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Party Funding and Corruption pp 39–55Cite as

Palgrave Macmillan

New Institutionalism: Towards a Consolidated Approach

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Part of the Political Corruption and Governance book series (PCG)

Abstract

This chapter addresses the various theoretical concerns one needs to traverse when applying new institutional analysis. It begins with a discussion of the curious resilience of institutional approaches to understanding the organisation of political life. I then outline the importance of utilising new institutionalism in a consolidated form, where the analytical strands are treated as distinct but interconnected. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the way in which the logic of appropriateness will be operationalised in the empirical work before stating the hypotheses that will be tested.

Keywords

  • New institutionalism
  • Logics of appropriateness
  • European politics

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Some of the empirical work in the following chapters will add further support to this critique.

  2. 2.

    This can be due to a general lack of public support, the proximity to an election, the increase of subsidisation from the state in times of austerity or a combination of all three.

  3. 3.

    Further, charities do receive forms of state aid.

  4. 4.

    It is further noted that this spike in public awareness of corrupt activity was due to both the rise of investigative journalism and an increase focus on these activities by investigating judges (see e.g. Adut 2004; Chalaby 2004; Birch et al. 2017).

  5. 5.

    As Koß suggests, this seems plausible considering both the lifting of various pressures post–Cold War (see e.g. Heywood and Krastev 2006; Hough 2013) and the increased focus amongst Western states in combatting corruption post–Cold War.

  6. 6.

    This is not to say that democratisation is undesirable. It has been argued that ‘an inverse U-shaped relationship, or political Kuznets curve, appears to exist: the advent of democracy has initial costs in terms of rising inequality, but eventually democracy will tend to shrink the gap between rich and poor and produce more equal outcomes’ (Carbone 2009: 132).

  7. 7.

    Nassmacher also convincingly assuages concerns—especially among the more hysterical commentators—that there has been a ‘cost explosion’ in democratic elections. He argues that increased spending is not particularly out of line with a general growth in living standards. That is to say, ‘the pace of political spending in recent decades is not out of step with the general standard of living. Parties are spending more while the citizens whom they represent are enjoying the benefits of this growth’ (Nassmacher 2009: 192).

  8. 8.

    Although as we saw on page 40 the debate about the actual effect regulation has on limiting perceived corruption is ongoing.

  9. 9.

    Although corruption is recognised as increasingly being a factor in these decisions, corruption scandals and public pressure are also noted as being insufficient in influencing legislative behaviour (for an in-depth analysis of the Italian case, see Piccio 2014b).

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  1. Department of Politics, University of Sussex, Brighton, UK

    Sam Power

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Power, S. (2020). New Institutionalism: Towards a Consolidated Approach. In: Party Funding and Corruption. Political Corruption and Governance. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-37580-5_3

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