Waiting on the World to Change:
Institutional Changes
Institutional Changes
What is the term for the ability of a state to collect taxes, enforce law and order, and provide public goods?
State capacity
What are the 3 theories of institutional change?
Historical, ideational, rational choice
What is the term for a key choice point during which one option is selected over alternatives hence fundamentally changing the institutional arrangement?
critical juncture
What are two exogenous causes of the great divergence?
Colonialism and Slavery
What is the definition of historical institutionalism?
The idea that institutional change occurs because institutions exert influence on their historical trajectory.
What is actor-centred functionalism?
A theory that a particular institution exists because it is expected to serve the interests of those who created it. Therefore institutions exist as the result of social actors' deliberate design.
What is the term for the system of a social hierarchy where patrons use state resources to secure the loyalty of clients in the general population?
Neopatrimonialism
Give one endogenous and exogenous example of ideational institutionalism?
Endogenous: elites, puzzling; exogenous: crisis, other institutions
Explain the concept of changes at the margin and how this relates to institutional change
Even small reforms implemented within a set of bad institutions can lead to institutional change through incremental changes—institutional change in the absence of an outside invasion of full-scale social revolution.
Charles Tilly said War makes states- explain this phenomenon.
When (inter-state) war is present in the formation of states (as in European history), then states are more likely to have eliminated domestic rivals to state authority and are more likely to have strong institutions of military, police, taxation, and law.
Under what three scenarios does institutional change occur in rational choice institutionalism ideology?
1) when transaction costs involved in change become less daunting
2) when different actors acquire institution-changing power
3) as a result of the changing preferences of relevant actors.
What are possible impediments to institutional change?
Coordination problems, veto points, asset specificity, positive feedback.