Institutional Change and Globalization (review)

Abstract

John L. Campbell, Institutional Change and Globalization. Princeton University Press, 2004, 247 pages. Since the 1970s, the concept of has spread through the social sciences. This umbrella concept, however, should not hide the diversity of approaches with which scholars seek to analyze institutional change and inertia. It is common to distinguish between three main streams of institutionalist research: rational choice, historical, and organizational (or sociological) institutionalisms (e.g. Hall and Taylor, 1996). A partial challenge to the neoclassical model, rational choice institutionalism is more common in economics than in the other social science disciplines. Yet, well-known sociologists (e.g. Raymond Boudon, James Coleman) have long contributed to the rational choice literature. Furthermore, in the United States, prominent political scientists (e.g. Margaret Levy) have embraced this broad micro-analytical perspective exploring the impact of institutional constraints and incentives on the behaviour of strategic actors. Especially well known in political science, historical institutionalism stresses the structuring role of institutional legacies and formal political institutions in policy-making. Authors like Ann Orloff and Theda Sckocpol belong to this macro-analytical and historical perspective. Finally, organizational institutionalism emphasizes the role of shared ideas, norms, and values in the construction of organizational behaviour and institutional legitimacy. Sometimes known as sociological institutionalism, this approach is more prominent in sociology than in political science or in economics. Frank Dobbin and Paul DiMaggio are among the best known figures of this stream of institutionalist research. In his book Institutional Change and Globalization, sociologist John L. Campbell argues that the three institutionalisms address similar theoretical questions, and that bridging these theoretical streams is necessary to shed new light on institutional change. Although the author is not the first to initiate a dialogue between the three institutionalisms (i.e. Hall and Taylor, 1996), his formidable command of the institutionalist literatures provides new insight about the processes related to institutional change. The author tackles three main analytical problems. The first one concerns the debate about whether to describe patterns of institutional change as incremental, revolutionary, or something else in between. Regarding this issue, Campbell suggests that evolutionary change is probably more common than a revolutionary one. The second problem concerns the causal mechanisms by which change occurs. For the author, concepts like path dependence and diffusion, which are ever-present in the three institutionalist literatures, constitute interesting starting points for the causal understanding of institutional change. Yet, these concepts are in need of analytical specification, as the concrete mechanisms that structure them are seldom described with great analytical details. The third problem Campbell tackles is the role of ideas in institutional change. Favourable to the cultural turn in institutional analysis, he suggests that ideas are probably as crucial as self-interests in explaining patterns of institutional change. To illustrate his theoretical claims about institutional change, Campbell discusses the possible impact of on existing national institutions, with a focus on fiscal and economic policies. Rejecting the globalization thesis stating that economic favours a planetary, neo-liberal convergence that makes institutional analysis irrelevant, the author shows that national institutions still matter a great deal, in part because they mediate the impact of on national states. Through his systematic discussion of the institutionalist literatures and his interesting analysis of economic globalization, Campbell invites scholars to specify the institutional dimensions of change, the most appropriate analytical time frame to assess such change, and the mechanisms of bricolage and translation, by which actors adapt and transform existing institutional configurations. …