Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Institutional Theory

  • Chapter
Handbook of Politics

Part of the book series: Handbooks of Sociology and Social Research ((HSSR))

Although most political sociologists and political scientists nowadays either consider themselves or are deemed “institutionalists,” key differences remain among major schools of institutionalism (see reviews in Pierson and Skocpol 2002; Amenta 2005). In this chapter, we review sociological institutionalism, historical institutionalism, and political institutionalism. We discuss their similarities and differences, theoretical and methodological insights, research gains, analytical problems, and prospects for the study of politics. To focus our discussion, we mainly consider research regarding the development of public policy, the terrain on which many advances in political sociology and political science have taken place and an occasional battleground for these approaches.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 169.00
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 219.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book
USD 219.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

Notes

  1. 1.

    We omit rational-choice institutionalism, which is more prevalent in political science, works from different episte-mological premises (see Hall and Taylor 1996; Thelen 1999; Pierson and Skocpol 2002), and is beyond the scope of this article (see Kiser and Bauldry 2005).

References

  • Abbott, Andrew. 1992. “From Causes to Events: Notes on Narrative Positivism.” Sociological Methods and Research 20:428–455.

    Google Scholar 

  • Adams, Julia, Elisabeth S. Clemens, and Ann Shola Orloff. 2005. “Introduction: Social Theory, Modernity, and the Three Waves of Historical Sociology.” Pp. 1–72 in Remaking Modernity: Politics, History, and Sociology edited by J. Adams, E. S. Clemens, and A. S. Orloff. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Almeida, Paul and Linda Brewster Stearns. 1998. “Political Opportunities and Local Grassroots Environmental Movements: The Case of Minimata.” Social Problems 45:37–60.

    Google Scholar 

  • Amenta, Edwin. 1998. Bold Relief: Institutional Politics and the Origins of Modern American Social Policy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Amenta, Edwin. 2003. “What We Know about the Development of Social Policy: Comparative and Historical Research in Comparative and Historical Perspective.” Pp. 91–130 in Comparative Historical Analysis in the Social Sciences edited by D. Rueschemeyer and J. Mahoney. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Amenta, Edwin. 2005. “State-Centered and Political Institutionalist Theory: Retrospect and Prospect.” Pp. 96–114 in Handbook of Political Sociology: States, Civil Societies, and Globalization edited by T. Janoski, R. Alford, A. Hicks, and M. A. Schwartz. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Amenta, Edwin. 2006. When Movements Matter: The Townsend Plan and the Rise of Social Security. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Amenta, Edwin. 2009. “Making the Most of an Historical Case Study: Configuration, Sequence, Casing, and the US Old-age Pension Movement.” Forthcoming in The Handbook of Case-Oriented Methods edited by C. C. Ragin and D. Byrne. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

    Google Scholar 

  • Amenta, Edwin, Chris Bonastia, and Neal Caren. 2001. “U.S. Social Policy in Comparative and Historical Perspective: Concepts, Images, Arguments, and Research Strategies.” Annual Review of Sociology 27:213–234.

    Google Scholar 

  • Amenta, Edwin and Neal Caren. 2004. “The Legislative, Organizational, and Beneficiary Consequences of State-Oriented Challengers.” Pp. 461–488 in The Blackwell Companion to Social Movements edited by D. A. Snow, S. A. Soule, and H. Kriesi. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing.

    Google Scholar 

  • Amenta, Edwin, Neal Caren, and Sheera Joy Olasky. 2005. “Age for Leisure? Political Mediation and the Impact of the Pension Movement on U.S. Old-Age Policy.” American Sociological Review 70:516–538.

    Google Scholar 

  • Beland, Daniel. 2005. “Ideas and Social Policy: An Institutionalist Perspective.” Social Policy and Administration 39:1–18.

    Google Scholar 

  • Beland, Daniel. 2007. “Ideas and Institutional Change in Social Security: Conversion, Layering, and Policy Drift.” Social Science Quarterly 88:20–38.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bennett, Colin J. 1991. “What Is Policy Convergence and What Causes It?” British Journal of Political Science 21:215–233.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bernstein, Anya. 2001. The Moderation Dilemma: Legislative Coalitions and the Politics of Family and Medical Leave. Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Boli, John and George M. Thomas. 1997. “World Culture in the World Polity: A Century of International NonGovernmental Organization.” American Sociological Review 62:171–190.

    Google Scholar 

  • Boli, John and George M. Thomas. 1999. “INGOs and the Organization of World Culture.” Pp. 13–49 in Constructing World Culture: International Nongovernmental Organizations Since 1875 edited by J. Boli and G. M. Thomas. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Burt, Ronald S. 1987. “Social Contagion and Innovation: Cohesion versus Structural Equivalence.” American Journal of Sociology 92:1287–1335.

    Google Scholar 

  • Buttel, Frederick H. 2000. “World Society, the Nation-State, and Environmental Protection: Comment on Frank, Hironaka, and Schofer.” American Sociological Review 65:117–121.

    Google Scholar 

  • Campbell, John L. 1998. “Institutional Analysis and the Role of Ideas in Political Economy.” Theory and Society 27:377–409.

    Google Scholar 

  • Campbell, John L. 2002. “Ideas, Politics, and Public Policy.” Annual Review of Sociology 28:21–38.

    Google Scholar 

  • Clemens, Elisabeth S. 1997. The People's Lobby: Organizational Innovation and the Rise of Interest Group Politics in the United States, 1890–1925. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Clemens, Elisabeth S. and James M. Cook. 1999. “Politics and Institutionalism: Explaining Durability and Change.” Annual Review of Sociology 25:441–466.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cohen, Michael D., James G. March, and Johan P. Olsen. 1972. “A Garbage Can Model of Organizational Choice.” Administrative Science Quarterly 17:1–25.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cress, Daniel M. and David A. Snow. 2000. “The Outcomes of Homeless Mobilization: The Influence of Organization, Disruption, Political Mediation, and Framing.” American Journal of Sociology 105:1063–1104.

    Google Scholar 

  • DiMaggio, Paul J. and Walter W. Powell. 1983. “The Iron Cage Revisited: Institutional Isomorphism and Collective Rationality in Organizational Fields.” American Sociological Review 48:147–160.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dingwerth, Klaus and Philipp Pattberg. 2006. “Global Governance as a Perspective on World Politics.” Global Governance 12:185–203.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dobbin, Frank R. 1993. “The Social Construction of the Great Depression: Industrial Policy during the 1930s in the United States, Britain, and France.” Theory and Society 22:1–56.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dobbin, Frank R. 1994. Forging Industrial Policy: The United States, Britain, and France in the Railway Age. New. York, NY: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dobbin, Frank, Beth Simmons, and Geoffrey Garrett. 2007. “The Global Diffusion of Public Policies: Social Construction, Coercion, Competition, or Learning?” Annual Review of Sociology 33:449–472.

    Google Scholar 

  • Domhoff, G. William. 1996. State Autonomy or Class Dominance? Case Studies on Policy Making in America. Hawthorne, NY: Aldine de Gruyter.

    Google Scholar 

  • Drezner, Daniel W. 2007. All Politics Is Global: Explaining International Regulatory Regimes. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ertman, Thomas. 1997. Birth of the Leviathan: Building States and Regimes in Medieval and Early Modern Europe. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Esping-Andersen, Gosta. 1990. The Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism. Cambridge, UK: Polity.

    Google Scholar 

  • Finnemore, Martha. 1996. “Norms, Culture, and World Politics: Insights from Sociology's Institutionalism.” International Organization 50:325–347.

    Google Scholar 

  • Frank, David John. 1999. “The Social Bases of Environmental Treaty Ratification, 1900–1990.” Sociological Inquiry 69:523–550.

    Google Scholar 

  • Frank, David John, Ann Hironaka, and Evan Schofer. 2000a. “The Nation-State and the Natural Environment over the Twentieth Century.” American Sociological Review 65:96–116.

    Google Scholar 

  • Frank, David John, Ann Hironaka, and Evan Schofer. 2000b. “Environmentalism as a Global Institution: Reply to Buttel.” American Sociological Review 65:122–127.

    Google Scholar 

  • George, Alexander L. and Andrew Bennett. 2005. Case Studies and Theory Development in the Social Sciences. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Goldstone, Jack A. 2003. “Comparative Historical Analysis and Knowledge Accumulation in the Study of Revolutions.” Pp. 41–90 in Comparative Historical Analysis in the Social Sciences, edited by J. Mahoney and D. Rueschemeyer. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Goldthorpe, John H. 1999. “Modeling the Pattern of Class Voting in British Elections, 1964–1992.” Pp. 60–82 in The End of Class Politics? Class Voting in Comparative Context edited by G. Evans. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Goodwin, Jeff. 2001. No Other Way Out: States and Revolutionary Movements, 1945–1991. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Griffin, Larry. 1992. “Temporality, Events, and Explanation in Historical Sociology: An Introduction.” Sociological Methods & Research 20(4): 403–427.

    Google Scholar 

  • Haas, Peter M. 1992. “Introduction: Epistemic Communities and International Policy Coordination.” International Organization 46:1–35.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hacker, Jacob S. 1998. “The Historical Logic of National Health Insurance: Structure and Sequence in the Development of British, Canadian, and U.S. Medical Policy.” Studies in American Political Development 12(1): 57–130.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hacker, Jacob S. 2002. The Divided Welfare State. New York: Cambridge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hall, Peter A. 1993. “Policy Paradigms, Social Learning, and the State: The Case of Economic Policymaking in Britain.” Comparative Politics 25:275–296.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hall, Peter A. and Rosemary C. R. Taylor. 1996. “Political Science and the Three Institutionalisms.” Political Studies 44:936–957.

    Google Scholar 

  • Heclo, Hugh. 1974. Modern Social Politics in Britain and Sweden: From Relief to Income Maintenance. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hicks, Alexander. 1999. Social Democracy and Welfare Capitalism: A Century of Income Security Politics. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Huntington, Samuel P. 1968. Political Order in Changing Societies. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Immergut, Ellen M. 1998. “The Theoretical Core of the New Institutionalism.” Politics & Society 26:5–34.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ingram, Paul and Hayagreeva Rao. 2004. “Store Wars: The Enactment and Repeal of Anti-Chain-Store Legislation in America.” American Journal of Sociology 110:446–487.

    Google Scholar 

  • Jenkins, J. Craig and William Form. 2005. “Social Movements and Social Change.” Chapter 15 in The Handbook of Political Sociology: States, Civil Societies, and Globalization edited by T. Janoski, R. Alford, A. Hicks, and M. A. Schwartz. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Jepperson, Ronald L. 1991. “Institutions, Institutional Effects, and Institutionalism.” Pp. 143–163 in The New Institutionalism in Organizational Analysis edited by W. W. Powell and P. J. DiMaggio. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • King, Desmond S. and Randall Hansen. 1999. “Experts at Work: State Autonomy, Social Learning and Eugenic Sterilization in 1930s Britain.” British Journal of Political Science 29:77–107.

    Google Scholar 

  • King, Gary, Robert O. Keohane, and Sidney Verba. 1994. Designing Social Inquiry: Scientific Inference in Qualitative Research. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kingdon, John W. 1995. Agendas, Alternatives, and Public Policies. 2d ed. New York, NY: HarperCollins.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kiser, Edgar and Shawn Bauldry. 2005. “Rational-Choice Theories in Political Sociology.” Pp. 172–186 in Handbook of Political Sociology: States, Civil Societies, and Globalization edited by T. Janoski, R. Alford, A. Hicks, and M. A. Schwartz. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kiser, Edgar and Michael Hechter. 1998. “The Debate on Historical Sociology: Rational Choice Theory and Its Critics.” American Journal of Sociology 104(3): 785–816.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kriesi, Hanspeter. 2004. “Political Context and Opportunity.” Pp. 67–90 in The Blackwell Companion to Social Movements edited by D. A. Snow, S. A. Soule, and H. Kriesi. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kriesi, Hanspeter, Ruud Koopmans, Jan W. Duyvendak, and Marco G. Giugni. 1995. The Politics of New Social Movements in Western Europe: A Comparative Analysis. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Laumann, Edward O. and David Knoke. 1987. The Organizational State: Social Choice in National Policy Domains. Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lieberson, Stanley. 1992. “Small N's and Big Conclusions: An Examination of the Reasoning in Comparative Studies Based on a Small Number of Cases.” Pp. 105–118 in What Is a Case? Exploring the Foundations of Social Inquiry. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Linders, Annulla. 2004. “Victory and Beyond: A Historical Comparative Analysis of the Outcomes of the Abortion Movements in Sweden and the United States.” Sociological Forum 19:371–404.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lipset, Seymour Martin and Gary Marks. 2000. It Didn't Happen Here: Why Socialism Failed in the United States. New York, NY: Norton.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lipset, Seymour Martin and Stein Rokkan, eds. 1967. Party Systems and Voter Alignments: Cross-National Perspectives. New York, NY: Free Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lowry, William. 2006. “Potential Focusing Projects and Policy Change.” Policy Studies Journal. 34:313–335.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lukes, Steven. 1974. Power: A Radical View. New York, NY: Macmillan.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mahoney, James. 2000. “Path Dependence in Historical Sociology.” Theory and Society 104(4): 1154–1196.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mahoney, James. 2003. “Knowledge Accumulation in Comparative Historical Research: The Case of Democracy and Authoritarianism.” Pp. 131–176 in Comparative Historical Analysis in the Social Sciences edited by D. Rueschemeyer and J. Mahoney. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mahoney, James and Daniel Schensul. 2006. “Historical Context and Path Dependence.” Pp. 454–471 in The Oxford Handbook of Contextual Political Analysis edited by R. E. Goodin and C. Tilly. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mann, Michael. 1986. The Sources of Social Power, vol 1. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • McCammon, Holly, Soma Chaudhuri, Lyndi N. Hewitt, Courtney Sanders Muse, Harmony D. Newman, Carrie Lee Smith, and Teresa M. Terrell. 2008. “Becoming Full Citizens: The U.S. Women's Jury Rights Campaigns, the Pace of Reform, and Strategic Adaptation.” American Journal of Sociology 113:1104–1147.

    Google Scholar 

  • Meyer, David S. and Debra C. Minkoff. 2004. “Conceptualizing Political Opportunity.” Social Forces 82:1457–1492.

    Google Scholar 

  • Meyer, John W. 2000. “Globalization: Sources and Effects on National States and Societies.” International Sociology 15:233–248.

    Google Scholar 

  • Meyer, John W., John Boli, George M. Thomas, and Francisco O. Ramirez. 1997. “World Society and the Nation-State.” American Journal of Sociology 103:144–181.

    Google Scholar 

  • Meyer, John W., David John Frank, Ann Hironaka, Evan Schofer, and Nancy Brandon Tuma. 1997. “The Structuring of a World Environmental Regime, 1870–1990.” International Organization 51:623–651.

    Google Scholar 

  • Meyer, John W., Francisco O. Ramirez, Richard Rubinson, and John Boli-Bennett. 1977. “The World Educational Revolution, 1950–1970.” Sociology of Education 50:242–258.

    Google Scholar 

  • Meyer, John W., Francisco O. Ramirez, and Yasemin Nuhoglu Soysal. 1992. “World Expansion of Mass Education, 1870–1980.” Sociology of Education 65:128–149.

    Google Scholar 

  • Meyer, John W. and Brian Rowan. 1977. “Institutionalized Organizations: Formal Structure as Myth and Ceremony.” American Journal of Sociology 83:340–363.

    Google Scholar 

  • Miller, Clark A. 2007. “Democratization, International Knowledge Institutions, and Global Governance.” Governance 20:325–357.

    Google Scholar 

  • Miller, Edward Alan and Jane Banaszak-Holl. 2005. “Cognitive and Normative Determinants of State Policymaking Behavior: Lessons from the Sociological Institutionalism.” Publius 35(2):191–216.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mintrom, Michael. 1997. “Policy Entrepreneurs and the Diffusion of Innovation.” American Journal of Political Science 41:738–770.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mintrom, Michael and Sandra Vergari. 1998. “Policy Networks and Innovation Diffusion: The Case of State Education Reforms.” Journal of Politics 60:126–148.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ney, Steven. 2000. “Are You Sitting Comfortably? Then We'll Begin: Three Gripping Stories About Pension Reform.” Innovation 13:341–371.

    Google Scholar 

  • Orren, Karen and Stephen Skowronek. 2002. “The Study of American Political Development.” Pp. 722–754 in Political Science: The State of the Discipline edited by I. Katznelson and H. V. Milner. New York, NY: W. W. Norton.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pierson, Paul. 1994. Dismantling the Welfare State: Reagan, Thatcher and the Politics of Retrenchment. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pierson, Paul. 1996. “The New Politics of the Welfare State.” World Politics 48(2): 143–179.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pierson, Paul. 2000. “Increasing Returns, Path Dependence, and the Study of Politics.” American Political Science Review 94(2): 251–267.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pierson, Paul. 2003. “Big, Slow-Moving, and? Invisible: Macrosocial Processes in the Study of Comparative Politics.” Pp. 177–207 in Comparative Historical Analysis in the Social Sciences edited by D. Rueschemeyer and J. Mahoney. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pierson, Paul and Theda Skocpol. 2002. “Historical Institutionalism in Contemporary Political Science.” Pp. 693–721 in Political Science: The State of the Discipline edited by I. Katznelson and H. V. Milner. New York, NY: W. W. Norton.

    Google Scholar 

  • Piven, Frances Fox and Richard A. Cloward. 1977. Poor People's Movements: Why They Succeed, How They Fail. New York, NY: Pantheon.

    Google Scholar 

  • Powell, Walter W. and Paul J. DiMaggio, eds. 1991. The New Institutionalism in Organizational Analysis. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Przeworski, Adam and Henry Teune. 1970. The Logic of Comparative Social Inquiry. New York, NY: Wiley-Interscience.

    Google Scholar 

  • Quadagno, Jill. 2005. One Nation, Uninsured: Why the U.S. Has No National Health Insurance. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ragin, Charles. 1987.The Comparative Method. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ragin, Charles. 2000. Fuzzy-Set Social Science.. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ragin, Charles. 2008. Redesigning Social Inquiry: Fuzzy Sets and Beyond.. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ragin, Charles C. and Howard S. Becker. 1992. What Is A Case? Exploring the Foundations of Social Inquiry. Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ramirez, Francisco O., Yasemin Soysal, and Suzanne Shanahan. 1997. “The Changing Logic of Political Citizenship: Cross-National Acquisition of Women's Suffrage Rights, 1890 to 1990.” American Sociological Review 62:735–745.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ricci, David M. 1993. The Transformation of American Politics: The New Washington and the Rise of Think Tanks. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sabatier, Paul A. and Hank C. Jenkins-Smith. 1999. “The Advocacy Coalition Framework: An Assessment.” Pp. 117–166 in Theories of the Policy Process edited by P. A. Sabatier. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sewell, William Jr. 2006. Logics of History. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Skocpol, Theda. 1979. States and Social Revolutions: A Comparative Analysis of France, Russia, and China. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Skocpol, Theda. 1985. “Bringing the State Back In: Strategies of Analysis in Current Research.” Pp. 3–37 in Bringing the State Back In edited by P. B. Evans, D. Rueschemeyer, and T. Skocpol. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Skocpol, Theda. 1992. Protecting Soldiers and Mothers: The Political Origins of Social Policy in the United States. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Smith, James Allen. 1991. The Idea Brokers: Think Tanks and the Rise of the New Policy Elite. New York, NY: Free Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Snow, David A. and Robert D. Benford. 1988. “Ideology, Frame Resonance, and Participant Mobilization.” International Social Movement Research 1:197–217.

    Google Scholar 

  • Soule, Sarah A. and Jennifer Earl. 2001. “The Enactment of State-Level Hate Crime Law in the United States: Intrastate and Interstate Factors.” Sociological Perspectives 44:281–305.

    Google Scholar 

  • Soule, Sarah A. and Susan Olzak. 2004. “When Do Movements Matter? The Politics of Contingency and the Equal Rights Amendment.” American Sociological Review 69:473–497.

    Google Scholar 

  • Soule, Sarah A. and Yvonne Zylan. 1997. “Runaway Train? The Diffusion of State-Level Reform in ADC/AFDC Eligibility Requirements, 1950–1967.” American Journal of Sociology 103:733–762.

    Google Scholar 

  • Steinmo, Sven. 1993. Taxation and Democracy: Swedish, British and American Approaches to Financing the Modern State. New Haven, CT: Duke University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Stinchcombe, Arthur L. 1968. Constructing Social Theories. New York, NY: Harcourt, Brace, and World.

    Google Scholar 

  • Stone, Deborah A. 1989. “Causal Stories and the Formation of Policy Agendas.” Political Science Quarterly 104:281–300.

    Google Scholar 

  • Strang, David. 1991. “Adding Social Structure to Diffusion Models: An Event History Framework.” Sociological Methods & Research 19:324–353.

    Google Scholar 

  • Strang, David and Patricia Mei Yin Chang. 1993. “The International Labor Organization and the Welfare State: Institutional Effects on National Welfare Spending, 1960–1980.” International Organization 47:235–262.

    Google Scholar 

  • Strang, David and Sarah A. Soule. 1998. “Diffusion in Organizations and Social Movements: From Hybrid Corn to Poison Pills.” Annual Review of Sociology 24:265–290.

    Google Scholar 

  • Strang, David and Nancy Brandon Tuma. 1993. “Spatial and Temporal Heterogeneity in Diffusion.” American Journal of Sociology 99:614–639.

    Google Scholar 

  • Swank, Duane. 2001. “Political Institutions and Welfare State Restructuring.” Pp. 197–237 in The New Politics of the Welfare State edited by P. Pierson. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Szymanski, Ann-Marie E. 2003. Pathways to Prohibition: Radicals, Moderates, and Social Movement Outcomes. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Thelen, Kathleen. 1999. “Historical Institutionalism in Comparative Politics.” Annual Review of Political Science 2:369–404.

    Google Scholar 

  • Thelen, Kathleen. 2003. “How Institutionalism Evolves: Insights from Comparative Historical Analysis.” Pp. 208–240 in Comparative Historical Analysis in the Social Sciences edited by J. Mahoney and J. Rueschemeyer. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Tilly, Charles. 1975. “Reflections on the History of European State-Making.” Pp. 3–83 in The Formation of National States in Western Europe edited by C. Tilly. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Weyland, Kurt. 2005. “Theories of Policy Diffusion: Lessons from Latin American Pension Reform.” World Politics 57:262–295.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wickham-Crowley, Timothy P. 1992. Guerrillas and Revolution in Latin America: A Comparative Study of Insurgents and Regimes since 1956. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wuthnow, Robert. 1985. “State Structures and Ideological Outcomes.” American Sociological Review 50:799–821.

    Google Scholar 

  • Yee, Albert S. 1996. “The Causal Effects of Ideas on Policies.” International Organization 50:69–108.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgments

We thank Beth Gardner, Francesca Polletta, and the editors for their comments on this chapter.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Sociology, University of California-Irvine, Irvine, CA, USA

    Edwin Amenta & Kelly M. Ramsey

Authors
  1. Edwin Amenta
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Kelly M. Ramsey
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Sociology, The University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA, USA

    Kevin T. Leicht

  2. Department of Sociology, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, USA

    J. Craig Jenkins

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2010 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

Amenta, E., Ramsey, K.M. (2010). Institutional Theory. In: Leicht, K.T., Jenkins, J.C. (eds) Handbook of Politics. Handbooks of Sociology and Social Research. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-68930-2_2

Download citation

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation