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4. Streeck and Thelen, Beyond Continuity; Mahoney and Thelen, Explaining Institutional Change.

5. Formal theorist Kenneth Shepsle, for example, defines institutions as “a framework or rules, procedures, and arrangements” that “prescribes and constrains the set of choosing agents.” Shepsle, Kenneth A., “Institutional Equilibrium and Equilibrium Institutions,” in Political Science: The Science of Politics, ed. Weisberg, Herbert F. (New York: Agathon, 1986), 52.Google Scholar William Riker likewise defines institutions as “conventions . . . which are simply rules about behavior, especially about making decisions.” Riker, William H., “Implications from the Disequilibrium of Majority-Rule for the Study of Institutions,” American Political Science Review 74 (1980): 432–46.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Economist Douglass C. North similarly writes that institutions are “the rules of the game in a society or, more formally, are the humanly devised constraints that shape human interaction.” North, Douglass C., Institutions, Institutional Change, and Economic Performance (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1990), 3.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Also see Weingast, Barry, “Rational Choice Institutionalism ” in Political Science, State of the Discipline: Reconsidering Power, Choice, and the State, eds. Katznelson, Ira and Milner, Helen V. (New York: Norton, 2002).Google Scholar

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6. For a similar but broader definition of political institutions, see Orren and Skowronek, The Search for American Political Development, 83–85.

7. These political institutions therefore share certain characteristics with political organizations; but they are not, or not only, organizations. Because they help to enforce the “rules of the game,” and because changes to their operations often have far-reaching “ripple effects” across the political system, they are more properly understood as political institutions. They act in politics, but their operations are also constitutive of politics. North's distinction between the “players” in the game and the “game” itself, in other words, is difficult to sustain in the analysis of such political institutions (North, Institutions, Institutional Change, and Economic Performance, 4–5). The perspective advanced here thus bears closer kinship with March and Olsen's view of political institutions as autonomous “political actors” that pursue their own purposes but also help to “define the framework within which politics takes place.” March, James G. and Olsen, Johan P., Rediscovering Institutions (New York: The Free Press, Macmillan, Inc., 1989), 17–18.Google Scholar

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11. Pierson, Politics in Time, 50; Thelen, “Historical Institutionalism in Comparative Politics,” 385.

12. Pierson, Politics in Time, 12.

13. On institutional “conversion,” see Thelen, Kathleen, How Institutions Evolve: The Political Economy of Skills in Germany, Britain, the United States, and Japan (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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15. Cotter, Cornelius and Bibby, John F., “Institutional Development of Parties and the Thesis of Party Decline,” Political Science Quarterly 95 (1980): 1–27.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Also see Herrnson, Paul S., Party Campaigning in the 1980s (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1988)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Frantzich, Stephen E., Political Parties in the Technological Age (New York: Longman, 1989)Google Scholar; Goldman, Ralph Morris, The National Party Chairmen and Committees: Factionalism at the Top (Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 1990)Google Scholar. On earlier changes in the national committees, see Cotter, Cornelius P. and Hennessy, Bernard C., Politics without Power: The National Party Committees (New York: Atherton Press, 1964)Google Scholar; Bone, Hugh A., Party Committees and National Politics (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1958)Google Scholar; Heard, Alexander, The Costs of Democracy (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1960)Google Scholar.

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18. Ibid., 14.

19. Slater, Dan, “Altering Authoitarianism: Institutional Complexity and Autocratic Agency in Indonesia,” in Explaining Institutional Change: Ambiguity, Agency, and Power in Historical Institutionalism, eds. Mahoney, James and Thelen, Kathleen (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010)Google Scholar; Frymer, Paul, Black and Blue: African Americans, the Labor Movement, and the Decline of the Democratic Party (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2008)Google Scholar; Thelen, Kathleen, “Institutions and Social Change: The Evolution of Vocational Training in Germany,” in Rethinking Political Institutions: The Art of the State, eds. Shapiro, Ian, Skowronek, Stephen, and Galvin, Daniel (New York: New York University Press, 2006)Google Scholar; Carpenter, Daniel P. and Moore, Colin D., “Robust Action and the Strategic Use of Ambiguity in a Bureaucratic Cohort: FDA Officers and the Evolution of New Drug Regulations, 1950-1970,” in Formative Acts: American Politics in the Making, eds. Skowronek, Stephen and Glassman, Matthew (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2007)Google Scholar; Carpenter, Daniel P., Reputation and Power: Organizational Image and Pharmaceutical Regulation at the FDA (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2010)Google Scholar; Eric Lomazoff, “Turning (into) ‘the Great Regulating Wheel’: The Conversion of the Bank of the United States, 1791–1811,” Studies in American Political Development (forthcoming).

20. Mahoney and Thelen, “A Theory of Gradual Institutional Change,” 3. Eyes-open searches for mechanisms of endogenous change are also advocated in Thelen, “Historical Institutionalism in Comparative Politics”; Thelen, How Institutions Evolve; Mahoney, James, The Legacies of Liberalism: Path Dependence and Political Regimes in Central America (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001)Google Scholar; Pierson, Politics in Time; and Streeck and Thelen, Beyond Continuity.

21. The imagery of abrasion borrows from Orren, Karen and Skowronek, Stephen, “Beyond the Iconography of Order: Notes for a ‘New Institutionalism',” in The Dynamics of American Politics: Approaches and Interpretations, eds. Dodd, Lawrence C. and Jillson, Calvin (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1994), 321Google Scholar; Orren and Skowronek, The Search for American Political Development, 113–14.

22. Katznelson, Ira and Weingast, Barry R., “Intersections between Historical and Rational Choice Institutionalism,” in Preferences and Situations: Points of Intersection between Historical and Rational Choice Institutionalism, eds. Katznelson, Ira and Weingast, Barry R. (New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 2005), 15.Google Scholar

23. March and Olsen, Rediscovering Institutions, 59, italics added.

24. Clemens and Cook, “Politics and Institutionalism: Explaining Durability and Change,” 449–50.

25. Ibid., 448–49; March and Olsen, Rediscovering Institutions; Sewell, “A Theory of Structure: Duality, Agency, and Transformation.” See also Pierson, Politics in Time.

26. This is the conventional definition drawn from the Oxford Dictionaries (Oxford University Press): http://oxforddictionaries.com/definition/resource?q=resources.

27. Giddens, Anthony, The Constitution of Society: Introduction of the Theory of Structuration (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984)Google Scholar; Sewell, “A Theory of Structure: Duality, Agency, and Transformation”; Clemens and Cook, “Politics and Institutionalism: Explaining Durability and Change.”

28. Public policies, for example, are sometimes considered political institutions because they promulgate rules that govern behavior. But they do not contain internal resources of the sort examined here: they change through different mechanisms and processes. Likewise, Orren and Skowronek's definition of political institutions includes “extensions of governmental authority deep into society, into the institution of the family, for instance . . . and to workplaces,” as well as “the institution of lobbying” (2004, 84). Such political institutions, likewise, fall outside the purview of this analysis. Which is as it should be: different types of political institutions should be expected to exhibit different mechanisms of endogenous institutional change. The task at hand is to identify which mechanisms are more or less prevalent among different subsets of institutions and examine their significance. On public policies as institutions, see Pierson, Paul, “Public Policies as Institutions,” in Rethinking Political Institutions: The Art of the State, eds. Shapiro, Ian, Skowronek, Stephen, and Galvin, Daniel (New York: New York University Press, 2006).Google Scholar

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39. For further commentary along these lines, see Matthew Glassman, “Whigging Out,” November 30, 2011, http://www.mattglassman.com/?p=1970.

40. Teles, “Transformative Bureaucracy: Reagan's Lawyers and the Dynamics of Political Investment”; see also Teles, The Rise of the Conservative Legal Movement: The Battle for Control of the Law.

41. Teles, “Transformative Bureaucracy,” 63, 67, 69.

42. Ibid., 71, 69.

43. Glassman, “Congressional Leadership: A Resource Perspective,” 27. Even the establishment of the CBO was associated with electoral dynamics; the proximate cause, of course, was the struggle for authority between the Nixon administration and congressional Democrats over federal spending, the impoundment power, and inter-branch relations. But the Budget and Impoundment Act represented more than a reaction against executive aggrandizement: majority Democrats, Eric Schickler writes, also “feared that they would be blamed for Congress's lack of a fiscal policy” in the 1974 elections. Institutional reform was thus pushed as a “common carrier” for multiple interests. Schickler, Disjointed Pluralism: Institutional Innovation and the Development of the U.S. Congress, 196, 191.

44. Teles, “Transformative Bureaucracy: Reagan's Lawyers and the Dynamics of Political Investment,” 65.

45. Ibid., 62.

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51. Aldrich, Why Parties?, 19.

52. Ibid., 26.

53. “Actor-centered functionalism” is a term coined by Paul Pierson, Politics in Time, 104.

54. Aldrich, Why Parties?, 261–62.

55. Ibid., 262–63. See also Aldrich and Niemi, “The Sixth American Party System,” and Schlesinger, Political Parties and the Winning of Office, 187–99; Schlesinger, “The New American Political Party.”

56. Aldrich, Why Parties?, 286.

57. Ibid., 263. Italics in original.

58. Ibid., 269.

59. Schlesinger writes: “The character of the organization, how it is arranged, what (if any) lines of authority it has, how disciplined it is, how much division of labor exists, is not part of the Downsian definition of party. These omissions are essential if the definition of party is to be flexible enough to understand changes in the party's form.” It should come as no surprise, then, that the conclusion he reaches is that the parties' institutional arrangements do not matter in how they change. Schlesinger, Political Parties and the Winning of Office, 7.

60. Aldrich, Why Parties?, 284.

61. Ibid., 295.

62. “Breakdown and replacement” is from Thelen, How Institutions Evolve, 30.

63. Similarly, Frank Sorauf writes: “A meaningful approach to political parties must be concerned with parties as organizations or structures performing activities, processes, roles, or functions . . . The logical intellectual and analytical point of reference is the party as a structure. Activity (or function) is certainly important, but one must begin by knowing who or what is acting.” Sorauf, Frank J., “Political Parties and Political Analysis,” in The American Party Systems: Stages of Political Development, ed. Chambers, William Nisbet and Burnham, Walter Dean (New York: Oxford University Press, 1975), 38.Google Scholar

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66. Associated Press, “Hamilton Puts ‘Revitalization’ of Party First,” Washington Post, November 10, 1936.

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117. Klinkner, The Losing Parties, 182.

118. Galvin, Presidential Party Building; Galvin, Daniel J., “Changing Course: Reversing the Organizational Trajectory of the Democratic Party from Bill Clinton to Barack Obama,” The Forum 6 (2008).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

119. Electoral incentives clearly played a role in changing the Democrats' mentality. For example, after many years of running disparate, largely uncoordinated campaigns, the heterogeneous Democratic coalition finally began to come together to develop cooperative campaign plans. According to DNC Chairman Joe Andrew, this was a direct result of the changed electoral context: “We didn't have all these guys around a table—for example organized labor—to do something for years. Literally, it wasn't because of me, I did nothing. I just invited them all to come to talk. They did it because of the fact that they were so concerned that we weren't going to win! There was no secret sauce here . . . People were willing to come together and talk and coordinate the way they had not been, because—what choice did they have?” Personal Interview with Joe Andrew, June 26, 2007, Washington, DC.

120. “America 2000,” Washington, DC: Democratic National Committee, 1999.

121. Ibid.

122. McAuliffe, Terry and Kettmann, Steve, What a Party!: My Life among Democrats (New York: Thomas Dunne Books, 2007).Google Scholar

123. Reich, Brian, “Please Standby . . . The DNC Is Still Experiencing Technical Difficulties,” Personal Democracy Forum, April 18, 2005.Google Scholar

124. Jamieson, Kathleen Hall, Electing the President 2008: The Insiders' View (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2009), 42, 155–57Google Scholar; “DNC Launches McCain Ad and New National Field Organizing Effort,” (Washington, DC: Democratic National Committee Press Release, 2008).

125. “A 50-State Strategy,” Washington, DC: Democratic National Committee, 2006, http://www.democrats.org/about/fifty_state_strategy; Kamarck, Elaine C., “Assessing Howard Dean's Fifty State Strategy and the 2006 Midterm Elections,” The Forum 4 (2006)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Sam Stein, “Obama and Dean Team up to Recast the Political Map,” Huffington Post, June 5, 2008; Berman, Herding Donkeys.

126. Matt Bai, “The inside Agitator,” New York Times Magazine, October 1, 2006; Jamieson, Electing the President 2008: The Insiders' View.

127. As incoming DNC Chairman Tim Kaine promised to do. See Tim Kaine, “Tim Kaine Answers Questions About Future of Party,” 2009, http://www.democrats.org/page/invite/questionsvideo.

128. Ari Melber, “Year One of Organizing for America: The Permanent Field Campaign in a Digital Age,” A techPresident Special Report, January, 2010, http://www.techpresident.com/files/report_Year_One_of_Organizing_for_America_Melber.pdf; Berman, Herding Donkeys.

129. Milkis, Sidney M. and Rhodes, Jesse H., “Barack Obama, the Democratic Party, and the Future of the ‘New American Party System',” The Forum 7 (2009)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Sidney M. Milkis and Jesse H. Rhodes, “Barack Obama, the Democratic Party, and the Evolution of the American Party System,” paper presented at Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, 2010, in Washington, DC.

130. Nancy Scola, “The New ‘Raise Your Vote': OFA's Design to Turn out Mid-Term Voters,” TechPresident.com, June 17, 2010; Nancy Scola, “Dems Release Voter Reg Widget,” TechPresident.com, July 14, 2010.