- 3 Non-Marxists: Fabian Social Engineering
One strand in Fabian thought espoused social and administrative engineering:
‘‘disinterested inquiries into social problems that could be utilized by the leaders of
either of the major parties.’’ This ‘‘application of the scientiWc method or ‘system-
atized common sense’ ’’ stressed such topics as public ownership in the guise of
nationalizing industry and extending municipal enterprise (Pierson 1979 , 314 , 335 ).
Its proponents range from Sydney and Beatrice Webb at the turn of the twentieth
century, through postwar advocates such as William Robson and John Stewart, to
the current heirs in such New Labour thinks tanks as Demos and the Institute for
Public Policy Research. British political science diVers sharply from American
political science because it has a strong, diVerentiated socialist tradition.
Robson was ‘‘one of the Olympian Fabians, worthy company to the Webbs’’ (Hill
1986 , 12 ) and a founder of public administration in Britain. His approach to the
study of British government and public administration was formal-legal institu-
tionalism and analyzed the history, structure, functions, powers, and relationships
of government organizations. In Robson ( 1939 , 1960 ), he fought for vigorous local
democracy and he was a staunch defender of the public corporation. In the
festschrift for Robson, GriYth ( 1976 , 216 ) revisited Robson’s ( 1928 )Justice and
Administrative Law, concluding that it was ‘‘a remarkable work of academic
scholarship and political perception’’ that ‘‘challenged some major assumptions
of the system, and not merely some defects which needed remedy.’’ To modern eyes
much of his work seems overly polemical. Robson took as self-evident, truths and
propositions we would challenge today; for example, the positive relationship
between increasing size and eYciency. It matters not. Robson typiWes that blend
of institutional description and reformism so typical of the British school.
I seek not to praise or bury Caesar, simply to point out that the Fabian social and
administrative engineering tradition is alive and well and advising the New Labour
government (see Perri 6 , Leat, Seltzer, and Stoker 2002 ; and on the antecedents see
Bevir 2005 ). And this conclusion applies to the several strands of the socialist
tradition. It is long-standing, durable, varied, and still with us whether it is
analyzing the state, deconstructing institutions as discourse, or advocating network
governance reforms.
7 Conclusions
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I address two questions. Were we right all along to focus on formal institutions?
Where are we going in the study of political institutions?
old institutionalisms 101