THE SPONTANEOUS EMERGENCE OF SOCIAL INSTITUTIONS: CONTEMPORARY THEORIES OF INSTITUTIONAL CHANGE

Abstract

Up to this point my analysis has focused on the effects of institutions on social life. My main argument has been that the primary force of institutional effects is distributional — the determination of the division of benefits that characterize social outcomes. Now, as we turn to questions about the origin of these institutions, we need to consider the implications of these distributional effects on explanations of institutional development and change. Given the importance of distributional effects, we would expect social actors to prefer and seek to establish those institutional arrangements that favor them in distributional terms. Therefore, our theories of institutional development and change should either invoke this pursuit of distributional advantage as a major source of explanation or explain why other factors counteract and override distributional concerns. Contemporary theories of institutional change seek to understand both the conditions under which social institutions develop and the circumstances under which they change. In explaining the origin of institutions, such theories emphasize one of two processes: (1) spontaneous, or evolutionary, emergence or (2) intentional design. These theories primarily invoke the collective value of social institutions. If the earlier argument about the primacy of distribution is correct, these theories will need to elaborate mechanisms of change describing either how the pursuit of distributional advantage is offset by other factors oriented toward collective gain or how a selection mechanism favors the development of collectively beneficial social institutions.