Hostname: page-component-745bb68f8f-s22k5 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-01-08T09:00:31.553Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Introduction to the Special Issue on the Evolution of Institutions

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 May 2011

MARK BLYTH ,
GEOFFREY M. HODGSON ,
ORION LEWIS  and
SVEN STEINMO
MARK BLYTH
Affiliation:
The Watson Institute, Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island, USA
GEOFFREY M. HODGSON*
Affiliation:
University of Hertfordshire Business School, Hatfield, Hertfordshire AL10 9AB, UK
ORION LEWIS
Affiliation:
Rohatyn Center for International Affairs, Middlebury College, Middlebury, Vermont, USA
SVEN STEINMO
Affiliation:
European University Institute, Florence, Italy
*
*Email: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract:

How can evolutionary ideas be applied to the study of social and political institutions? Charles Darwin identified the mechanisms of variation, selection and retention. He emphasized that evolutionary change depends on the uniqueness of every individual and its interactions within a population and with its environment. While introducing the contributions to this special issue, we examine some of the ontological positions underlying evolutionary theory, showing why they are appropriate for studying issues in economics, political science and sociology. We consider how these ideas might help us understand both institutional change and the formation of individual preferences.

Type
Introduction
Information
Journal of Institutional Economics , Volume 7 , Special Issue 3: Evolution of Institutions , September 2011 , pp. 299 - 315
Copyright
Copyright © The JOIE Foundation 2011

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Aldrich, H. E., Hodgson, G. M., Hull, D. L., Knudsen, T., Mokyr, J., and Vanberg, V. J. (2008), ‘In Defence of Generalized Darwinism’, Journal of Evolutionary Economics, 18 (5): 577–596.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Alford, J. R. and Hibbing, J. R. (2004), ‘The Origins of Politics: An Evolutionary Theory of Political Behavior’, Perspectives on Politics, 2 (4): 707–723.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bagehot, W. (1872), Physics and Politics, or, Thoughts on the Application of the Principles of ‘Natural Selection’ and ‘Inheritance’ to Political Society, London: Henry King.Google Scholar
Barkow, J. H., Cosmides, L., and Tooby, J. (1992), The Adapted Mind: Evolutionary Psychology and the Generation of Culture, New York: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bates, R., Greif, A., Rsenthal, J.-L., and Weingast, B. (1998), Analytic Narratives, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Beinhocker, E. D. (2006), The Origin of Wealth: Evolution, Complexity, and the Radical Remaking of Economics, Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press.Google Scholar
Beinhocker, E. D. (2011), ‘Evolution as Computation: Integrating Self-Organization with Generalized Darwinism’, Journal of Institutional Economics, 7 (3): doi:10.1017/S1744137411000257.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Blyth, M. (2006), ‘Great Punctuations: Prediction, Randomness, and the Evolution of Comparative Political Researach’, American Political Science Review, 100 (4): 493–498.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bowles, S. and Gintis, H. (eds.) (2005), Moral Sentiments and Material Interests: The Foundations of Cooperation in Economic Life, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Bowles, S. and Gintis, H. (2011), A Cooperative Species: Human Sociality and its Evolution, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Boyd, R. and Richerson, P. (2005a), ‘Solving the Puzzle of Human Cooperation’, in Levinson, S. (ed.), Evolution and Culture, Cambridge: MIT Press, pp. 105–132.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Boyd, R. and Richerson, P. J. (2005b), The Origin and Evolution of Cultures, New York: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Campbell, D. T. (1965), ‘Variation, Selection and Retention in Sociocultural Evolution’, in Barringer, H. R., Blanksten, G. I. and Mack, R. W. (eds.), Social Change in Developing Areas: A Reinterpretation of Evolutionary Theory, Cambridge, MA: Schenkman, pp. 19–49.Google Scholar
Carson, S. A. (2011), ‘Southeastern Institutional Change and Biological Variation: Evidence from the 19th Century Tennessee State Prison’, Journal of Institutional Economics, 7 (3): doi:10.1017/S174413741000038X.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cosmides, L. and Tooby, J. (1997), Evolutionary Psychology: A Primer, Santa Barbara, CA: University of California.Google Scholar
D'Andrade, R. (1993), ‘Cultural Cognition’, In Posner, M. (ed.), Foundations of Cognitive Science, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, pp. 795–830.Google Scholar
D'Andrade, R. and Strauss, C. (eds.) (1992), Human Motives and Cultural Models, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Darwin, C. R. (1859), On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life, London: Murray.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Darwin, C. R. (1871), The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex, 1st edn, 2 vols, London: Murray and New York: Hill.Google Scholar
Dawkins, R. (1976), The Selfish Gene, Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Dawkins, R. (1982), The Extended Phenotype: The Gene as the Unit of Selection, Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Dennett, D. C. (1995), Darwin's Dangerous Idea, New York: Simon and Schuster.Google Scholar
Dunbar, R. I. M. (1996), Grooming, Gossip and the Evolution of Language, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Dunbar, R. I. M. (2011), ‘Constraints on the Evolution of Social Institutions and Their Implications for Information Flow’, Journal of Evolutionary Economics, 7 (3): doi:10.1017/S1744137410000366.Google Scholar
Ehrlich, P. (2000), Human Natures: Genes, Cultures, and the Human Prospect, New York: Penguin.Google Scholar
Elster, J. (1998), ‘Emotions and Economic Theory’, Journal of Economic Literature, 36 (1): 47–74.Google Scholar
Elster, J. (2000), ‘Rational Choice History: A Case of Excessive Ambition’, American Political Science Review, 94 (3): 685–695.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Farr, J. (1995), ‘Remembering the Revolution: Behavioralism in American Political Science’, in Farr, J., Dryzek, J. S. and Leonard, S. T. (eds.), Political Science in History, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, pp. 198–224.Google Scholar
Fehr, E. (2006), ‘Inequality Aversion, Efficiency and Maximum Preferences in Simple Distribution Experiments: Comment’, American Economic Review, 96 (5): 1912–1917.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fehr, E. and Fischbacher, U. (2004), ‘Third-party Punishment and Social Norms’, Evolution and Social Behavior, 25 (2): 63–87.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fiorina, M. (1995), ‘Rational Choice and the New (?) Institutionalism’, Polity, 28 (1): 107–115.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Futuyma, D. J. and Slatkin, M. (1983), Coevolution, Sunderland, MA: Sinauer Associates.Google Scholar
Gould, S. J. (1989), Wonderful Life: The Burgess Shale and the Nature of History, New York: Norton.Google Scholar
Gould, S. J. (2002a), I Have Landed: The End of a Beginning in Natural History, 1st edn, New York: Harmony Books.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gould, S. J. (2002b), The Structure of Evolutionary Theory, Cambridge, MA:Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Greif, A. and Laitin, D. (2004), ‘A Theory of Endogenous Institutional Change’, American Political Science Review, 98 (4): 633–652.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gureck, O., Irlenbusch, B., and Rockenbach, B. (2006), ‘The Competitive Advantage of Sanctioning Institutions’, Science, 312 (5770): 108–111.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hammerstein, P. (ed.) (2003), Genetic and Cultural Evolution of Cooperation, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hartung, J. (1995), ‘Love Thy Neighbor: The Evolution of In-group Morality’, Skeptic, 3: 86–99.Google Scholar
Hayek, F. A. and Shenfield, A. A. (1983), Knowledge, Evolution and Society, London: Adam Smith Institute.Google Scholar
Henrich, J., Boyd, R., Bowles, S., Camerer, C., Fehr, E., Gintis, H., and McElreath, R. (2001), ‘In Search of Homo Economicus: Behavioral Experiments in 15 Small-Scale Societies’, American Economic Review (Papers and Proceedings), 91 (2): 73–84.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hodgson, G. M. (2001), How Economics Forgot History: The Problem of Historical Specificity in Social Science, London and New York: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hodgson, G. M. and Knudsen, T. (2010), Darwin's Conjecture: The Search for General Principles of Social and Economic Evolution, Chicago: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hoffman, M. and Riley, J. (1999), The Science of Political Science: Linearity or Complexity in Designing Social Inquiry, St Louis: Washington University.Google Scholar
Holland, J. H. (1992), ‘Complex Adaptive Systems’, Daedalus, 121 (1): 17–30.Google Scholar
Hull, D. L. (1988), Science as a Process: An Evolutionary Account of the Social and Conceptual Development of Science, Chicago: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jervis, R. (1997), System Effects, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Katznelson, I. and Weingast, B. (2005), ‘Intersections between Historical and Rational Choice Institutionalism’, in Katznelson, I. and Weingast, B. (eds.), Preferences and Situations, New York: Cambridge University Press, pp. 1–24.Google Scholar
Keller, A. G. (1915), Societal Evolution: A Study of the Evolutionary Basis of the Science of Society, (New York: Macmillan).Google Scholar
Kerr, P. (2002), ‘Saved from Extinction: Evolutionary Theorising, Politics and the State’, British Journal of Politics and International Relations, 4 (2): 330–358.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Knoch, D., Pascual-Leone, A., Meyer, K., and Fehr, E. (2006), ‘Diminishing Reciprocal Fairness by Disrupting the Right Frontal Cortex’, Science, 314 (5800): 829–832.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Krasner, S. (1984), ‘Approaches to the State: Alternative Conceptions and Historical Dynanmics’, Comparative Politics, 16 (2): 223–246.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lakoff, G. and Johnson, M. (1999), Philosophy of The Flesh, New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Levi, M. (1988), Of Rule and Revenue, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Levi, M. (1997), ‘A Model, a Method and a Map: Rational Choice in Comparative and Historical Analysis’, in Lichbach, M. I. and Zuckerman, A. S. (eds.), Comparative Politics: Rationality, Culture, and Structure, New York: Cambridge University Press, pp. 19–41.Google Scholar
Levi, M. (2006), ‘Why We Need a New Theory of Government’, Perspectives on Politics, 4 (1): 5–19.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lewis, O. and Steinmo, S. (2010), ‘Taking Evolution Seriously in Political Science’, Theory in Biosciences, 129 (2–3): 235–245.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Lichbach, M. (1995), The Rebel's Dilemma, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lieberman, R. (2002), ‘Ideas, Institutions, and Political Order: Explaining Political Change’, American Political Science Review, 96 (4): 697–712.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Liu, J., Dietz, T., Carpenter, S. R., Alberti, M., Folke, C., Moran, E., Pell, A. N., Deadman, P., Kratz, T., Lubchenco, J., Ostrom, E., Ouyang, Z., Provencher, W., Redman, C. L., Schneider, S. H., and Taylor, W. W. (2007), ‘Complexity of Coupled Human and Natural Systems’, Science, 137 (5844): 1513–1516.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mayr, E. (1982), The Growth of Biological Thought: Diversity, Evolution, and Inheritance, Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Mayr, E. (1988), Toward a New Philosophy of Biology: Observations of an Evolutionist, Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Mayr, E. (2001), What Evolution Is, New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Mayr, E. (2004), What Makes Biology Unique?: Considerations on the Autonomy of a Scientific Discipline, Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mirowski, P. (1989), More Heat Than Light: Economics as Social Physics, Physics as Nature's Economics, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Modelski, G. (2004), ‘What is Evolutionary World Politics?’, https://faculty.washington.edu/modelski/WhatsEWP.htmGoogle Scholar
Morgan, J. and Olsen, W. (2011), ‘Conceptual Issues in Institutional Economics: Clarifying the Fluidity of Rules’, Journal of Institutional Economics, 7 (3): doi:10.1017/S1744137410000299.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nelson, R. (2007), ‘Universal Darwinism and Evolutionary Social Science’, Biology and Philosophy, 22 (1): 73–94.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nelson, R. and Winter, S. (2002), ‘Evolutionary Theorizing in Economics’, Journal of Economic Perspectives, 16 (2): 23–46.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
North, D. (1992), ‘Institutions, Ideology, and Economic Performance’, Cato Journal, 11 (3): 477–488.Google Scholar
North, D. (2006), ‘What is Missing from Politicial Economy’, in Weingast, B. and Wiltman, D. (eds.), The Oxford Handbook on Political Economy, Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Ostrom, E. and Basurto, X. (2011), ‘Crafting Analytical Tools to Study Institutional Change’, Journal of Institutional Economics, 7 (3): doi:10.1017/S1744137410000305.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pagano, U. (2011), ‘Interlocking Complementarities and Institutional Change’, Journal of Institutional Economics, 7 (3): doi:10.1017/S1744137410000433.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pierson, P. (1993), ‘When Effect Becomes Cause: Policy Feedback and Political Change’, World Politics, 45 (4): 595–628.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pierson, P. (2000), ‘Increasing Returns, Path Dependence and the Study of Politics’, American Political Science Review, 94 (2): 251–268.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pierson, P. (2004), Politics in Time: History, Institutions, and Social Analysis, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Popper, K. R. (1974), ‘Scientific Reduction and the Essential Incompleteness of All Science’, in Francisco, J. Ayala and Theodosius, Dobzhansky (eds.), Studies in the Philosophy of Biology, London, Berkeley and Los Angeles: Macmillan and University of California Press, pp. 259–284.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Price, G. R. (1970), ‘Selection and Covariance’, Nature, 227 (5257): 520–521.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Price, G. R. (1995), ‘The Nature of Selection’, Journal of Theoretical Biology, 175 (3): 389–396.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Richerson, P. J. and Boyd, R. (2005), Not by Genes Alone: How Culture Transformed Human Evolution, Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Ridley, M. (2003), The Cooperative Gene: How Mendel's Demon Explains the Evolution of Complex Beings, New York: Harper Collins.Google Scholar
Ritchie, D. G. (1896) ‘Social Evolution,’ International Journal of Ethics, 6 (2): 165–181.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sardemov, I. (2007), ‘Burnt into the Brain?’, Democratization, 14 (3): 407–424.Google Scholar
Sewell, W. (1992), ‘A Theory of Structure: Duality, Agency, and Transformation’, American Journal of Sociology, 98 (1): 1–29.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shore, B. (1996), Culture in Mind: Cognition, Culture, and the Problem of Meaning, New York: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sober, E. (1984), The Nature of Selection: Evolutionary Theory in Philosophical Focus, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Sperber, D. and Claidière, N. (2006), ‘Why Modeling Cultural Evolution is Still Such a Challenge’, Biological Theory, 1 (1): 20–22.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Steinmo, S. (2008), ‘What is Historical Institutionalism?’ In Porta, D. D. and Keating, M. (eds.), Approaches in the Social Sciences, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Steinmo, S. (2010), The Evolution of Modern States: Sweden, Japan and the United States, New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Steinmo, S., Thelen, K. A., and Longstreth, F. (1992), Structuring Politics: Historical Institutionalism in Comparative Analysis, Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Streeck, W. and Thelen, K. (2005), ‘Introduction: Institutional Change in Advanced Political Economies’, in Streeck, W. and Thelen, K. (eds.), Beyond Continuity, Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 1–39.Google Scholar
Thayer, B. A. (2004), Darwin and International Relations: On the Evolutionary Origins of War and Ethnic Conflict, Lexington, KY: University Press of Kentucky.Google Scholar
Thelen, K. (2004), How Institutions Evolve: The Political Economy of Skills in Germany, Britain, the United States and Japan, New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tilly, C. and Ardant, G. (1975), The Formation of National States in Western Europe, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Wallerstein, M. (2001), ‘Does Political Science Need a TOE (Theory of Everything)?’, APSA-CP (Comparative Politics Section Newsletter), 12 (1): 1–2, 31.Google Scholar
Veblen, T. B. (1899), The Theory of the Leisure Class: An Economic Study in the Evolution of Institutions, New York: Macmillan.Google Scholar
Weingast, B. (2005), ‘Persuasion, Preference Change, and Critical Junctures: The Microfoundations of a Macroscopic Concept’, in Weingast, B. and Katznelson, I. (eds.), Preferences and Situations, New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Wheeler, M., Ziman, J., and Boden, M. A. (eds.) (2002), The Evolution of Cultural Entities: Volume 112 of the Proceedings of the British Academy, Oxford: Published for the British Academy by Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zimmer, C. (2001), Evolution: The Triumph of an Idea, New York: Harper Collins.Google Scholar
Zuckerman, A. S. (1997), ‘Reformulating Explanatory Standards and Advancing Theory in Comparative Politics’, in Lichbach, M. I. and Zuckerman, A. S. (eds.), Comparative Politics, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar