From a rational choice institutional perspective institutions may be conceptualised as 'collections of rules and incentives that establish the conditions for bounded rationality, and therefore establish a 'political space' within which many independent political actors can function' (Peters 1999, p.44). Formal electoral and voting systems, various parliamentary systems, legislative rules setting up prohibition and prescriptions for individuals are among the most typical political institutions observed and studied through the rational choice institutional optic. Central to rational choice institutional research are the basic assumptions about individual behaviour. Individuals are thought to behave rationally, strategically and utility maximising with the intent to realise certain interests or preferences, which are most often seen as being exogenous to institutions.
Basically, when utility maximising individuals go about their daily lives they will, every now and then, be confronted by some sort of institutional set up which constrains their ability to act freely. As individuals obtain knowledge about the working of the institutions confronting them, they will adjust their behaviour accordingly with the aim of maximising their utility within the given constraints. For instance, when members of the Council of Ministers seek to reach a decision, they most often do so under, either the institutional constrains of unanimity, or QMV, which, depending on the issue at hand, is the legally required support needed to make a binding decision. The ministers involved -
given the presence of either of the above-mentioned institutional constraints -
are expected to act strategically by, for example, entering coalitions and putting forward policy amendments which best serve them in terms of maximising their preferences. In other words, the utility maximising behaviour of political agents is constrained by the institutional arrangements that confront these agents and policy outcomes are shaped by the interaction between agents and institutions.
3 8 Institutional Change:
Rational Choice, Historical and Sociological Perspectives
The reason why institutions arise in the first place is related to the need to deal with problems of collective action. When utility maximising individuals act in concert, problems of collective action may arise such as free-riding, rising transactional costs and uncertainty about the behaviour of other agents (Olsen 1971 [1965]). Political agents may thus find that their goals are best achieved through the creation of certain institutions that constrain them and, importantly, constrain other agents involved, into following certain basic rules of behaviour (Peters 1999, pp.43-45). Downing (1994, p.l 15) argues that the explanatory value of rational choice institutionalism lies in the fact that the models developed within this approach are 'realistic enough', on the one hand, to capture the specificity of a particular institutional arrangement and, at the same time, still enable general theoretical statements and the application of general models across comparable cases. As such, it is the basic assumptions of individual utility maximisation and the empirical focus on actual 'mass behaviour' combined with the commitment to elaborate on general models that grant the rational choice institutional perspective its explanatory advantages.
This also implies that the preferred methodology of rational choice institutionalists goes through hypothetical-deduction. The point of departure for explaining the origin and function of a given institution will refer back to the basic assumptions about individual rationality. The rational calculation and utility maximisation of individuals are given a priory and on that background the function and benefits generated from a given institutional arrangement may be deduced (Hall and Taylor 1996, p.945). Knowing that individuals act rationally, a particular institutional set up may be explained by the benefits obtained through, for instance, a reduction of transaction costs or the elimination of free- riding and the functioning of such institutional arrangements will depend on, for instance, a shared commitment to some type of commonly accepted enforcement mechanism. Basically, drawn from the assumptions about individual rationality, institutions are established intentionally and individuals enter voluntarily into institutional arrangements with the aim of maximising their utility.
Within the historical institutionalism, institutions are seen as 'formal or informal procedures, routines, norms and conventions embedded in the organizational structure of the polity or political economy' (Hall and Taylor 1996, p.938). The institutional conventions observed from a historical institutional perspective are, for instance, formal voting rules and procedures of consultation with interested parties, informal practices of negotiation and bargaining, bureaucratic routines, prevailing norms and conventions guiding the formulation of policy programmes or the activities of agents within a particular policy field. Historical institutionalism is thus very inclusive as to the type of structural features considered to have institutional characteristics and effects.
Essentially, however, institutions are considered to constrain and structure political activity and policy outcomes. On the one hand, institutions shape political interaction, preferences and strategies and, on the other hand, have a direct impact on policy outcomes (Thelen and Steinmo 1992, p.9). The nature of
The Common Agricultural Policy and Organic Farming: An Institutional 39 Perspective on Continuity and Change
institutions is often related to the organisational particularities of national polities or, in the case of the EU, the structural characteristics of the EU polity.
In order to illuminate such organisational particularities comparative studies have been central to historical institutional research. It may take the form of comparing policy sectors across countries or variations and similarities in national polities. Moreover, broader contextual factors are often prominent in historical institutional studies and, although the historical institutionalism has a rich theoretical agenda from which hypotheses are deduced and tested, research strategies ascribing to this approach will often have a significant inductive element (Campbell and Pedersen 200 1 a, p. 12; Thelen and Steinmo 1992, p. 12).
Although hypothetical-deductive research designs are not rejected, historical institutionalists tend to pursue an interest in illuminating the complexity of politics through case studies (or comparative case studies) which include studying a vide range of potential explanatory variables. Consequently, explanations proposed by this approach are often multi-dimensional and have a significant degree of historical and contextual specificity.
The broad notion of sociological institutionalism, which is the label most often used to group the institutional approaches that are neither rational choice nor historical institutional, can be seen as containing two sub-branches. One which tend to emphasise the normative dimention of institutions and one that tend to emphasise the cognitive dimension of institutions (Hall and Taylor 1996, p.948). March and Olsen (1989) represent the normative dimension and - as summed up by Peters (1 999) - they see institutions as 'a collection of values and rules, largely normative rather than cognitive in the way in which they impact institutional members, as well as the routines that are developed to implement and enforce those values' (Peters 1999, p.29). Values, rules and routines embedded in institutions are thought to shape the behaviour of individuals committed to these institutions by establishing a set of norms for legitimate and appropriate behaviour. Hence, unlike the rational choice institutional line of thinking, the formation of preferences are endogenous to institutions and rather than pursuing the maximisation of individual material utility, agents are guided and motivated by a 'logic of appropriateness'. When agents act according to the logic of appropriateness they will be 'fulfilling the obligations of a role in a situation, and so of trying to determine the imperatives of holding a position.
Action stems from conception of necessity, rather than preference' (March and Olsen 1989, p. 16 1).
On the more cognitive side we have the sociological institutionalists, sometimes also referred to as organisational institutionalists (Campbell and Pedersen 2001) or social constructivists (Schneider and Aspinwall 2001). The sociological institutionalist emphasising the cognitive dimention of institutions see institutions as 'cultural rules giving collective meaning and value to particular entities and activities, integrating them into larger schemes' (Meyer et al. 1994, p.10). The key words here are cultural rules and collective meaning.
Although critique of the blurred lines of demarcation between the notions of
40 Institutional Change:
Rational Choice, Historical and Sociological Perspectives
culture, socialisation, institutionalisation and the concept of institution has been voiced both from within the sociological institutionalism itself (Jepperson 199 1, pp.147-150) and by outside observers (Hall and Taylor 1996, pp.947-948;
Peters 1999, p.97), it is clear that this cognitive view on institutions is concerned with the processes through which collective meaning is produced. By suggesting that institutions represent collective meaning systems, institutions have become the optics through which institutional members interpret and 'make sense' of the social world. In that way institutions 'do not simply affect the strategic calculations of individuals ... but also their most basic preferences and very identity' (Hall and Taylor 1996, p.948) or, in other words, preferences and identities are endogenous to institutions. Peters (1999, p.103) describes the distinction between a normative and a cognitive view to institutions as subtle and suggests that:
[tlhe cognitive view may be more basic than the normative view, given that it determines how the member of the institutions interprets data from the environment, while 'all' the normative perspective tells him or her is what the appropriate behaviour would be in any situation.
Even if subtle and sociological institutional research strategies often seem to cut across the normativelcognitive distinction, it is important to keep this distinction in mind - see below. Regardless whether emphasis is put on the cognitive or normative dimension, however, it follows from the conceptualisations of institutions that the object for study among sociological institutionalists is not individual behaviour but rather the norms that shape preferences, strategies and the assignment of certain roles to individuals and the systems through which agents interpret and give meaning to the world. Although historical institutionalism over time has developed a richer theoretical agenda, sociological institutionalism has from the outset - as is the case with rational choice institutionalism - had a pronounced theoretical ambition. Drawing broadly from sociological theorising, the preferred methodology of sociological institutional studies has been hypothetical-deductive. Yet, a recent interest in moving towards more inductively constructed and historically sensitive analytical strategies seems to have developed (Campbell and Pedersen 2001a, p.12, 2001b, p.253). Altogether, across the rational choice institutional, historical institutional and sociological institutional schools of thought great variation exists as to how institutions are conceptualised and captured. That is to say, a great deal of variation exists as to the question of what is changing when institutional change come about as well as on the methodological settings preferred in the pursuit of capturing institutional change. In this light we will now turn to a discussion of a number of unlike takes on the conditions for, and dynamics of, institutional change with a particular focus on those that are ideational in nature.
The Common Agricultural Policy and Organic Farming: An Institutional 4 1 Perspective on Continuity and Change