than people:
presidencies rather than presidents, legislatures rather than legislators, the judiciary rather than
judges. The capacity of institutions to affect the behaviour of their members means that politics,
as other social sciences, is more than a branch of psychology.
Institutional analysis can be static, based on examining the functioning of, and
relationships between, institutions at a given moment. But writers within this approach show
increasing interest in institutional evolution and its effects. Institutions possess a history,
culture and memory, frequently embodying traditions and founding values. In a process of
institutionalization, they grow ‘like coral reefs through slow accretion’ (Sait, 1938: 18). In this way,
 Institutional approach 2

many institutions thicken naturally over time, developing their internal procedures and also
becoming accepted by external actors as part of the governing apparatus. In other words, the
institution becomes a node in a network and, in so doing, entrenches its position.
Institutionalization: The process by which organizations build stability and
permanence. A government department, for example, is institutionalized if it possesses
internal complexity, follows clear rules of procedure, and is clearly distinguished from its
environment.
Institution Role and purpose Examples
Legislature Representing the interests Parliaments, congresses,
of citizens; making law; national assemblies, diets
forming governments;
Executive Governing, making policy, Presidents, prime
providing leadership and ministers, ministers and
direction cabinets
Judiciary and Upholding and interpreting Supreme courts, courts
constitutional the constitution
courts
Bureaucracy Implementing policy Departments, ministries,
divisions, agencies
Political Parties Offering policy alternatives, Conservatives, liberals,
fielding candidates, forming socialists, greens,
governments and oppositions nationalists

Figure 5.2: The formal institutions of government

As particular institutions come to provide an established and accepted way of working,

they acquire resilience and persistence (Pierson, 2004). For example, uncertainty abounded in
1958 when France adopted a new constitution with a semi-presidential system of government,
greatly strengthening the powers of the executive relative to those of the legislature. Just a
generation later, though, it would have been hard to find anyone favouring a switch back to the
inefficiencies and uncertainties of the old parliamentary system. So, as with constitutions,
institutions are devices through which the past constrains the present. Thus, the study of
institutions is the study of political stability, rather than change. As Orren and Skowronek (1995:
298) put it: Institutions are seen as the pillars of order in politics, as the structures that lend the
polity its integrity, facilitate its routine operation and produce continuity in the face of potentially
destabilizing forces. Institutional politics is politics as usual, normal politics, or a politics in
equilibrium. Institutions are particularly central to the functioning of liberal democracies, because
they provide a settled framework for reaching decisions.
In addition, they enable long-term commitments which are more credible than those of
any single employee, thus building trust. For example, governments can borrow money at
lower rates than are available to individual bureaucrats. Similarly, a government can make
credible promises to repay its debt over a period of generations, a commitment that is beyond
the reach of any individual debtor. Institutions also offer predictability. When we visit a
government office, we do so with expectations about how the members of staff will behave,
even though we know nothing about them as individuals. A shared institutional context eases
the task of conducting business between strangers. In and beyond politics, institutions help to
glue society together, extending the bounds of what would be possible for individuals acting
alone. At the same time, an institutional approach, like all others, can become inward-looking.
Two particular problems should be highlighted. First, some institutions are explicitly
created to resolve particular problems. For example, in the wake of the global financial crisis of
2007–10, and of the debt crisis that broke in the eurozone in 2009, European Union
 Institutional approach 3

governments agreed to create new institutions designed to improve financial supervision and to
encourage more consistent regulation of banking. We should perhaps focus more on these key
historical moments which spark institutional creativity. Although uncommon, they help us to view
institutions as a product of, rather than just an influence on, political action by individuals.
Second, governing institutions rarely act independently of social forces, especially in poorer,
less complex, and authoritarian states. Sometimes, the president is the presidency, and the
entire superstructure of government is a facade behind which personal networks and exchanges
continue to drive politics. In the extreme case of communist party states, for instance, the
formal institutions of government were controlled by the ruling party. Government was the
servant, not the master, and its institutions carried little independent weight. Even in liberal
democracies, it is always worth asking whose interests benefit from a particular institutional
set-up. Just as an institution can be created for specific purposes, so too can it survive by
serving the interests of those in charge. For example, the arrangement in the United States by
which electoral districts are designed by the dominant political parties in each state, allowing
them to manipulate the outcome of elections in a process known as ‘gerrymandering’, is a
distortion of democracy, but it suits the interests of the Republicans and the Democrats. In
addressing the collective benefit that institutions deliver, we should remember that the support
of powerful political and economic interests provides additional stability (Mahoney and Thelen, 2010: 8).
Overall, the institutions of government must be seen as central to liberal democratic politics, and
we must look not just at their definition and origins, but also at their purpose, effects, and
character (see Figure 5.3). They are the apparatus through which political issues are shaped,
processed, and sometimes resolved. They provide a major source of continuity and
predictability, and they shape the environment within which political actors operate and, to an
extent, structure their interests, values, and preferences. The institutional approach offers no
developed theory but does provide observations about institutional development and functioning
which can anchor studies of specific cases.
Definition Formal organizations with a political purpose, typically possessing
legal identity, and acquiring privileges and duties under law.
Origins May be deliberately created for a specific purpose, or may emerge
and evolve over time in response to a need, independently of the
conscious intentions of the people involved.
Political purpose To provide the framework within which decisions are made, issues
are shaped, and problems are resolved, but may come to serve
narrow interests, such as those of the wealthy and powerful.
Effects Generate norms which shape behaviour and expectations, promote
stability and predictability, and enable long-term commitments.
Character May be formal, with rules and hierarchies and employees, or may be
informal reflections of the need for social order (e.g., religion or
marriage).
Figure 5.3: Understanding political institutions

New institutionalism. The manner in which theories and approaches tend to go in and
out of fashion (or, at least, to evolve) is reflected in what happened to institutionalism in the
1950s and 1960s, when new approaches such as behaviouralism won support. The institutional
approach was criticized for being too descriptive and for looking at the formal rules of
government at the expense of politics in its many different forms, and fell out of favour. But then
the 1980s saw new research on social and political structures and a new interest in the reform
of institutions in developing countries. The result was the birth of what became known as new
institutionalism (March and Olsen, 1984).
New institutionalism: A revival of institutionalism that goes beyond formal rules and
looks at how institutions shape decisions and define interests.
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This looks not just at the formal rules of government but also at how institutions shape
political decisions, at the interaction of institutions and society, and at the informal patterns of
behaviour within formal institutions. This lent itself well to comparative politics as researchers
undertook cross-national studies, many of them interested in better understanding the process
of democratization. Revealing just how many variations there can be on a theoretical theme,
Peters (1999) identifies seven strands of new institutionalism, ranging from the historical to the
international and the sociological.
The institutional approach offers two main reasons for supposing that organizations
shape behaviour. First, because institutions provide benefits and opportunities, they shape the
interests of their staff. As soon as an organization pays salaries, its employees acquire
interests, such as ensuring their own personal progress within the structure and defending their
institution against outsiders. March and Olsen (1984: 738) suggest that institutions become
participants in the political struggle:
The bureaucratic agency, the legislative committee and the appellate court are arenas
for contending social forces but they are also collections of standard operating
procedures and structures that define and defend interests. They are political actors in
their own right.
Second, sustained interaction among employees encourages the emergence of an
institutional culture, which can weld the organization into an effective operational unit.
Institutions generate norms which, in turn, shape behaviour. One strength of the institutional
approach is this capacity to account for the origins of interests and cultures, rather than just
taking them for granted. As Zijderveld writes (2000: 70), ‘institutions are coercive structures that
mould our acting, thinking and feeling’.
The new institutional approach suggests that much political action is best understood by
reference to the contrasts between the logic of appropriateness and the logic of consequences.
The former sees human action as driven by the rules of appropriate behaviour, and hence
institutions shape activity simply because it is natural and expected, not because it has any
deeper political motive. For instance, when prime ministers visit an area devastated by floods,
they are not necessarily seeking to direct relief operations, or even to increase their public
support, but may just be doing what is expected in their job. In itself, the tour achieves the goal
of meeting expectations arising from the actor’s institutional position. ‘Don’t just do something,
stand there’, said Ronald Reagan, a president with a fine grasp of the logic of appropriateness.
When an institution faces an obligation to act, its members are as likely to be heard asking
‘What did we do the last time this happened?’ as ‘What is the right thing to do in this situation?’
They seek a solution appropriate for the organization and its history.
Logic of appropriateness: The actions which members of an institution take to conform
to its norms. For example, a head of state will perform ceremonial duties because it is an
official obligation.
Logic of consequences: The actions which members of an institution take on the
basis of a rational calculation of altruism or self-interest.
This emphasis within the institutional framework on the symbolic or ritual aspect of
political behaviour contrasts with the view of politicians and bureaucrats as rational actors who
define their own goals independently of the organization they represent. In other words, their
actions are shaped by consequences, or the political returns they expect to achieve from
those actions; they are faced with a problem, they look at the alternatives and at their personal
values, and they choose the option that provides the most efficient means to achieving their
goals. In short, institutions provide the rules of the game within which individuals pursue their
objectives (Shepsle, 2006).
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FOCUS 5.1 Empirical versus normative approaches

One of the more important debates in political research concerns the differences
between empirical and normative perspectives; one uses facts to ask what happened
and why (descriptive), while the other uses judgements or prescriptions to ask what
should have happened or what ought to happen (evaluative) (see Gerring and Yesnowitz, 2006). Take
electoral systems, for example: the statement that ‘proportional representation
encourages multi-party systems’ is empirical, while the statement that ‘proportional
representation should be used to encourage multiple parties’ is normative.
Most political research tries to be empirical in the sense that it asks why things
are the way they are in a manner that tries to be value-neutral, as when a researcher
looks into the causes of war in a purely objective and scientific fashion. But other
research takes a more normative approach by asking what should be done in order to
achieve a desired outcome, such that the researcher questions the phenomenon of war
in a more value-driven and philosophical manner, asking – for example – whether and in
what circumstances war is ever justified. The empirical and normative approaches are
not mutually exclusive, and there has been renewed demand for the idea of making
political science more relevant by combining the two. Consider the argument made by
Gerring and Yesnowitz (2006): Empirical study in the social sciences is meaningless if it has
no normative import … It matters, or may matter, but we do not know how. Likewise, a
normative argument without empirical support may be rhetorically persuasive or logically
persuasive, but it will not have demonstrated anything about the world out there. It has
no empirical ballast. Good social science must integrate both elements; it must be
empirically grounded, and it must be relevant to human concerns. Many of the towering
figures in the history of political thought trod lightly between the two perspectives, the
cases of Machiavelli and Marx illustrating this point:
• Niccolò Machiavelli (1469–1527) was a writer and historian whose masterpiece The
Prince looked at the qualities of power and the means used by rulers to win, keep, and
manipulate it. On the one hand, his book can be seen as an empirical (and even cynical)
analysis of the nature and exercise of power in the real world. On the other hand, it can
also be understood as normatively endorsing the sometimes brutal tactics rulers need to,
or indeed should, follow to sustain their position.
• Karl Marx (1818–83) wrote a vast body of empirical work presenting history as a
class struggle between the owners of the means of production and the labourers,
arguing that states were run in the interests of the owners. He concluded that capitalism
created internal tensions which ensured that it was sowing the seeds of its own
inevitable destruction. But underlying this empirical analysis was a normative concern to
accelerate capitalism’s overthrow so as to create the possibility of a new classless
society. In Marx’s work, empirical research was motivated by normative goals.
 Institutional approach 6

Enhancement Activity 1:
After reading and trying to understand what institutional approach is all about,
you can test your understanding by defining the following terms:

1. Empirical approach

2. Normative approach

3. Institutional approach

4. Logic of consequence

5. Logic of appropriateness

Enhancement Activity 2:
You had been reading about the difficulties that our country had been going
through since the implementation of the Enhanced and then General to
Modified General Community Quarantine. For more than three months,
through news coverage and other web sources, you witnessed the struggles of
our ordinary people, the locally stranded individuals, the repatriated OFWs, the OFWs in
other countries seeking for assistance from our government, the front liners, education
sector, among others. Added to these stories of our time is the controversial enactment of
the emergency bill, now called, Anti-Terror Act of 2020 which earned opposition from some
sectors of our society. Considering all of these, do you consider the enactment of the Anti-
Terror Act of 2020 in compliance with the logic of consequences or logic of
appropriateness? Why?
 Institutional approach 7

Enhancement Activity 3:
Based from what you understood, write in the appropriate column what you
consider to be the strengths and weaknesses of the institutional approach.

Strengths Weaknesses