Institutions and Individuals: Interaction and Evolution (original) (raw)

Evolution of Institutions and Organizations

Some economists argue that institutions are the most important factor affecting variation in economic growth. There is a need, however, to better understand how and why institutions emerge and change. Informed by evolutionary theory and complexity science , this chapter develops a conceptual framework that follows models of cultural evolution in viewing institutions as part of a nongenetic system of inheritance. This framework is used to examine how broad historical factors (not just economic factors) infl uence present-day institutional arrangements and economic outcomes, as well as how noninstitutional aspects of culture (e.g., values, beliefs) interact with institutions to shape behavior in particular contexts. Overall, this framework emphasizes the processes by which institutions evolve, and how they can coevolve with other institutions and culture. This approach is illustrated using four examples to demonstrate how evolution theory and complexity science can be used to study institutional emergence and change. Explicit models of the processes of institutional evolution need to be developed and then tested and assessed with data. This framework holds promise to bring together and synthesize the fi ndings and insights from a range of different disciplines.

Studying institutions in the context 2 of natural selection: limits or 3 opportunities? 4

Q2, Q3 9 response to our article on the role of evolutionary psychology in understanding 10 institutions (Boyer and Petersen, 2011). We discuss how evolutionary 11 psychological models account for cultural variation and change in institutions, 12 how sociological institutionalism and evolutionary models can inform each other, 13 how evolutionary psychological models illuminate the role of power in 14 institutional design and the possibility of a 'general theory'of institutions. 15 16

Institutional Analysis and Evolutionary Theory

This paper examines evolutionary theories developed in the life sciences and explores the ways in which specific concepts and insights from these theories can be successfully applied to social and political institutions. This paper is not intended to present its own research, but instead offered as an introduction to evolutionary theory and some of its implications for political science. We argue that endogenous institutional change should be seen as an evolutionary process. Viewing history in this way, however, suggests a different ontological perspective than that which is typically found in political science. We highlight Darwin's fundamental insight that evolutionary change depends on the variation between every individual within a population or species. Because all individuals are different, they will sometimes respond or adapt to environmental stimuli in unique ways. Secondly, we examine some of the ontological positions underlying evolutionary theory and demonstrate why they are appropriate for studying issues of interest to political scientists and institutionalists in particular. Finally, we attempt to use some of the insights drawn from evolutionary theory to help offer insights on two current issues in political science theory: 1) where do preferences come from and 2) how can we explain institutional change? 1 The authors would like to thank

The Evolution of Institutions: An Agenda for Future

Constitutional Political Economy, 2002

This article reviews some theoretical questions concerning the processes of institutional evolution. The necessity of assuming the prior existence of some other institutions, such as language, is underlined. Arguably, the emergence and stability of some institutions may be enhanced by processes of ‘downward causation’ through which institutional constraints lead to the formation of concordant habits of thought and behaviour. Having

Constructal Law of Institutions within Social Organizations

Open Journal of Applied Sciences, 2018

This work looked for a unifying theory between physical-biological domain and social sciences. Constructal law unified physical and biological domain by telling the general sense in which flow systems tend to evolve. Management theory looks for relations between institutions and human agency. Although being state of mind entities, institutions follow constructal law. This work proposed the main organization flows are information and credit. Biologic instincts derived from Darwinian natural selection are the driving or blocking forces of such flows. Once biologic instincts systematically block information and credit flows in large numbers, this work proposed every human organization must have institutions to inhibit some behaviors. Those institutions need to be present, at least partially, in formal rules of social groups. This way it is possible to predict expansion or downfall of human groups using objective and quantifiable data. Therefore, further studies may employ classical history to confirm this theory. This work analyzed some case studies to show qualitatively the application of proposed theory. Concluding, this work gave physically-biologically grounded guidance for institutional changes.

Institutional Rigidity and Evolutionary Theory

A prime focus for social scientists, and in particular political scientists, is on institutions. Institutions are stabilized sets of expectations that establish frameworks for social action that affect behavior because they affect calculations and inspire attachments. Institutions do change, but they change slower than life changes. This creates a paradoxical reality. On the one hand, the relative stability of institutions-the rules and procedures they establish for interaction and decision-compared to the fluctuations of circumstances and preferences is what makes it possible for human groups to take effective action. On the other hand, their very stability means that the decisions they enable are almost inevitably suboptimal.

Agency and Institutions: The Enabling Role of Individuals' Social Position

Organization, 2006

Participants at the Sub Theme 15 ( Institutional change and the transformation of public organizations ) at the European Group of Organization Studies, Colloquium July 30-July 2, 2005, Berlin, Germany and three anonymous reviewers provided helpful comments on earlier versions of this paper. Agency and institutions: The enabling role of individuals' social positio n Abstract While early neo-institutional studies did not explicitly tackle the issue of agency, more recent studies about institutional entrepreneurship have brought it to the forefront. Institutional entrepreneurship has been presented as a promising way to account for institutional change endogenously. However, this notion faces the paradox of embedded agency. To overcome this paradox, it is necessary to explain under what conditions actors are enabled to act as institutional entrepreneurs. Some neo-institutional theorists have already addressed this issue. Their studies focus mainly on the organizational and organizational field levels of analysis. In this paper, I aim to complement their work by examining under what conditions individuals are more likely to engage in institutional entrepreneurship. By doing so, I take into account the individual level of analysis that neo-institutional theorists often tend to neglect. Relying on B ourdieu's conceptualization of fields, I propose that individuals' social position is a key variable in understanding how they are enabled to act as institutional entrepreneurs despite institutional pressures. Keywords: Bourdieu; divergent organizational change; human agency; institutional entrepreneurship; social positio n. 3 The importance and endurance of the agency vs. structure debate in social sciences is indicated by the number of different names it goes by: person vs. situation, strategic choice vs. environmental determinism, and voluntarism vs. determinism. This debate is directly related to the assumptions made by organization scholars about human nature (Burell and Morgan, 1979;

How Institutions Evolve: Evolutionary Theory and Institutional Change

Polity, 2012

This article argues that questions of gradual institutional change can be understood as an evolutionary process that can be explained through the careful application of "generalized Darwinism." We argue that humans' advanced cognitive capacities contribute to an evolutionary understanding of institutional change. In constantly generating new variation upon which mechanisms of selection and replication operate, cognition, cognitive schemas, and ideas become central for understanding the building of human institutions, as well as the scope and pace of their evolution. Evolutionary theories thus provide a broad theoretical framework that integrates the study of cognition, ideas, and decision-making with other literatures that focus on institutional change and human evolution.

Towards a non-Darwinian Theory of Institutional Change

Journal of Bioeconomics, 2003

The paper emphasizes two flaws in mainstream economics: the failure to understand actual human behavior in many real contexts and the failure to take account of transaction costs. By emphasizing the role of knowledge, institutions, transaction costs and path dependence, new institutional economics has provided a powerful answer to these shortcomings. Nevertheless, a number of questions remain open. In particular, path dependence is far from being a continuous process. Its dynamics and its irregularities are by and large unexplained. Hence, a strong need for a convincing evolutionary theory of environmental change. This article does not deny the validity of the Darwinian view applied to the theory of the firm and of competition in a free-market economy. The paper, however, maintains that the natural-selection process that characterizes the Darwinian approach is ill suited to describe economic evolutionary processes. It is shown that a combination of functional analysis and natural selection may indeed be a better solution, for it solves some of the puzzles raised by public choice theory without violating the fundamental tenets of the new institutional economics approach. Still, although this combined view may well explain why the institutional features are retained by the system, it does not clarify why they are introduced in the first place. A third possibility is put forward in the second part of the paper, where a new evolutionary theory is suggested. Within this framework, agents are assumed to behave according to their preferences within the existing rules of the game. At the same time, new ideas and sometimes new ideologies may influence their behavioral patterns. The combination between needs and ideologies generates environmental change, especially if so-called ‘ideological entrepreneurs’ are able to transform latent and shared beliefs into an institutional project and enforce it.