2 Theoretical Framework
2.1 Using a New Institutionalist Perspective
The growing use of the term “new institutionalism” in political science has led to a confusion about what it is, how it differs from other approaches, and how to classify the specific schools that categorize under new institutionalism (Hall and Taylor 1996, pp. 936-957). The new institutionalism perspective used in this thesis is founded on the works of James March and Johan O. Olsen (1984, 1989, 1995, 2002, 2005), in which they argue that political life is not solely organized around policy making, aggregation of predetermined preferences and resources, and finally regulation of behavior and outcomes through external incentives and constraints. Rather, it holds that politics involves a search for collective purpose, direction, meaning and belonging, and that it in contrast with standard equilibrium models holds that history is inefficient because it assumes that institutions reach a unique organizational form conditional on current functional and normative circumstances, and thus independent of their historical path (Olsen 2007b).
Since I employ new institutionalism in this thesis, the “old” one also deserves some words before going in-depth on what new institutionalism is. In the old institutionalism, issues of influence, coalitions, and competing values were central, along with power and informal structures (Clark 1994, Clark 1972, Selznick 1949, Selznick 1957). The new institutionalism on the other hand, has its emphasis on legitimacy, the embeddedness of organizational fields, and the centrality of classification, and schema (DiMaggio and Powell 1983, Meyer and Rowan 1977, Greenwood and Hinings 1996, p. 1022). It also goes further and tries to determine if any assumed differences exist, and if so in what ways those alternative ways of organizing political life differ, and what difference this makes for the performance of political systems (Peters 2005, Weaver and Rockman 1993, Von Mettenheim 1996), with a particular focus on sanctions and change that alternative sources of legitimacy lead to.
In an article by Hall and Taylor, (1996, pp. 936-937) the authors distinguish between three different analytical approaches where all of them call themselves “new institutionalism”.
These three schools of thought are labeled historical institutionalism, rational choice institutionalism and sociological institutionalism. Despite all of them are trying to explain the role that institutions play in the determination of political outcomes, they offer different foci on how to construe the relationship between institutions and behavior and how to explain the process whereby institutions originate and change.
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The historical perspective focuses on how previous choices affect the prospects for subsequent policy outcomes, where the past plays an important role in shaping and constraining actors at a later time (Pierson 2004). Rational choice institutionalism on the other hand has a more functional point of view, and offers a calculus approach in which the basic assumption is that individuals adhere to calculated patterns of behavior (logic of consequences). Deviation will in this perspective assumed to make the individual worse off than will adherence, thus making that the more an institution contributes to the resolution of collective action dilemmas or the more gains from exchange it makes possible, the more robust it will be (Hall and Taylor 1996, p. 940). The final approach is the sociological institutionalism that arose primarily within the subfield of organization theory, coined normative institutionalism by Peters (2005, p. 19). This school of institutionalism is the stark contrast to the school of rational choice institutionalism, in the sense that sociological institutionalism is guided by norms and values, rather than rules and incentives (rational choice) or history (historical institutionalism). This thesis will continue on focusing on institutional logics, which is a central theme in the school of sociological institutionalism.
2.1.1 Institutional Logics
The specific sociological institutionalist approach used in this thesis places a strong emphasis on norms and values of institutions as a means of understanding how they function and how they determine individual behavior (Peters 2005, p. 19). One of the broad types of logics of action in formal organizations is the logic of appropriateness, defined by March ((1994, p.
57) by emphasizing that individuals and organizations fulfill identities by following rules and procedures that they imagine as appropriate to the situations they are facing. It argues that institutions generate and implement prescriptions that define how the “game” has to be played: who is legitimate to participate, what are the acceptable agendas, which sanctions to apply in case of deviations as well as the process by which changes should occur (Thoenig 2003). This approach constitutes the sociological branch of March and Olsen’s school of new institutionalism, namely that institutions are influenced by what its participants perceive as appropriate. These logics of appropriateness serve as perspectives on human action and means to act according to the institutionalized practices of a collectively and mutual understanding of what is true, reasonable, natural, right, and good (Olsen 2007b, p. 3).
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March and Olsen emphasize a view based on a logic of appropriateness but see history as inefficient, and which is an approach that effectively is used to understand the dynamics and mechanisms within the COE concept. In this perspective, the rules, norms, institutions, and identities that drive human action are seen as developing in a way that cannot be predicted from prior environmental conditions (March and Olsen 2005, p. 958), but rather coevolve in the worlds in which they act and engage in. Olsen continues by noting that actors “may struggle with how to classify themselves and others -who they are, and what they are- and what the classifications imply in a specific situation”.
The approach stresses individual identities that through a process of individualization and socialization, an actor voluntary chooses self-imposed and –selected roles and rules and where obligations, responsibilities and commitment are learned and followed, not chosen (Christensen and Røvik 1999, pp. 326-327). This, institutional identities are based on the development of individual identities, and thereby creating similar attitudes, norms and values, and thus important for defining attitudes and activities (Selznick 1957). It is rules that define attitudes and activities, and both formal and informal rules apply in the theory of logic of appropriateness. These rules become relevant according to the different situations (March 1994, pp. 63, 68, Christensen and Røvik 1999, p. 326).
The approach also implies that actors have multiple identities or a repertoire of identities therefore also multiple rule options in different situations, and can be particularly challenging when several institutions structured according to different principles and rules prove competing analyses and behavioral logics for the same area of action (Olsen 2007b, p. 6).
This applies for the case of the COE concept, in which its autonomous role to organize itself can prescribe different identities, and thus institutional logics. The approach is therefore chosen in an attempt to create some expected institutional logics, and thus identifying which identities and rules that seems appropriate within the COE concept. This is a challenging task since identities and logics, as Christensen and Røvik (1999, pp. 329-331) argues, are often complex, competing or ambiguous. This is one of the weaknesses of the theory, since it does not describe how to deal with these potential ambiguities and complexities. Nevertheless, by using the approach and the assumptions and variables that follow, a conceptual framework can be constructed for analyzing the COE concept by identifying the rules and identities through institutional logics. This will as a result further the understanding of the concept´s rationale, and better enable us to answer research question two.
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