institutionalism (notably Peter Hall (with David Soskice, 2001 ) and Paul Pierson
( 2004 )) seem increasingly to have resolved the calculus–cultural balance which
they discern at the heart of historical institutionalism in favor of the former. The
bridge which they would seem to be anxious to build, then, runs from historical
institutionalism, by way of an acknowledgment of the need to incorporate micro-
foundations into institutionalist analysis, to rational choice institutionalism. This
is a trajectory that not only places a sizable and ever-growing wedge between
cultural and calculus approaches to institutional analysis, but one which essentially
also closes oVthe alternative path to a more dynamic historical constructivist
institutionalism.
2 The Analytical and Ontological
Distinctiveness of Constructivist
Institutionalism
.........................................................................................................................................................................................
In the context, then, of contemporary developments in new institutionalist schol-
arship, the analytical and ontological assumptions of constructivist institutionalism
are highly distinctive. They represent a considerable advance on their rationalist
and normative/sociological predecessors, at least in terms of their capacity to
inform an endogenous account of complex institutional evolution, adaptation,
and innovation. 8
Actors are strategic, seeking to realize certain complex, contingent, and con-
stantly changing goals. They do so in a context which favors certain strategies
over others and must rely upon perceptions of that context which are at best
incomplete and which may very often prove to have been inaccurate after the
event. Moreover, ideas in the form of perceptions ‘‘matter’’ in a second sense—
for actors are oriented normatively towards their environment. Their desires,
preferences, and motivations are not a contextually given fact—a reXection of
material or even social circumstance—but are irredeemably ideational, reXecting
a normative (indeed moral, ethical, and political) orientation towards the context
8 This is an important caveat. Ontologies are not contending theories that can be adjudicated
empirically—since what counts as evidence in theWrst place is not an ontologically-neutral issue.
Thus, while certain ontological assumptions can preclude a consideration, say, of disequilibrium
dynamics (by essentially denying their existence), this does not in itself invalidate them. On the
dangers of ontological evangelism, see Hay ( 2005 ).
constructivist institutionalism 63