Introduction

It is difficult, in principle, to controvert the simple statement that institutions play a role in explaining growth. An institution, after all, is “a system of rules, beliefs, norms, and organizations that together generate a regularity of (social) behavior” (Greif 2006, 30). Viewed at this fundamental level, institutions are pervasive, and, therefore, affect all behavior manifesting any semblance of regularity, including behavior by politicians, bureaucrats, and the citizenry itself. In particular, to the extent that formal rules, informal norms, beliefs and convergent expectations, and organizations are implicated in the acquisition and exercise of political authority, then governance itself—“the manner in which public officials and institutions acquire and exercise the authority to shape public policy and provide public goods and services” (World Bank 2007, i)—must be understood as being an institutional outcome. This is straightforward, since the institutional elements just mentioned directly affect political behavior. At the most formal and superficial level, constitutions and statutes place obvious limits on the mode of acquiring and exercising authority (e.g., elections and executive–legislative relations). In many instances, of course, behavior will appear to deviate from or spill over the limits imposed by formal laws—a problem endemic to many developing countries—such as when clientist or patriarchal relations swamp outwardly democratic processes. Closer analysis, however, will typically reveal that such behavior actually accords with some other (perhaps competing) set of de facto institutions that operate alongside or in lieu of de jure institutions.