Therational choice schooloVered another approach which rediscovered the insti-tutions. The bias of this school was that theory perceived social systems as consisting
of only utility-maximizing rational individuals. They engage in strategic interactions
which stabilize an equilibrium. This approach was highly quantiWable but its pre-
dictive capacities were rather limited because apparently non-rational collective and
ideological motives distorted the ‘‘necessary outcome’’ of the prognosis. Political
institutions—such as parliamentary groups and their leaders—had to explain why
the ‘‘normal behavior’’ within larger institutions, such as parliaments, did not
function in the utility-maximizing way the strict individualism of the theory had
envisaged. The rational choice approach had the virtue of making cooperation in
institutions plausible as far as norms of cooperation were internalized. These norms,
however, hardly rise with one institution. They are pre-existing to most institutions,
and only historical political culture studies can enlighten us about their genesis.
Social institutions apparently determined policy outcome and even the economic
performance of systems.Organizational theorydiscovered these institutions in
manyWelds—from legislation to industrial relations (Streeck 1992 ).
- 2 National Traditions and Transnational DiVusion of
Institutions and Theories about Institutions
Institutional theories developed in tune with national traditions of institutions.
Continental ‘‘statism’’ has always diVered from Anglo-Saxon concepts which did
not accept a dogmatic typology of ‘‘state and society’’—the expression of a
historical compromise between monarchy and the legislative powers of ‘‘estates’’—
from Hegel to Lorenz von Stein. In spite of many typologies of the role of
institutions in various political cultures, the dynamics of institutional theories
were never strictly limited to national traditions. The more radical-minded con-
stitution makers and political theorists worked in their countries, the stronger was
the inXuence offoreign models. After 1789 and after 1848 the French model had
some impact on the Continent. The French model of a so-called ‘‘unauthentic
parliamentarianism’’ later was less attractive than the British model for liberals in
Europe. France, moreover, was constitutionally unstable. According to a famous
anecdote a British traveler who asked in Paris for the French constitution got the
ironical answer from the book dealer: ‘‘Sorry, we don’t carry periodical literature.’’
The opposite example was the American revolution, frequently admired for its
sheer institutional stability over time. For certain parties in Europe the American
model was hailed because the American revolution was considered as being only
‘‘political’’—not aiming at a complete change of social powers in the society as did
the French revolutionary model from Hannah Arendt to Dolf Sternberger.
The theory of institutions was strong in American anthropology and developed
some impact on the neighboring social sciences. A long debate was launched
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