Most standard social science accounts only offer limited explanations of institutional design, i.e. why institutions have common features observed in many different human groups. Here we suggest that these features are best explained as the outcome of evolved human cognition, in such domains as mating, moral judgment and social exchange. As empirical illustrations, we show how this evolved psychology makes marriage systems, legal norms and commons management systems intuitively obvious and compelling, thereby ensuring their occurrence and cultural stability. We extend this to propose under what conditions institutions can become ‘natural’, compelling and legitimate, and outline probable paths for institutional change given human cognitive dispositions. Explaining institutions in terms of these exogenous factors also suggests that a general theory of institutions as such is neither necessary nor in fact possible. What are required are domain-specific accounts of institutional design in different domains of evolved cognition.

The paper discusses John R. Commons's original theory of institutions, where the latter are defined as going concerns and their working rules, or collective action restraining and expanding individual action. Such organizational approach of institutions makes important contributions to institutional economics in general, through its notion of a hierarchy of collective action, its threefold typology of transactions, and its holindividualist stance. Commons's genuine advances are counterbalanced by theoretical limits, which illustrate the unfinished character of his attempt to make a contribution to a ‘rounded-out theory of Political economy’, e.g. the ambiguous place of markets in his theory, the state understood as a model for other going concerns and, distinctly, the restricted definition of institutions as organizations. In some important respects, his theory complements or goes further than other currents of institutional economics; its weak points are sometimes the reverse side of his very contributions.

If those with political power benefit from corrupt institutions, rulers might not adopt the rule of law so the ruling class can command a larger share of a smaller pie. An empirical analysis reveals that the size of government is larger in those countries that enforce the rule of law. If government expenditures provide some measure of the ability of the ruling class to command resources, this suggests that those with political power could benefit from imposing a fairer and more objective legal structure. Another conjecture is that those in power maintain corrupt governments to pay off their supporters and enhance their ability to remain in power. However, the rule of law is also positively associated with political stability, so better enforcement of the rule of law also enhances the ability of incumbent governments to remain in power.

John Searle has developed a strong theory of how speech acts and agreements generate institutions. How is the general theory specified for political institutions? He, like Max Weber, suggests that a government monopoly of soldiers is a condition for the existence of political institutions. However, governments' wielding of force is only political if those attacked consider the attack a responsible and a morally acceptable act. All political power in Searle's theory is deontic. It is assigned as a right, an obligation or the like, as a status function. If power wielding by a government is not assigned, it is beyond the political; it is only brute force. My contention is that this distinction limits the power of Searle's theory in the analysis of politics. From the idea of political institutions as ultimate institutions in a specific, bordered territory it is the strong idea of deonticity that is misleading. Ultimate institutions cannot by definition have externally assigned status. Leaders of other ultimate institutions can accept their existence, but then mainly because they have the military power to defend their borders. Nation states, demanding territorial sovereignty, therefore logically demand a monopoly of soldiers. This sovereignty seen over time suggests an evolutionary first principle of political institutions.

The administration of the forensic science process falls into the hands of supervisors, local administrators, and prosecution attorneys and police agencies. In the current structure, the police and prosecution are the principal and the forensic scientists the agent. I identify changes that must be made in that relationship to eliminate biases and to determine the major obstacles that stand in the way of creating the necessary changes. I focus on the ‘middle managers’ – the supervisors and laboratory directors – as the cultural key masters. I recommend: mechanism design principles to enable laboratories to report to a board of directors, rather than the prosecutor and police; for the development of compensation plans for middle managers to build a culture of learning based on error tolerance rather than error punishment; and for the use of intrinsic and extrinsic motivations to facilitate the identity changes of cultural key masters.

This study examines the type and quality of institutions in Palestine and the correlation between the institutions and economic growth in Palestine from 1516 to 1948. Initially in the 16th century, with the Ottoman conquest of the area, institutions in Palestine involved de facto private user-rights. The level of expropriation by elites was low, and this enabled the people to develop the lands that they had acquired the right to cultivate. In the 17th and 18th centuries, with the exception of the Galilee in the middle of the 18th century, institutions became extractive due to tax farming, rapacious governors and Bedouin raids. From the middle of the 19th century until 1948, there was a second reversal back to private property institutions, first slowly until the First World War, and then more rapidly under the British Mandate after the First World War. When there were private property institutions the economy prospered, while when there were extractive institutions, the economy stagnated.