Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Social Science Institute of Political Science

Telephone: +49 351 463 35833

Philosophische Fakultät Fax: +49 351 463 37238

Institut für Politikwissenschaft E-Mail: cathleen.bochmann@tu-dresden.de

TU Dresden http://tu-dresden.de .

01062 Dresden

Cathleen Bochmann

EVOLUTIONARY INSTITUTIONALISM –

EVOLUTIONARY CONCEPTS IN INSTITU-

TIONAL ANALYSIS

ECPR GENERAL CONFERENCE

PANEL BIOLOGY AND POLITICAL SCIENCE

Reykjavik, August 27th 2011

2

Since the end of the 18th century, natural scientists, most notably Charles Darwin,

explain the wide variety of species living on earth through an evolutionary mecha-

nism. Darwin’s work inspired evolutionary models in diverse fields of study such

as sociobiology, evolutionary epistemology, population ecology, evolutionary eco-

nomics and meme theory. However, until recently the theorems and concepts of

evolution have not played any significant role in political theory, the study of politi-

cal institutions or political science as a whole. Instead, when political scientists

talked about evolution, they usually meant non-specific change in small incre-

ments; evolution as opposed to revolution.

Evolutionary Institutionalism (EI) seeks to go beyond that. Evolutionary Institution-

alism sees the variety of political institutions as the result of long processes much

like those that produced nature’s manifold beings. Evolutionary Institutionalism

seeks to explain exactly how institutions evolve, what patterns they exhibit, which

internal and external selection criteria are used and how institutions fit into their

respective niches. Many areas of institutional research profit from such an EI ap-

proach. Institutional reforms can be evaluated in terms of how they influence insti-

tutional fitness, comparative studies of institutions such as parliaments will be

enriched by morphological concepts and attempts at state building in weak or fail-

ing states can be saved from naïve constructivism by highlighting the institution-

environment interaction and dependencies.

The theoretical basis of EI – sources and tie-ins

Evolution as a concept has barely been present in political science but instead

been widely met with distrust and even occasional hostility1. Evolutionary-

teleological interpretations of history i.e. the idea that human development follows

1 E.g. Giddens, Anthony. 1993. The Constitution of Society: Outline of the Theory of Structuration.

Cambridge: Polity Press.

3

pre-determined paths to a set goal that we only have to uncover, such as laid

down in the socio-economic evolution and revolution theory of Marx and Engels2,

became increasingly unpopular, especially after the rather obvious failure in 1989

of the Eastern European countries that had based their political systems on those

ideas. Inadequate distinction between teleology and teleonomy not only hurt his-

torical materialist theories that wanted to uncover the ‘laws of history’, but also

those theories, like evolution theory, that were only looking for patterns in histori-

cal processes.

The other source of distrust for evolutionary thinking stems from the equally un-

warranted association of evolution to biologism and ultimately reductionism. Es-

pecially in Germany where it seems so easy to link selection to social-darwinism

and from there to racism and fascism, researchers3 have struggled with the idea

of incorporating evolutionary thinking or even using the terminology4. However,

biological evolution is just part of a general evolution theory, although biological

evolution has dominated the debate to a large extent.

The most notable work in this field, of course, stems from Charles Darwin, who in

1859 published his Origin of Species5. Many people are still not aware of the im-

pact social scientists like Herbert Spencer6 or Thomas Malthus7 had on Darwin’s

work, with the first coining the term “survival of the fittest” and the later formulat-

ing the idea of severe existential competition that arises out of exponential popu-

lation growth while food resources only show linear growth. Although Darwin re-

mained fairly reserved about the application of his findings to human society,

2 Marx, Karl and Friedrich Engels. 1848. Manifest der Kommunistischen Partei. London. 3 Zmarzlik, Hans-Günter. 1963. „Der Sozialdarwinismus in Deutschland. Ein Beitrag zur Vorge-

schichte des Deutschen Reiches.‚ Vierteljahreshefte für Zeitgeschichte 11(3): 246-273. Gasman,

Daniel. 1971. The Scientific Origins of National Socialism: Social Darwinism in Haeckel and the

German Monist League. London: TBS. 4 Patzelt, Werner J. (ed.). 2007. Evolutorischer Institutionalismus. Theorie und exemplarische Stu-

dien zu Evolution, Institutionalität und Geschichtlichkeit. Würzburg: Ergon. 5 Darwin, Charles. 2002 [1859]. Über die Entstehung der Arten über natürliche Zuchtwahl oder die

Erhaltung der begünstigten Rassen im Kampf um’s Dasein. Köln: Parkland-Verlag. 6 Spencer, Herbert. 1864. The Principles of Biology. London: Williams & Norgate. 7 Malthus, Thomas R. 1961 [1798]. An Essay on the Principle of Population. London: Penguin

Books.

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Thomas Huxley8, Francis Galton9 and later Ernst Haeckel10 and Gustav Le Bon11

incorporated his ideas into social sciences.

In neighboring disciplines of political science, like economics, scholars are much

more open to using evolutionary thinking, such as population ecology12

in analyz-

ing the changes and dynamics of organizational forms within a population or evo-

lutionary economics13

in explaining management processes. As early as 1898

Thorstein Veblen asked “Why is Economics not an Evolutionary Science?‚ while

later Friedrich Hayek defined competition as a discovery procedure14. Perspectives

of a cultural evolution as well as a social science that is historically aware are also

easier to find and can be integrated into evolutionary thinking. In sociology Talcott

Parsons argued in favor of a ‚revival and extension of evolutionary thinking in so-

ciology“15, describing “evolutionary universals”16 in functions that systems have

to fulfill in interaction with their given environment. Arnold Gehlen’s theory that

mankind incrementally developed institutions from simple to increasing complexi-

ty with the aim to provide stability to an imperfect being, provides a concept of

8 Huxley, Thomas Henry. 1863. Evidence as to a Man’s Place in Nature. London: Williams & Nor-

gate. 9 Galton argued in favor of influencing human development through sexual selection and thereby

improving the quality of a society and our species as a whole. See Galton, Francis. 1962 [1869].

Hereditary Genius. An Inquiry into Ist Laws and Consequences. London: Collins. 10 Häckel, Ernst von. 1899. Die Welträtsel. Gemeinverständliche Studien über monistische Philo-

sophie. Bonn: Strauß. 11 Le Bon, Gustave. 1982 [1895]. Psychologie der Massen. Stuttgart: Körner. 12 Hannan, Michael and John Freeman. 1977. „Population Ecology of Organizations“ American

Journal of Sociology 82: 929-964. Aldrich, Howard and Bill McKelvey. 1983. ‚Populations, Natural

Selection and Applied Organizational Science‛ Administrative Science Quarterly 28: 101-128. 13 Hodgson, Geoffrey M. 1999. Economics and Evolution. Bringing Life Back into Economics. Ann

Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Herrman-Pillath, Carsten. 2002. Grundriss der Evolutionsöko-

nomik. München: Fink.; Lehmann-Waffenschmidt, Marco (ed.). 2002. Perspektiven des Wandels.

Evolutorische Ökonomik in der Anwendung. Marburg: Metropolis.; Witt, Ulrich. 2008. Recent De-

velopments In Evolutionary Economics. Aldershot: Edward Elgar. 14 See Hayek, Friedrich. 2002. ‚Competition as a Discovery Procedure.‛ The Quarterly Journal of

Austrian Economics 5(3): 9-23. 15 Parsons, Talcott. 1964. ‚Evolutionary Universals in Society.‛ American Sociological Review

29(3): 339-357. Further see Giesen, Bernhard. 1991. Die Entdinglichung des Sozialen. Eine evoluti-

onstheoretische Perspektive auf die Postmoderne. Frankfurt: Suhrkamp. and

Burns, Tom R. and Thomas Dietz. 1995. ‚Kulturelle Evolution: Institutionen, Selektion und

menschliches Handeln. In Sozialer Wandel, eds. Hans-Peter Müller and Michael Schmid. Frankfurt

a.M.: Suhrkamp, 340-83. 16 Parsons, Talcott. 1964. ‚Evolutionary Universals in Society.‛ American Sociological Review

29(3): 339-357.

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processes where cultural evolution parallels natural evolution. Finally Niklas Luh-

mann’s17 theorem of double contingency in systems and their environment can

be connected to internal and external selection. Sociobiology18 and evolutionary

epistemology19 both provide another well-developed approach to evolutionary so-

cial science.

When Richard Dawkins developed his general evolution theory in 1976 he finally

provided the crucial opportunity to successfully integrate evolutionary thinking in

social science, leaving accusations of social-darwinism or biological reductionism

behind once and for all. The Universal Darwinism condenses key findings from

biological evolution to an abstract level thus making them applicable to a variety of

research areas. While basic ideas are kept; some deviations from the biological

theory are acceptable. For example Jean-Baptiste Lamarck’s theorem of heritabil-

ity of acquired characteristics, while disproved in biological evolution, celebrates a

comeback in cultural evolution, especially when coupled with meme theory.

Meme theory20 provides the missing second evolving unit. Memes, defined as

configurations of information that can be replicated to create social action and be

attached to a number of various carriers21, can be understood using the same evo-

lutionary vocabulary of mutation and variation, retention and heredity or memo-

type and phemotype. Even if the talk about memes and memplexes22, memotype

and phemotype seems strange to some political scientists23, it is important to un-

17 See p. 46 in Pape, Michael. 2007. ‚Evolutionäre Ansätze in den Sozialwissenschaften. Ein kurzer

Überblick.‚ In Evolutorischer Institutionalismus, ed. Werner J. Patzelt. Würzburg: Ergon, 41-58.

And: Lipp, Wolfgang 1987. ‚Autopoiesis biologisch, Autopoiesis soziologisch. Wohin führt Luh-

manns Paradigmawechsel?‚Kölner Zeitschrift für Soziologie und Sozialpsychologie 39: 452-470. 18 Wilson, Edward O. 1975. Sociobiology. The New Synthesis. Cambridge: Belknap Press of Har-

vard University Press. Voland, Eckart. 2000. Grundriss der Soziobiologie. Heidelberg: Spektrum

Akad. Verlag. 19 Lorenz, Konrad. 1973. Die Rückseite des Spiegels. Versuch einer Naturgeschichte menschlichen

Erkennens. München: Piper. Today: Vollmer, Gerhard. 2002. Evolutionäre Erkenntnistheorie. Stutt-

gart: Hirzel. 20 Dawkins, Richard. 1976. The Selfish Gene. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Blackmore, Susan.

2000. The meme machine. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 21 Meme vehicles include a persons’ minds and talks, texts, pictures or rituals like the Speaker’s

Procession in the UK house of parliament. 22 Memplexes are complexes of co-adjusted memes. 23

There is nothing mysterious in the concept, or existence, of memes. It is simply a way of talking

about cultural patterns in a more abstract form, just like using the language of systems theory

6

derstand that this perspective is not the artificial construction of a social science

analogy to a quintessentially biological theory but rather a return to the roots of

Darwin when he used Malthusian concepts to study the origins of biological spe-

cies.

What EI wants to achieve in Political Science

Evolutionary Institutionalism concentrates on the study of perhaps the most fasci-

nating of all creatures of cultural evolution – (political) institutions. How do they

come to be? How does an institution achieve stable reproduction? How and why

do they change? What terminates institutions? These questions lead us to the

need to detect patterns of change that occur in institutions and institutional ar-

rangements. In particular, EI helps us structure the analysis of institutions and

thus improve our methodology of detecting, measuring and explaining long-range

processes of change. Similar to economics, where evolutionary theory has been

used in practical business consulting, EI also gives us a useful tool for evaluations

of institutional reform and stabilization processes in political consultancy especially

with the fitness criteria laid out later in this paper.

It is important to stress again that the kind of institutional evolution we are talking

about here is similar to biological evolution while following slightly different laws

as applied to different content. Institutional change is not the same as biological

change. The theory of Evolutionary Institutionalism is neither a result of biological

reductionism nor teleological nor does it explain the (socio-) biological foundations

of institutionalization24.

where well-known phenomena in our life-world are referred to in a very abstract way, e.g. as sub-

or supra-systems, as input and output, or as outcome and as feedback. The reason for doing so is

not unavailability of clear names for the empirical referent of these notions in everyday language or

in science-specific vocabulary, but the desire to disclose a different, and – for some purposes –

more useful analytic perspective. The same is true for the language of memetics. 24 Although it is deeply connected to this research and seeks to utilize their findings.

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The usefulness of an evolutionary approach that incorporates the biological foun-

dations of social structures becomes especially clear when we think of social reali-

ty as a system of horizontally stratified layers. Those “layers of reality”25 can be

described as follows:

At the bottom of our reality we find our genetically determined repertoire of cogni-

tion, sensation and behavior such as laid out by biological evolution theory, socio-

biology and evolutionary epistemology. On top of that grows a second layer of

culture specific knowledge, interpretations and values which are a result of both

nature and nurture and uniquely shape each society. Third, the individual people

with all their personal characteristics, biographies and attitudes connect to the

second layer through enculturation. Next up are roles and sets of roles which de-

velop out of habitualized and routinized behaviors of many individuals in a collec-

tive. To the dismay of many researchers, sociologists and ethnologists alike, it is

hard to ascertain which parts of human behavior are due to genetics and which

are a result of cultural circumstances. However, we shouldn’t take this fact as

analytical failure, but as demonstration of the inseparableness of nature and cul-

ture in the foundations of social reality.

The fifth layer rises as a direct result of this human tendency to create roles and

sets of roles, when organizations and institutions of all kinds develop over time

out of stable and complex role sets. Interactions in institutions are not only repro-

duced continuously, but are also given symbolic expressions to the institution’s

guiding ideas and principles. This symbolic function not only stabilizes the institu-

tion, but also connects its members to it emotionally and expresses the guiding

ideas to the outside. Institutions thus allow us to create attachments that reach

beyond the small group structures of families that we as humans are phylogenet-

ically predisposed to form, enabling us to cooperate successfully over broad dis-

tances in space and time e.g. in people-based institutions like armies, political par-

25 See Riedl, Rupert. 1985. Biologie der Erkenntnis. Die stammesgeschichtlichen Grundlagen der

Vernunft. Berlin et al.: Parey,. p. 66ff. and p. 184 in Patzelt, Werner J. 2007. ‚Perspektiven einer

evolutionstheoretisch inspirierten Politikwissenschaft.‛ In Evolutorischer Institutionalismus, ed.

Werner J. Patzelt. Würzburg: Ergon, 183-235.

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ties or trade networks to issue-based institutions like the idea of private property

or human rights.

Overarching those institutions we find a sixth structure that created our academic

field, the political system, with all its cultural and time specific peculiarities, nowa-

days predominantly shaped as a state. Highest up we find the newest layer, that

of the international system and international relations. Of course all those layers

are highly interdependent, the lower layers providing the material the higher layers

are constructed from and the upper layers determining the frame conditions for

the lower ones.

EI as an instrument in institutional analysis

Institutions are quite similar to biological species. Both are embedded in an inter-

active environment that they use to draw resources from and perform functions

for and in which they compete with others. External factors such as the degree of

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availability of resources, presence of competitors plus the properties and condi-

tions of the environment on the one hand and internal factors within the institu-

tion or organism on the other hand, shape institutional forms, appearances and

behaviors as well as those of biological organisms. Both species as well as politi-

cal institutions continually strive to secure their subsistence, while as a basic prin-

ciple, they are at risk of termination. And in the same way the genetic code en-

sures that nature’s successful solutions to those challenges are reproduced over

time, institutions disseminate successful problem solving strategies by setting

institutional norms and rules from one cohort to the next.

Those sets of formal and informal rules that competent members of the institution

generally follow creates an institution. Evolutionary Institutionalism defines those

sets of rules, which are equivalent to a genotype, as the institutional form. Co-

determined by the institution’s surroundings and various local and situational fac-

tors, this institutional form shapes the actual institutional behavior of the mem-

bers, which equivalent to a phenotype26, defines the practiced form. During insti-

tutionalization processes the phenotypes of the members of institutions grow

more and more similar. The resulting compliance of individuals forms stable inter-

actions, while refusal to follow rules is sanctioned by the other members.

Those stabilized interactions then lead to a set of roles and positions, which can

be filled by following cohorts and shape the individual owners of an office who as

26 Or in memetic language - memotype and phemotype.

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a person are largely exchangeable. Each cohort of institutional novices, after hav-

ing been socialized by the institution and contributed to its maintenance, can be

seen as one institutional generation. Every institutional generation then tries to

transmit the cultural patterns that they know, allow the institution to function well.

Therefore, institutions reproduce through transgenerational passing of guiding

ideas and behavioral patterns.27 Successful reproduction depends on a minimum

number of active members acting in concert over time, not a single individual or a

single point in time28. Generally speaking, the relationship between individual

members and the institution equals that of biological organisms and their species;

they exist as long as the continuous process of reproduction keeps running.

Since different members of an institution come from different backgrounds they

will each perceive the cultural patterns slightly differently. Mistakes can be made

during the transmission of the institutional blueprint; guiding ideas and behavioral

patterns could be (creatively and deliberately) misunderstood, put into new con-

texts or recombined with other, new ideas. This replication process therefore

leads to intended and (more commonly) unintended variations29 of the patterns

that are passed on from one institutional generation to the other. Another possibil-

ity of variation arises out of changed outside demands to an institutional genera-

tion, which then leads to changed behavioral patterns30.

That variation brings the algorithm of evolution31 into action. Most of those muta-

tions from one institutional generation to the next are so minor, that they don’t

result in any consequences. Many are not stable enough to survive by reason that

they don’t fit in with the rest of the institutional patterns or don’t allow the func-

27 Some institutions even combine biological and cultural replication, like monarchial dynasties. 28 So reproduction does not take place e.g. in the transitional period when an old parliament is re-

placed by the newly elected one, but always. The 111th congress is not the ‚parent‛ of the 112th

congress. Institutional generations as a cohort of novices can overlap similarly to (grand-) parents

and offspring overlapping within a biological species. 29 See p. 28 in Campbell, Donald T. 1965. ‚Variation and Selective Retention in Socio-cultural Evo-

lution.‛ In Social Change in Developing Areas, eds. Herbert Barringer et al. Cambridge:

Schenkman, 19-48. 30 This is further discussed later in this paper. A special case of this kind of mutation is intentional

institutional reform. 31 For an elaboration of this concept see Dennett, Daniel 1996. Darwin’s dangerous idea. Evolution

and the meanings of life. New York: Touchstone.

11

tional demands of the institution to be met. Some mutations however will prove

beneficial. Due to limited resources and competition, institutions experience

threats to their existence. Accordingly, an institution that has traits that allow it to

claim validity more successfully will be more long-lasting. If we find that a certain

type of institutional arrangement shows up more frequently and in various circum-

stances, we can safely assume that it has traits that fulfill a useful function32 or at

least did so in the past. We as researchers need to discover these useful func-

tions, such as the exact benefit of parliamentarianism in African autocracies.

As mentioned before, the algorithm of evolution makes sure that those traits that

result from beneficial variations will be retained, while others disappear. This se-

lection process works on two levels. First internal selection factors operate on

new variations, enforcing conformity with other intra-institutional demands.

The degree as to which it a new cultural pattern does conform to pre-existing pat-

terns is defined as internal fitness. Usually an institution has structures that are

fundamental to its existence and have been around for a long time. Those funda-

mental structures carry all other superficial institutional layers as their burdens33.

Changes in those fundamental structures of an institution are much less likely to

be retained than those in superficial structures because upper level changes have

higher chances of fitting with the rest of the institution and are more likely to pass

the internal selection process34. In addition, the margin within which variations are

possible is much smaller in the fundamental structures, but if they do happen, it

usually results in drastic changes of institutional mechanisms, whereas the super-

ficial structures offer more leeway for innocuous experimentation35. This structural

32 Those functions can be manifest or latent, symbolic or instrumental. 33 See p. 121 in Riedl, Rupert. 2003. Kulturgeschichte der Evolutionstheorie: die Helden, ihre Irrun-

gen und Einsichten. Berlin et al.: Springer. 34 Think of a house – the walls are fundamental structures that carry the burden of the upper levels

and roofs, the roofing tile and rain gutter are the most superficial structures. It is easier to tear out

rain gutters or remodel roofs than to do so with the bearing walls. 35 For instance, during the 19th century it became constitutional procedure that royal laws required

the prime ministers or chancellors countersignature. The one who could give or withhold the coun-

tersignature could be held responsible and in the worst case be unseated by the parliament which

could end in snap elections. That however is something a prudent monarch would try to avoid, as

the election of a new parliament would basically be a public referendum about the point of conten-

12

inertia of institutional architecture is the reason why many calls for quick reforms

of political institutions fail36.

The same burdens apply to the functions that are implemented by institutional

structures and their institutional mechanisms. For instance, in a parliamentary sys-

tem of government, the stability of the executive relies on stable majorities of the

ruling party in parliament which requires party coherence. Variations in the func-

tion chains that happen at the far end (the individual style of a certain chancellor or

PM) are easier to sustain than variations at the fixed end (discipline of MPs to ad-

here the party line), i.e. functional inertia.

Even if an innovation proves successful in the internal selection process because

the new patterns fit well with the ones that existed before, it is still possible that

the new trait vanishes again. The arena where the traits really have to stand the

test of time is on the outside. Every institution is embedded in certain surround-

ings, the institutional environment, which is made up by everything that is not a

component part of the institution. However, not all of those elements are im-

portant for an analysis, which necessitates the concept of institutional niche. The

niche of an institution includes those elements of the environment which are rele-

vant for an institution’s sustenance, stability and functionality37. Those consist of

1) all required financial, material, informational or human resources, 2) those ac-

tors deciding on the distribution of said resources, 3) all supra- or co-systems the

institutions provides latent, manifest, instrumental or symbolic functions for and 4)

other institutions that compete for the same resources and/or provide the same

functions. Unlike the environment, a niche is defined both by environmental and

tion. So this relatively simple change in the fundamental structures created an access to the gov-

ernment for the parliament and forced the monarch to be responsive to their wishes which over

time and with further democratization evolved into to the exceptionally successful parliamentary

system of government. See p. 73 in Patzelt, Werner J. (ed.). 2003. Parlamente und ihre Funktio-

nen. Institutionelle Mechanismen und institutionelles Lernen im Vergleich. Wiesbaden: Westdeut-

scher Verlag. 36 The fatal effects of removing fundamental structures without equivalent structures available that

can fulfill the same functions can be seen in all those instances where a stable (albeit authoritarian)

government of a country is dispossessed by outside forces without a viable alternative to maintain

a minimum of security and order. 37 See p. 190 in Pianka, Eric R. 1974. Evolutionary Ecology. New York: Harper & Row.

13

institutional characteristics and can be changed through mutations of institutional

traits38.

So after the internal factor, on a second level, external selection factors come into

play. The respective niche of an institution has to be in demand of the functions

that it performs. If variations in the practiced form generate institutional output

that is not on demand, the niche will refuse to provide the resources that the insti-

tution needs with the result that either the institution reverts the changes or it

degenerates into crisis.

The degree to which institutions possess traits that grant high chances of replicat-

ing in a given niche is called external fitness, or simply institutional fitness. If the

formal and informal sets of rules, plus the guiding ideas behind them that make

up the institution can be steadily reproduced by new institutional generations, the

services rendered by the institution will continue and resources will be given in

exchange. Some variations might even open up new possibilities to perform func-

tions and thus draw in more resources for the institution, thereby increasing insti-

tutional fitness, while others are functionally neutral, that is to say neither increase

nor decrease the influx of support from the outside. Both of these scenarios have

good chances to be retained, provided that the first step of internal selection was

passed successfully. Thus, the two step selection parallels supply and demand.

The internal selection process restricts what functions could possibly be supplied

by the institution, whereas external selection covers the demand side.

Most institutions aim for a high degree of institutional fitness; parliaments strive

for legitimacy and trust in the general public, parties fight for new members, votes

and electoral winnings, government departments for their proportion of the budg-

et. Since no environment is ever static, institutions also face the challenge of hav-

ing to adapt to changing niches, when e.g. new parties show up in parliament or

voter preferences shift. This means, that institutions face the predicament of be-

ing driven towards adaptedness to a niche, which given institutional inertia means

38 Some institutions like the parliaments of western democracies have considerable power to

shape their niches according to their needs, whereas others, like most of sub-Sahara African par-

liaments, are pretty much at the mercy of their niches.

14

certain rigidity, while still having to remain their flexibility for future adaptability. If

they don’t achieve the latter, institutions might evolve into dead-ends39 and even

die off like the French National Assembly of the IV Republic or Germany’s Reichs-

tag in 1933.

Some institutional traits have shown potential to heighten institutional fitness and

can therefore be used in political consulting and institutional reform40. These fit-

39 See p. 377 in Burns, Tom R. and Thomas Dietz. 1995. ‚Kulturelle Evolution: Institutionen, Selek-

tion und menschliches Handeln. In Sozialer Wandel, eds. Hans-Peter Müller and Michael Schmid.

Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp, 340-83. 40 Suggestions for of good evolutionary management can be found in Sliwka, Manfred. 2007. ‚Evo-

lutionäre Führungskonzepte in der Praxis.‛ In Evolutorischer Institutionalismus, ed. Werner J. Pat-

zelt. Würzburg: Ergon: 721-736. In Economics evolution theory has proven itself very useful for

practical business consulting as laid out in the work of Geoffrey Hodgson. See Hodgson, Geoffrey

M. 1993. Economics and Evolution: Bringing Life Back into Economics. Cambridge: Polity Press.

15

ness criteria41 include traits that pertain to the aspect of adaptedness on the one

hand and future adaptability on the other hand.

Fundamentally important is the ability to function within their niche, both efficient-

ly, i.e. making the best possible use of their resources to create the requested

output, and effectively, meaning the institution has real problem-solving capacity

for relevant problems. This functional capacity extends to manifest and latent

functions both on an instrumental and symbolic level. The aspect of symbolic rep-

resentation is particularly important in politics, as it is never enough to do good

work, but equally important to show what one is doing, to create acceptance and

ultimately legitimacy with the key actors in a niche. Furthermore, even in a case

of ineffective and inefficient functional performance, symbolic representation of a

pretend output can generate enough acceptance to heighten or maintain the fit-

ness of an institution, at least for some time. This institutional mimicry fails how-

ever, when dysfunctionalities become too obvious, as was the case with East

Germany’s government in 1989 and the many broken promises of socialism.

Another fitness criterion that pertains to adaptedness is institutional retention abil-

ity, which means the capacity to consistently reproduce institutional rules, proce-

dures and guiding ideas over long periods of time and over several institutional

generations.

Retention ability, however, stands in obvious tension with mutability, which is a

fitness criterion pertaining to adaptability. A fuzzy guiding idea or the incorporation

of several, even contradictory, guiding ideas into the institutional form allows for

quick changes in the practiced form in reaction to changing environmental de-

mands42. In a highly mutable institution each generation has the option to re-

interpret cultural patterns or develop new ways of symbolic representation to re-

adjust to changing environmental demands. This ambiguity however can erode or

41 This catalogue of fitness criteria provides recommendation similar to the New Public Manage-

ment or Good Governance Models. 42 The most striking example is the Council of the EU where intergovernmentalist and supranation-

alist elements collide. See esp. pp. 368-424 in Lempp, Jakob 2009. Die Evolution des Rates der

Europäischen Union. Baden-Baden:Nomos.

16

even destroy the institution from within, as shown in the popular complaint about

flip-flopping political parties. In the end, the specifics of each niche determine

which exact balance between retention and mutability leads to the highest level of

fitness If changes in society structures or the political system are a regular occur-

rence, as they are for example in transitioning countries, then institutions require

higher rates of mutability to be viable.

Obviously a fit institution needs adequate input structures to gather information

about its niche in the first place. Nowadays the „perceptual apparatus‚ of most

political institutions, like parliaments and political parties, relies heavily on mass

media for that input, so it needs the ability to filter common media distortions

while remaining responsive to the environment.

Again, institutional fitness is never an a priori descriptor of an institution, but a

highly volatile issue of niche-institution interdependence. With the evolutionary

algorithm at work, no certainty exists that institutions are able to match changes

in their respective niches or that once fit institutions won’t erode over time. Insti-

tutional evolution is contingent and path-dependent, but not principally irreversi-

ble.

Fortunately institutions can learn to improve their institutional form through 1) in-

stitutional layering, i.e. building new structures on top of pre-existing ones, 2) in-

stitutional conversion of old structures to fulfill new functional requirements, 3)

institutional drift, where the architecture is heavily modified, which results in dif-

ferent inner workings even if the outside appearance remains similar or 4) institu-

tional displacement, which transfers useful institutional solutions for functional

problems from one part of the institution to another or even imports an institution

itself to a different context43. The more receptive to these types of learning an

institution remains, the more institutional fitness it retains in the face of change.

43 See Patzelt, Werner J. 2011. Connecting Theory and Practice of Legislative Institutionalization.

RCLS conference paper. Thelen, Kathleen. 2004. How Institutions Evolve. The Political Economy

of Skills in Germany, Britain, the United States, and Japan. Cambridge: Cambridge University

Press. Demuth, Christian. 2007. ‚Institutionelles Lernen. Der Deutsche Bundestag als Beispiel. In

Evolutorischer Institutionalismus, ed. Werner J. Patzelt. Würzburg: Ergon,641-687.

17

Evolutionary Institutionalism also offers tools to further access niche change ana-

lytically. The most important category is the concept of niche turbulence, that is

more or less chaotic changes outside of institutions44. Those changes can encom-

pass technological, legal, political, economic, demographic, ecological, cultural,

social, international, physical or psychological characteristics of the niche or its

actors and will usually result in different functional demands towards the institu-

tion on the instrumental and/or symbolic level. In stable niches those changes are

rare, whereas in dynamic niches they occur frequently. The modus of change can

range from partial to comprehensive and steady to abrupt, the heaviest type being

radical and wide-ranging (exogenous shock)45. As long as niches remain stable and

the perceptual apparatus does its job, institutions will increasingly emulate niche

traits in their institutional blueprints, giving them reproductive advantages. In cas-

es of exogenous shocks however, institutions will undergo radical changes, even

overriding their institutional inertia. Examples of such critical junctures in institu-

tional development are the end of the Cold War for NATO or the collapse of Yu-

goslavia for the institutions of the European Community.

Evolutionary Institutionalism distinguishes four basic types of niche turbulence: In

the first case, the preferences of the recipients of institutional functions shift, ei-

ther because other functionally equivalent institutions provide the services or due

to over-saturation of the market or because new target groups show up. Howev-

er, if the services rendered by an institution are undesirable, it will struggle to ac-

cess enough resources, which pushes it towards adapting. In other circumstances

the availability of resources can change, either because the total availability de-

creases or a shift in power and preferences of key niche actors alters the distribu-

tion of resources. The higher the scarcity of resources, the higher the pressure to

adapt becomes, which raises the likelihood of institutional change. Another impe-

tus is the emergence of new players in an otherwise stable niche that change the

44 P. 120 in McKelvey, Bill .1982. Organizational Systematics. Taxonomy, Evolution, Classification.

Berkeley: University of California Press. 45 P. 148 in Lempp, Jakob . 2009. Die Evolution des Rats der Europäischen Union. Baden-Baden:

Nomos.

18

competitive environment, thereby increasing selection pressure. And finally, there is

the possibility of institutions themselves shaping or unlocking new niches, for ex-

ample through innovative offerings of services that attract new addressees. Thus,

in this reversed scenario, the niche turbulence is the result of institutional change,

not its cause.

In the final analysis the aforementioned concepts of a two-step selection process

and institutional fitness combined with the concept of institutional niches amount

to six different causes of institutional change that can be explained using Evolu-

tionary Institutionalism:

1) Institutions change due to the exchange of institutional generations, when

novices bring their cultural imprints into the institutional form or recombina-

tion of cultural patterns or mutations occur during institutional socialization.

2) Institutions fall into a state of crisis, because intra-institutional structures

that carry burdens are damaged, functional demands towards the institu-

tions shift or niche turbulences happen.

3) Institutions re-stabilize after a crisis through either voluntary or imposed in-

stitutional learning or because they manage to cushion the negative im-

pacts by tapping into new resources.

4) A Compaction of institutional transformation processes happens as a con-

sequence of lower elements that carry superficial structures as their bur-

dens breaking down. The following pathological change results in abrupt

changes at various unexpected areas of the institution.

5) Institutional genesis either results from a realignment of the institution’s

guiding ideas or a replacement of the hitherto existing carriers of structural

or functional burdens, creating a significantly altered version or even com-

pletely new type of institution.

6) Systemic failure happens when institutional fitness hits rock bottom and all

attempts of institutional re-stabilization fail.

19

However the potential of an Evolutionary Institutionalism approach doesn’t end

with analyses of single institutions, but also provides useful tools for comparative

studies through the concept of institutional morphology46. Evolutionary thinking

not only unravels distinct patterns of change, but also patterns in structures that

show similarities even under different environmental settings. Those similarities

are a common observation in political science where we witness a kinship be-

tween presidential systems of government vs. those that belong to the parliamen-

tary or semi-presidential model or when we speak of political party families.

The question that arises out of comparative studies is whether a similarity stems

from the adaptation of dissimilar fundamental structures to similar environmental

challenges, i.e. the functionalist explanation, or if it results from a common origin

of the blueprints that molded the institutional form, i.e. a culturalist explanation. In

EI those options are covered by the concepts of homology and analogy47.

Homological similarity stems from a common ancestor that still affect the inner

structures of institutions even after long historical processes and various institu-

tional changes. The bone structure of a bat’s extremities are homological to those

of a horse or a human in the same way the assembly of the medieval Imperial Di-

et of the Holy Roman Empire carries a kinship relation to the federal Reichsrat of

the Weimar Republic or the German Federal Council of today, the Bundesrat.

Since homology refers to similarities in the lower layers of institutional structures,

the similarities are conserved even if different environmental demands lead to

vastly dissimilar superficial structures; their divergent outward performance in the

practiced institutional form making it hard to guess at the common ancestry.

Sometimes only very basic concepts, such as the notion of a parliament or a con-

stitution per se remains, for example when studying the parliaments of socialist

countries or of sub-Saharan Africa that, embedded in totally different environ-

46 See See Patzelt Wenrer J. 2007. ‚Grundriss einer Morphologie der Parlamente.‚ In Evolu-

torischer Institutionalismus, ed. Werner J. Patzelt. Würzburg: Ergon, 483-564. All these concepts

are also established in comparative anatomy, zoology as well as comparative linguistics. 47 Unfortunately ‚analogy‛ in social science is often a fuzzy concept, that does not distinguish

between the two fundamentally different types of similarities and in many cases is used to end

arguments under the accusation of false- analogies or misleading comparisons.

20

ments with vastly different functional demands, barely resemble the common an-

cestry with the legislative bodies of western constitutional democracies.

Analogical similarities, contrary to homologies, mean those similarities that result

from adaption to similar functional demands or similar environments. The funda-

mental structures of institutions that have analogous similarities can be vastly dif-

ferent. In the animal world the classical example is the striking similarity of the

wings of bats and birds that both give them the ability to fly, even though they

evolved separately. In political systems analogous similarities can be observed

with second chambers like the German Bundesrat and the US Senate, who are

very much akin in their appearances and positions of power, although the ways

they come into office and the inner proceedings are unalike. Usually those analo-

gies are not hard to find, but only after a homological similarity has been excluded,

will it be possible to explain adequately, what causal effects of adaption to which

environments led to the outward similarity. Those who endeavor to do so, how-

ever, will find that institutional morphology opens up new perspectives on the in-

teraction of political structures and their environment or the power of functions to

shape the systems that perform them.

As a matter of course, it is also possible that parallel structures in two or more

institutions result from both convergent adaptations to similar challenges in their

environments and pre-existing homologies; a phenomenon covered by the con-

cept of homoiologous similarity48. For instance the parliaments of Germany, Cana-

da, Japan or Australia all share European origins while providing the same func-

tions of legislation, government control or representation of the public. Under

those circumstances, the environment’s pressure in the external selection pro-

cess meets similar fundamental structures leading to very distinct evolutionary

patterns. This illuminates, why certain patterns of system development seem

more probable than others.

48 See p. 93 in Lorenz, Konrad. 1981. The Foundations of Ethology. New, York et al.: Springer.

21

Below those structural patterns we also find homodynamies and homonomies,

which originate at lower levels of the layers of reality. A homodynamy refers to a

structure that is similar because the processes that create them are universal, like

the human ability for decision-making through negotiation, which leads to proto-

parliamentarian arrangements.

A homonomy on the other hand, is based on similar blueprints that are routinely

available and can be incorporated into all kinds of institutional settings, like task

forces, administrative sub-units or committees.

Altogether those morphological concepts offer valuable criteria for the detection

of parallel structural patterns and for the distinction between different types of

similarities, while also opening up new institutional typologies when drawing ge-

nealogical trees for parliaments or cross-tabulating genealogical trees and legisla-

tive functions. Thus, Evolutionary Institutionalism offers quite innovative possibili-

ties for both cross-historical and cross-cultural studies, for instance linking African

parliamentarianism today to the early stages of Western European parliaments. It

is especially useful because it further integrates history and political science in a

comparative perspective into a joint field of research.

Benefits of an Evolutionary Institutionalism approach

As demonstrated in the previous section, the focus of Evolutionary Institutional-

ism lies on the genesis, change and stability of institutions. With EI institutions are

analyzed with a theory that is dynamic enough to do justice to the dynamic pro-

cesses that define institutions. This evolutionary perspective makes it crystal clear

that stability of institutions does not mean locking-in the best institutional design

but a never-ending reproduction of structures according to the requirements of

their niche. It thus illuminated the connection between institutionality and historic-

22

ity and the resulting similarities in structure and patterns of change49. This histori-

cal awareness also paves the way to a new kind of understanding and subsequent

collaborative research of historians and political scientists, since Evolutionary Insti-

tutionalism allows for a systematic integration of historical single case studies into

comparative political science.

EI also picks up the useful concepts of modern organization theory like bounded

rationality, non-equilibrium-situations, satisficing and structural inertia50 and cre-

ates new insights using the general evolution paradigm. Just as promising are the

connections to rational-choice and behavioralist theories; which should be fol-

lowed up by further research.

EI is open to both micro-level studies of the creation of social structures through

human behavior, incorporating (socio-) biological and cultural explanations, while

also accessing meso- and macro-level analyses of institutional stability, institution-

al functions and processes of change. Such an evolutionary perspective on institu-

tions is equally useful to economical, historical, ecological or sociological research

and could spark an interdisciplinary discourse based on a common language and a

theoretical frame that is well established, sufficiently abstract but easily adaptable

to specific fields.

However EI is not limited to academic use only, but also lends itself to practical

application in planning and a priori evaluation of institutional reforms with the help

of the institutional fitness criteria. Several demonstrations of the capacity of the EI

framework to connect theory and practice have already been given51. It really

49 The heuristic and explanatory value of an EI approach is demonstrated in Patzelt, Werner J.

‚Blueprints and Institution-Building. Former East Germany and its present state parliaments as a

case in point.‛ Journal of East European and Asian Studies 2(1):17-40. 50 See Simon, Herbert A. and James March. 1993. Organizations. Oxford: Blackwell. 51 Lempp, Jakob. 2007. ‚Ein evolutionstheoretisches Modell zur Analyse institutioneller Reformen.

Fallanalyse: Die Reform des Auswärtigen Amts.‚ In Evolutorischer Institutionalismus, ed. Werner

J. Patzelt. Würzburg: Ergon, 599-639 [An evolutionary model for the analysis of institutional re-

forms. The reform of the German Foreign Office as a case point.]. See also Demuth, Christian.

2009. Der Bundestag als lernende Institution. Eine evolutionstheoretische Analyse der Lern- und

Anpassungsprozesse des Bundestages, insbesondere an die Europäische Integration. Baden-

Baden: Nomos [The German Bundestag as learning institution. An evolutionary analysis of the

23

seems promising to carry on with such tests and given Thomas Kuhn’s52 insight,

that quite some time is needed for new paradigms to gain ground, the current

distrust towards evolutionary thinking shouldn’t deter us from doing so.

learning and adaptation processes of the Bundestag in particular as related to the European Inte-

gration.]. 52 Kuhn, Thomas. 1962. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Chicago: Chicago University Press.