inception. It is, nonetheless, already highly distinctive (ontologically, analytically,
and methodologically), and it poses a series of challenges to extant institutional-
isms (see also Abdelal, Blyth, and Parsons 2006 ; Schmidt 2006 ).
My aim in this brief chapter is quite simple—to summarize the distinctiveness of
constructivist institutionalism and to identify the nature of the challenge that it
poses. The chapter proceeds in three sections. In theWrst, I consider the origins
of constructivist institutionalism in an attempt to grapple with the limits of
pre-existing institutionalist scholarship to deal with post-formative institutional
change, particularly that associated with disequilibrium dynamics. In the second,
I consider the ontological and analytical distinctiveness of constructivist institu-
tionalism’s turn to ideas and the associated nature of the challenge its poses to
existing neoinstitutionalist perspectives. In the third and concluding section,
I consider the contribution to the analysis of complex institutional change that
constructivist institutionalism has thus far made.
1 From Historical to Constructivist
Institutionalism
.........................................................................................................................................................................................
Constructivist institutionalism, as I will label it, has its origins in attempts to
grapple with questions of complex institutional change—initially from within
the conWnes of existing neoinstitutionalist scholarship (see also Schmidt 2006 ). 2
In this respect, rational choice and normative/sociological institutionalism proved
most obviously limiting (see Table 4. 1 ). The reason was simple. Constructivist
institutionalists were motivated by the desire to capture, describe, and interrogate
2 I prefer the term constructivist institutionalism to either ideational or discursive institutionalism
since the former implies a distinct ontology such as might credibly inform a distinctive approach to
institutional analysis. This would seem consistent with Peter A. Hall and Rosemary C. R. Taylor’s
( 1996 ) reference to rational choice institutionalism, sociological institutionalism, and historical
institutionalism, each of which might lay claim to a distinctive ontology (or, in the case of historical
institutionalism, perhaps, a combination of ontologies). This is a point to which we return. On the
ontological diVerences between these four new institutionalisms, see Figure 4. 1. One of the implica-
tions of labeling institutionalisms in terms of their ontological assumptions is that network institu-
tionalism (see Chapter 5 ) is not further discussed in this chapter, since it is not characterized by its
distinct ontology so much as by its empirical concerns. At this point, it is perhaps also important to
note that the term sociological institutionalism is by no means always enthusiastically embraced
by those to whom it is intended to refer. In what follows I will, then, depart slightly from Hall and
Taylor’s terminology by referring to normative/sociological institutionalism where they refer to
sociological institutionalism.
constructivist institutionalism 57