A Coevolutionary Model of Structural Change

Abstract

The structural characteristics model developed by Paul D. Bush is a significant contribution to understanding institutional adjustment in our socioeconomic system. ' Bush's model offers the most sophisticated and rigorous statement of the neoinstitutional perspective on institutional change to date. It may therefore be presumptuous of me to attempt to summarize this model in the brief space permitted here. Nevertheless, I will make such an attempt, with apologies for any oversimplification. Bush argues that advances in the arts and sciences are generally institutionalized in two phases: first, ceremonial encapsulation, and second, progressive institutional change.2 In the encapsulation phase, new knowledge is restrained by, and used for the benefit of, the power structure. In the progressive institutional change phase, this knowledge breaks free, weakening the power structure and leading to general human improvement. Bush's model thus offers a pragmatic middle ground between those on the left, who cynically interpret all institutional change as manipulation by the power structure, and those on the right, who apologetically interpret all institutional change as unambiguous improvement.