Report on Workshop No 5: Institutional Theory: Issues of Measurement and Change

by Uwe Serdlt

General points, atmosphere The workshop was characterized by a good mix of scholars regarding seniority, gender and regional distribution. We had lively and fair discussions, tolerating other research paradigms (qualitative vs. quantitative, theoretical vs. empirical etc.). Unfortunately, for personal reasons Guy Peters was not able to attend the workshop. Presentation of papers and discussion1 In their theoretical introduction to the workshop Christensen and Peters gave an overview of the dynamics between three different forms of institutional change. They argue that institutional change is difficult to control by means of rational institutional design and that normative as well as ideational basis of political life need to be taken into account.

Birth and Decay of Institutions Boin and Kofman-Bos demonstrate that the problem for newly created institutions is to develop trust and legitimacy, a rather weak point in institutional theories. Autonomy, Reliability and Crisis management capacity are the factors most likely in order to promote institutionalisation processes. In her case study on the DG DEV of the European Commission Dimier managed to give a detailed account of a de-institutionalising organisation. The same mechanism that brought this organisation to the fore strong personal networks around its director were responsible for its death in the environment of a bureaucratising EU. In his detailed empirical case study about the Italian Parliament Capano raises many interesting theoretical questions. Following the institutionalisation process over several decades he also hints at the importance of institutional relations mentioned below.

Please note: For reasons of space only the more mature papers are mentioned in this report.

Public Administration and Administrative Reforms Ronness aimed at connecting Normative Institutionalism and Garbage Can Model. He argued that structural features and the decision-making process have an influence on the outcome of administrative reform. In the empirical part he investigates the reaction of unions on NPM and vice versa in Australia, New Zealand, Sweden and Norway. Employing the concepts of critical junctures and critical moments Burch, Hogwood and Bulmer set the stage for evaluating the nature and degree of institutional change in the case of a devolving UK.

Quantitative analysis of institutions Giraud linked Institutionalism with Policy Analysis by applying the policy style framework to the implementation of labour market policies in Swiss Federalism with quantitative data. Furthermore he discussed the relevance of ideas within rational choice, sociological and historical institutionalism. In her thorough effort to review and compare different veto-player indexes measuring the institutional design of democracies Roller shows which indexes are of dubious quality and should therefore be avoided. For most cases there are parsimonious and valid indexes at hand. Johannsen and Norgaard presented their work on the Index of Presidential Authority applying it to an impressive list of 96 countries around the globe. They find that executive authority around the world shows a much more puzzling picture than the traditional dichotomy of presidential versus parliamentary political systems.

Institutional relations as an emerging theme In an empirical investigation including 21 OECD countries Harfst and Schnapp test whether the parliaments formal and informal resources are able to monitor the executive. Their analysis is a step toward more integrated institutional studies focusing more on the relations between institutions than a quantitative description of institutions without taking into account their interdependence. Departing from the concept of executive-legislative arrangements Krouwel and de Raadt show how conflict over institutional design in seven East European countries is driven by key political actors who are trying to change the rules of the polity for their own benefit.

In his theoretically fruitful studies on weakly institutionalised politics Feldman takes us a step further when it comes to conceptualising existing relations between institutions. Taking into account systems theory, the German steering debate and the concepts of networks he argues for a theoretical framework allowing us to study politics in a relational fashion also in the realms of institutions.

Conclusions, continuation The current state of the scholarly debate reflected in the presented papers as well as in the discussions of the workshop indicates that steps should be undertaken to invest further work in the issue of the measurement of institutions, the conceptualisation of institutional change, and regarding the interactions between institutions (over time). These three issues are to be followed with a more focused selection of scholars working in the field of institutionalism. The following concrete steps are in the planning phase and can lead to a continuation and collaborative effort resulting directly out of this workshop: Andr Krouwel and myself will ask ECPR to sponsor an ad hoc research session in order to continue work on quantitative, empirical institutional studies and measurement issues. Theoretical advances and some of the most promising empirical work represented in this workshop ought to be published in a reader. Guy Peters and me will therefore respond to a request by the editor of the ECPR/Routlede Series and submit a book proposal.