chapter 36
...................................................................................................................................................ABOUT INSTITUTIONS,
MAINLY, BUT NOT
EXCLUSIVELY,
POLITICAL
...................................................................................................................................................jean blondel
If institutions are regarded as central in a social science discipline, it is in political
science. This has been the case during the long process of maturation of the subject
from its very early beginnings to the increasingly rapid pace of its development up
to the Second World War. After an interlude of at most two decades during which,
under the impact of the ‘‘behavioral revolution,’’ they seemed to be receding in
importance, political institutions saw their crucial position once more restated as a
result of the ‘‘new institutionalism’’ wave started in the 1980 s by March and Olsen:
political institutions haveXourished ever since, in particular in the rational choice
context. Indeed, even the temporary ‘‘decline’’ in prestige of institutions in the
1960 s and 1970 s must not be exaggerated. Not only did such ‘‘institutions’’ as
parties, legislatures, or governments constitute the framework within which single
country and even comparative studies tended typically to be analyzed, but the
prevailing ‘‘grand model’’ of the period, structural-functionalism, gave a central
position to ‘‘structures,’’ a term which was felt more neutral than the word
institution, but covering at least in large part the same reality.