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This chapter examines the leading present-day expression of modernist-empiricism: the new institutionalism. First, it challenges the belief of new institutionalists that they have a shared new paradigm. Instead, we suggest it is varied, containing strands that can scarcely be reconciled with one another. Second, it argues that historical institutionalism exists primarily as a counter to rational choice institutionalism but its inductive, modernist-empiricist logic lacks a micro-level theory for explaining historical change and awareness grows that it is not a distinctive approach. Third, it argues that ideational or constructivist institutionalism offers a promising way forward provided it develops a micro-theory that appeals to the beliefs and desires of actors and it breaks with the ahistorical forms of explanation of modernist-empiricism.

What's ‘new’ about ‘new institutionalism’? New institutionalism arises through the use of new behavioural methodology, bringing with it new variables, new focus of interest, and a growth in comparativism. Varieties of new institutionalism exist, and these are reviewed in the form of normative, rational choice, historical, social, and structural applications. Theoretical issues related to new institutionalism are considered.

This chapter discusses existing hypotheses about the reasons for the introduction of state funding to political parties and links them to one of the main new institutionalist approaches. From a rational choice perspective, state funding to political parties is a response to rising costs of political competition. However, these costs have risen in all democracies, no matter whether state funding has been introduced. From a historical institutionalist perspective, the introduction of state funding is, for instance, linked to étatiste traditions. This explanation fails to explain why, in some countries, no state funding exists despite influential étatiste traditions, or why state funding was only introduced when these traditions were actually eroding. Normative institutionalist approaches link the introduction of state funding with a specific logic of appropriateness which, for instance, prompted a perception of parties as ‘public utilities’. In order to avoid such barely falsifiable arguments, the next chapter refers to actor-based institutionalism.

What is political science and what are its main contentions? Reviews the discipline and its contemporary boundaries with regard to theoretical questions and methodological integration. The discipline is maturing, seen in an embrace of pluralism and an overlapping consensus in the role of rationality, institutions, and culture. Reviews new themes built on previous omissions, such as feminism, leading to post‐modern and post‐positivist approaches. Calculates the sub‐discipline powerhouses and most‐ cited authors across the field––across which the whole book provides an overview.

The analysis of women’s self-described roles as representatives of women finds both convincing evidence of consensus among women members over time and across parties as well as an abundance of complexity, pointing once again to the importance of going beyond what women say to other factors that give practical meaning to their words: perceptions of women as a group, resentment of perceived gender-related problems facing women, commitment to advancing women, and differences in the relative priority of working on behalf of women. Deconstructing ‘women’ and ‘women’s issues’ reveals differences in meanings that may contribute to different actions on different issues, benefiting different women. A closer look at partisan differences in the institutional and extra-institutional environments reveals challenges and opportunities for surrogate representation of women, which contribute to disunity among women in practice and perhaps diversity in the way feminist protest is manifested.

This chapter deconstructs women’s words of connection to women, focusing on the connection women members of Congress feel towards other political women. Content analysis of transcripts shows that women members of Congress seem to conceptualize political women as a group with shared experiences and comradery, common concerns, and/or interrelated fates. However, the data also show that beneath the veneer of unity and connectedness revealed in women’s words is considerable complexity, driven not only by individual level forces — ideology, life experiences, race, etc. — but also shaped by the institutional environment of Congress and the constraints posed by its partisan structure.

The ratings of ten interest groups, along with party unity and presidential support scores, are analyzed to explore the broader evidence of change and stability in gender difference and women’s impact across the strikingly different environments of the 103rd and 104th Congresses. Although the results suggest that increased descriptive representation will enhance substantive representation of women, these findings of gender difference coexist with evidence that descriptive representation might not necessarily contribute to increased substantive representation of women. Gender differences narrowed in the 104th, primarily due to the influx of a new cohort of Republican women who were in some cases even more conservative than their male colleagues, but also due to ‘conversion’ effects, as veteran Republican women shifted rightward in an institutional environment where the cost of difference increased. With Democratic men on average being more feminist/liberal than Republican women on average, the question is raised whether substantive representation of women would be better served by increasing the proportional presence of Democrats (regardless of gender) or by increasing women’s presence regardless of party.

Although institutions are central to the study of public policy, the focus upon them has shifted over time. This chapter is concerned with the role of institutions in problem solving and the utility of an evolving institutional theory that has significantly fragmented. It argues that the rise of new institutionalism in particular is symptomatic of the growing complexity in problems and policy making. We review the complex landscape of institutional theory, we reconsider institutions in the context of emergent networks and systems in the governance era, and we reflect upon institutions and the notion of policy shaping in contemporary times. We find that network institutionalism, which draws upon policy network and community approaches, has a particular utility for depicting and explaining complex policy.

The introduction describes in full the comparative politics research design developed by the Research Network on Gender Politics and the State and used to study the role of women's policy agencies as allies or adversaries of women's movement activists in influencing abortion policy and politics. The theoretical foundation integrates several theoretical strands: democratic representation, new institutionalism, and social movement impact. The chapter describes the network's theory of state feminism and provides a primer on the comparative method in policy research.

The emergence of entrepreneurs and a private real estate market in Vietnam is one of a growing number of cases that challenges the Washington consensus approach to international development. Vietnam has some of the weakest private property protections, an authoritarian government which intervenes in the management of firms, and under-developed financial and legal institutions. While there is growing consensus that institutions and power matter in explaining the variation in economic outcomes that we observe, this chapter discusses the limits of the disparate new institutionalist literatures and traditional political economy accounts. It then introduces social cognition theory as a way to connect the insights of these literatures and to explain better the processes of major institutional change.

This chapter discusses the framework that will be used to analyse changes in policies affecting free speech, and the justifications used to effect those changes. It articulates how the principle of freedom of speech has been mediated by and within institutions, using a new institutionalism analysis. It articulates how new institutionalism explains the differences and similarities in the protections for freedom of speech that existed prior to 9/11. The chapter then articulates the state of play before 9/11 for the protection of civil liberties generally, and freedom of speech specifically, in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia, noting the differences in the form and scope of free speech protection in each country. It then outlines the regulation of sedition and hate speech prior to 9/11, arguing these are the two best comparators for terrorist-related speech.

Institutionalism is a mid-range analytical approach emphasizing the institutional factors that shape and drive policy outcomes. This chapter reviews the main variants of new institutionalist theorizing—rational-choice, historical and sociological constructivism—in the context of EU internal security and unpacks their strengths and weaknesses. The chapter then presents an institutional constructivist approach that is clearer about the role of institutions in the construction of ideas, norms, cognitive templates, and identities. Given the normative character as well as non-incremental or non-linear development of the Area of Freedom, Security and Justice, it is useful to focus on how actors produce, construct, and transform discursive landscapes and to try to overcome the structuralist bias of the institutionalist literature. The chapter then applies this theoretical approach to explain processes of institutionalization and change in the area of EU citizenship.

In the early 1920s, a powerful Ku Klux Klan movement burst forth in many American cities, targeting immigrant Jews and Catholics and people of color and attracting an estimated four to six million members. This book uses an explanatory framework built on three basic analytic dimensions: socioeconomic structure, institutional politics, and urban civil society. It introduces concepts drawn from three corresponding, well-known paradigms in sociology and political science: traditional political sociology; the “new institutionalism”; and social movement theory. Furthermore, it provides a case study of three social movements in Oakland, from the point of view of urban political development in twentieth-century America. The focus is on the struggles of groups and actors to forge a political solidarity and community in an urban context. An overview of the chapters included in this book is finally presented.

This chapter examines the Institutional Dimensions of Global Environmental Change (IDGEC)’s scientific legacy and contributions on the complex question of the interplay between environmental problems and institutions, and provides an overview of a decade-long research effort in this direction. It posits that institutional analysis plays a vital role in solving the environmental problems and also in shaping the environment governance systems, and continues with “new institutionalism,” which plays a major part in understanding the theme of this book. Cutting-edge topics such as causality, performance, institutional design, institutional fit, interplay, and various important topics are covered. Other crucial institutional dimensions of global climate change are also highlighted to analyze the advancement of a global change research project in the coming years.

This book examines the rule of the few, or oligarchia (oligarchy), in ancient Greece. It considers the relationship between the rulers and the wider male citizenry (demos) of an oligarchically governed polis, the extent to which oligarchic rule was contested by popular movements, and how oligarchs might have collectively responded in an atempt to retain their power. This introductory chapter discusses the lack of studies devoted to ancient Greek oligarchia and how the meaning of oligarchia, both as a concept and as a form of political practice, relates to dēmokratia (democracy). It also provides an overview of the book's methodological approach, explores the extent to which the ideas of “institutions” and the “New Institutionalism” can be adapted and applied to the ancient world, and introduces some relevant concepts such as “equilibrium,” “common knowledge,” “coordination,” the “collective action problem,” and a few elementary games from game theory.

The chapter sets out a theoretical framework for the systematic and historically grounded analysis of early release in England and Wales between 1960 and 1995. It reviews the existing criminological literature on the history of criminal justice and reflects upon the tendency to conceptualize policy change as the product of individual action or the socio-economic shifts associated with late twentieth-century modernity. It goes on to consider the mediating role of political institutions in shaping complex policy outcomes and presents a theoretical framework for the analysis of early release based upon the broad tradition of historical institutionalism. The chapter concludes with an honest appraisal of the challenges facing a criminologist doing historical study and reflects upon the largely untapped potential of archival research as a criminological and social science methodology.

This chapter argues that the ‘housing studies’ literature has had a propensity to concentrate on policy outcomes and the roles of industrialisation, capitalism and globalisation in determining continuity and change in housing policy. Such emphasis has meant that the influence of political processes, that is, the struggles to secure control, make decisions and implement them, supported by the state’s authority, have tended to be neglected. Theoretical frameworks such as the new institutionalism, social constructionism and public choice theory, useful in capturing political processes, are considered. The roles of the various ‘actors’ in the political process are outlined: promotional and economic interest groups; think tanks; political parties; the European Union; devolved governments; the Westminster Parliament; the Core Executive; government departments and the electorate.