20058873

Institutions and Development: A Conceptual ReanalysisAuthor(s): Alejandro PortesSource: Population and Development Review, Vol. 32, No. 2 (Jun., 2006), pp. 233-262Published by: Population CouncilStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20058873Accessed: 09/10/2009 17:34

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Institutions and

Development: A Conceptual Reanalysis

Alejandro Portes

Recent years have brought a significant change in the evolution of eco

nomics and sociology, including an unexpected convergence in their ap

proaches to issues like firms and economic development. This convergence

pivots around the concept of "institutions," a familiar term in sociology and

social anthropology but something of a revolution in economics, dominated so far by the neoclassical paradigm. This development has been accompa

nied by confusion about what the new master term means and, importantly,

by a failure to mine prior theoretical work that sought to order, classify, and relate the multiple aspects of social life that are now brought under the same umbrella concept. The result has been a number of ad hoc typologies that highlight some features of what needs to be explained, while obscur

ing others.

In this essay, I seek to reverse these trends by recalling key concepts and distinctions in sociological theory and illustrating their analytic utility

with examples from the recent literature on economic development. My argument is that recourse to these concepts and distinctions enhances our

ability to analyze economic and "economically relevant" phenomena (We ber [1904] 1949). I provide an illustration of the utility of a systematic so

ciological perspective by addressing the issue of fertility transitions, one of

the central subjects of debate in modern demographic theory.

The new institutionalism

As Peter Evans has pointed out, the long-held consensus in economics that

equated increasing capital stocks with national development has given way to an emerging view that the central role belongs to "institutions" (Evans

2004a). He approvingly quotes Hoff and Stiglitz (2001: 389) to the effect that

"development is no longer seen as a process of capital accumulation, but as a

POPULATION AND DEVELOPMENT REVIEW 32(2): 233-262 (JUNE 2006) 233

234 Institutions and Development

process of organizational change." Sociologists of development, including Evans himself and several nonorthodox economists, have been saying the

same thing for decades without their arguments succeeding in swaying the

economic mainstream (Evans 1979, 1995; Hamilton and Biggart 1988; Portes

1997; Hirschman 1958, 1963). Not until two Nobel laureates in economics,

Joseph Stiglitz and Douglass North, elaborated the same arguments were some

of those in the mainstream convinced. When North declared that "institu

tions matter," other analysts started to take them into account.

By 2004, the development economist G?rard Roland declared that "we

are all institutionalists now" (Roland 2004: 110). While in other areas of

the discipline the new institutionalists still battle neoclassical orthodoxy, in

the field of economic development that struggle seems to have ended. Soci

ologists have generally welcomed this "institutional turn" (Evans 2004b;

Nee 2005) as a vindication of their own ideas, albeit with a critical omis

sion. Swayed perhaps by the promise of interdisciplinary collaboration in

the wake of the new ideas, they have overlooked a fundamental fact: econo

mists do not routinely deal with the multiple elements of social life or their

interaction and, in their attempts to do so, they often confuse them, pro

ducing impoverished or simply erroneous perceptions of reality. Other observers have noted the same problem and put it in still more

critical terms. Geoffrey Hodgson states:

The blindness may be partial, but the impairment is nevertheless serious and

disabling. What is meant by this allegation of blindness is that, despite their

intentions, many mainstream economists lack the conceptual apparatus to

discern anything but the haziest institutional outlines ... [they] have not got

adequate vision tools to distinguish between different types of institutions, nor to appraise properly what is going on in them. (Hodgson 2002: 148)

This judgment may be too harsh because, after all, institutional econo

mists have taken the first steps toward incorporating key elements of social

reality into their analyses. However, the level of interdisciplinary collabora

tion needed to do this optimally is still lacking. The first question is what

institutions actually are. The answer that emerges from economics is a dis

parate set of factors that range from social norms to values, and all the way to

"property rights" and complex organizations such as corporations and agen

cies of the state (Haggard 2004; Williamson 1975, 1985). North (1990: 3)

defined institutions as "any form of constraint that human beings devise to

shape human interaction," a vague definition that encompasses everything

from norms introjected in the process of socialization to physical coercion.

From this thin definition, all that can be said is that institutions exist

when something exerts external influence over the behavior of social ac

tors: the same notion that Durkheim identified as "norms" more than a

century ago and not sufficient to capture the dynamics of communities and

Alejandro Portes 235

societies. In a recent attempt to clarify the concept, Roland (2004) has de

veloped a typology that distinguishes between "slow-moving" institutions

(like culture) and "fast-moving" institutions (like legal rules and organiza tional blueprints). In his view, the reason transplanted institutional blue

prints fail to achieve their objectives in many countries of the global South

is that they clash with the host country's "slow-moving" institutions such

as social norms and entrenched power structures.

To convey the flavor of the ad hoc sociology now being developed in

economics, two examples from Roland's essay suffice:

Whatever group holds power will use that power in its own best interest.

Thus, ruling elites who have a vested interest in maintaining their power in societies with inefficient institutions may not agree to give up that power because the winners of institutional change may not be able to commit to

compensation schemes for the losers, (ibid.: 115)

[l]n general, social norms and values change slowly. Even individual social norms, such as attitudes towards the death penalty or acceptance of corrup

tion, tend to change rather slowly, possibly because many norms are rooted

in religions whose basic precepts have changed remarkably little for centu ries.... (Roland 2004: 116)

Norms are indeed rooted in values that tend to resist change, and power structures change slowly because powerholders prefer not to give up their

privileges. Confronted with such commonplace assertions, some sociologists have accepted these well-intentioned but elementary incursions into famil

iar terrain as the basis for a "new institutionalism" in sociology (Nee and

Ingram 1998). From the field of socioeconomics have come additional at

tempts to impose some order on this conceptual murkiness. Hollingsworth (2002), for example, distinguishes between "institutions" (norms, rules, con

ventions, values, habits, etc.), "institutional arrangements" (markets, states,

corporate hierarchies, networks, etc.), "institutional sectors" (financial sys tems, systems of education, business systems), "organizations," and "out

puts and performance" (quantity and quality of products, etc.). This typol ogy is, unfortunately, ad hoc, suffering again from the tendency to lump

disparate elements under the same concept and failing to distinguish be

tween different levels of causal significance. Neoinstitutionalism has also traveled to the realm of politics, where it

has been used, as in economics, to denote the constraints that the social

context puts on the actions of "rational man," thus leading to "bounded

rationality" (Dolsak and Ostrom 2003; Elster, Offe, and Preuss 1998). While

itself unimpeachable, this assertion leaves open the question of what are

the features of social context that actually "bound" rational action. Saying

simply that everything depends on time and place leads us nowhere theo

retically, as this statement is nonfalsifiable.


Moving things further, Elinor Ostrom has proposed a neoinstitutional

analysis of the "Commons," seeking to solve the dilemma between self-in

terest and the collective good among users of the same readily available,

but exhaustible common property resources. Ostrom (1990; Ostrom et al.

2002) argues that neither the state nor the market does a very good job in

these situations, since they seek to impose external rules on the relevant

actors. Rather, actors can devise their own enforceable institutional arrange ments (i.e., norms) to escape the tyranny of atomized self-interest. These

norms again vary with time and place. As we will see shortly, Ostrom's

analysis is compatible with a sociologically informed analysis of institutional

development, but the latter has the advantage of going beyond the simple assertion that such arrangements vary with the local context.

In sum, development economists and neoinstitutionalists seek to flesh

out North's insight that social constraints matter. But in the absence of a

solid theoretical framework, the practical results of this "institutional turn"

have been what might be expected. In the hands of development practitio ners, the new consensus has led to the attempted export of legal codes and

organizational blueprints to the global South. The dismal results of such

attempts have already been recognized (Evans 2004a; Hoff and Stiglitz 2001 ).

However, we can do more than point out that such efforts are doomed from

the start. Economists and other social scientists can draw on established theo

retical traditions to sharpen their conceptual tools and devise a more so

phisticated and useful mapping of social life. Sociologists can contribute to

this enterprise by refining their own conceptual legacy. The resulting "thick

institutionalism" is preferable, in most instances, to the "thin" version now

making the rounds in several disciplines. The basis for fruitful interdisciplinary collaboration is already at hand

and consists of a body of knowledge containing key elements for the analy sis of what takes place in society and for the proper placement of the con

cept of "institution." These elements include: 1) a distinction between the

symbolic realm and the material reality; 2) an understanding of the hierar

chical character of both realms; 3) an identification of the lynchpin con

cepts linking both; and 4) a theory of social change that goes beyond cur

rent institutionalist understandings of this process (Campbell 2004). What

follows represents my own understanding of this body of knowledge; other

authors may provide alternative interpretations.

Culture and social structure

From its classical beginnings, modern sociology developed a central dis

tinction, consolidated by the mid-twentieth century, between culture and

social structure. There are good reasons for this distinction. Culture em

bodies the symbolic elements crucial for human interaction, mutual un


derstanding, and order. Social structure is composed of actual persons en

acting roles and organized in a status hierarchy of some kind. The distinc

tion is analytical because only human beings exist in reality, but it is fun

damental to understand both the motives for their actions and their

consequences. Culture is the realm of values, cognitive frameworks, and

accumulated knowledge. Social structure is the realm of interests, individual

and collective, backed by different amounts of power. The symbolic dis

tinction provides the basis for analyzing the difference between what "ought to be" or "is expected to be" and what actually "is" in multiple social con

texts (Merton 1936, 1968a). The diverse elements that compose culture and social structure can be

arranged in a hierarchy of causative influences: from "deep" factors, often

concealed below everyday social life but fundamental for its organization, to "surface" phenomena, more mutable and more readily evident. Language and values are the "deep" elements of culture, the first as the fundamental

instrument of human communication and the second as the motivating force

behind "principled" action, individual or collective. The importance of val

ues can range, in turn, from fundamental moral imperatives of a society to

traditions prized mostly out of custom. In every instance, values point to

ward a clear continuum between the good and desirable and the bad and

abhorrent. "Neutrality" is the exact opposite of this basic element of culture

(Durkheim [1897] 1965; Weber [1904] 1949). Values are deep culture be

cause they are seldom invoked in the course of everyday life. Values come

to the fore only in exceptional circumstances (Weber [1904] 1949; Merton

1989). Yet they underlie, and are inferred from, aspects of everyday behav

ior that are the opposite of unrestrained self-interest, the "constraints" that

North, Ostrom, and others refer to.

Norms are such constraints. Values are not norms. The distinction is

important: values represent general moral principles, and norms embody concrete directives for action (Newcomb, Turner, and Converse 1965;

Maclver and Page [1949] 1961). Values underlie norms, which are rules

that prescribe the "do's" and "don't's" of individual everyday conduct. These

rules can be formal and codified into constitutions and laws, or they can be

implicit and informally enforced. The concept of norms has been used, at

least since Durkheim ([1901] 1982), to refer to this restraining element of

culture. Neglect of these classical analyses in the current institutionalist lit

erature has led to lumping norms with the term "institution," which has

another, and important, connotation, as seen below. The significance of the

values embodied within norms is reflected in practice in the level of sanc

tions attached to the latter. Thus life in prison or the death penalty awaits

those found guilty of deliberate murder, while loud protest and insulting remarks may be the lot of those seeking to sneak ahead in a queue (Cooley 1902, 1912; Simmel [1908] 1964; Goffman 1959).


As these examples indicate, the enforcement aspect of norms (sanc

tions) can be both formal and informal, but generally the more important the underlying value, the more likely that sanctions are codified and writ

ten into law or other explicit texts. This is as true of negative sanctions, such as jail terms, as of positive ones, such as awards and prizes for achieve

ment. Mores and folkways are the sociological terms used for almost a cen

tury to designate important norms reflecting major societal values, in con

tradistinction to those derived mainly from tradition (Sumner 1907; Maclver

and Page [1949] 1961: 20; Merton 1968b: 331, 351). Norms are not free-floating, but come together in organized bundles

known as roles. This sociological concept has been neglected in the institu

tionalist literature, which thus deprives itself of a key analytic tool. For it is

as role occupants that individuals enter into the social world and are sub

ject to the constraints and incentives of norms. Roles are generally defined

as the set of behaviors prescribed for occupants of particular social positions

(Linton 1945; Newcomb 1950: Ch. 3). Well-socialized persons shift from

role to role effortlessly and often unconsciously as part of their daily rou

tines. The normative blueprints that constitute a role generally leave con

siderable latitude for their individual enactment. Thus the role of "physi cian" or "mother" may be performed in very different ways by individual

occupants, while still conforming to the normative expectations for the role.

Normative expectations may also vary across cultures. To anticipate the sub

sequent discussion, the roles of "policeman" or "government minister" may

embody very different behavioral blueprints in different societal contexts,

despite being designated by the same formal label.

An extensive literature in both sociology and social psychology has

analyzed roles as the building blocks of social life and as one of the lynchpin

concepts linking the symbolic world of culture to real social structures. The

same literature has examined such dynamics as the "role set" enacted by

given social actors and the "role conflict" or "role strain" created when nor

mative expectations in an actor's role sets contradict each other (Cottrell 1933; Linton 1945; Merton 1957; Goffman 1959, 1961; Goode 1960). None

of these concepts has made its appearance in the ad hoc sociology being created in economics, nor in the thin neoinstitutionalism currently prac ticed in both sociology and political science. Roles are an integral part of

institutions, but they are not institutions and confusing the two terms weak

ens the heuristic power of both concepts.

Along with normative expectations, roles also embody an instrumen

tal repertoire of skills necessary for their proper enactment. Language is the

fundamental component of this repertoire, for, without it, no other skills

can be enacted. These cultural "tool kits" also contain many other elements?

from scientific and professional know-how to demeanor, forms of expres

sions, manners, and general savoir faire suitable for specific social occasions.


Again, the cultural repertoires attached to specific roles such as "policeman" or "government minister" can vary significantly across societies, despite the

formal identity of their titles. In the modern sociological literature, these

elements are referred to by the concepts of cultural capital and skills reper toires (Bourdieu 1979, 1984; Swidler 1986; Zelizer 2005).

Power, class, and status

Parallel to the component elements of culture run those of social structure.

These are not made up of moral values or generalized "do's" and "don't's"

flowing from them, but involve the specific and differentiated ability of so

cial actors to compel others to do their bidding. This is the realm of power,

which, like that of values, is situated at the "deep" level of social life influ

encing a wide variety of outcomes, albeit in different ways. Weber's classic

definition of power as the ability of an actor to impose his or her will de

spite resistance is still appropriate, for it highlights the compulsory and co

ercive nature of this basic element of social structure. It does not depend on

the voluntary consent of subordinates, and, for some actors and groups to

have power, others must be excluded from access to power-conferring re

sources (Weber [1922] 1947; Veblen [1899] 1998; Mills 1959). While val

ues motivate or constrain, power enables. Naturally, elites in control of

power-conferring resources seek to stabilize and perpetuate their position

by molding values so that the mass of the population is persuaded of the

"fairness" of the existing order. Power thus legitimized becomes authority, in which subordinates readily acquiesce to their position (Weber [1922]

1947; Bendix 1962: Chs. 9-10). In Marx's classic definition, power depends on control of the means of

production, but in the modern postindustrial world this definition appears to be too restrictive (Marx [1939] 1970; [1867] 1967: Part VII). Power is

conferred as well by control of the means of producing and appropriating

knowledge, by control of the means of diffusing information, and by the

more traditional control of the means of violence (Weber [1922] 1947;

Wright 1980, 1985; Poulantzas 1975). In the Marxist tradition, a hegemonic class is one that has succeeded in legitimizing its control of the raw means

of power, thus transforming it into authority (Gramsci [1927-33] 1971; Poulantzas 1975). Power is not absent from contemporary institutional eco

nomics, but the emphasis is on authority relations within firms?what

Williamson (1975, 1985) calls "hierarchies." Although these analyses are

important, they neglect more basic forms of power, including the power to

bring firms into being in the first place. This omission supports Hodgson's

argument on the lack of tools in modern economics to understand what

institutions really are. For as we shall see shortly, actual institutions are

molded, to a large extent, by power differentials. Sociologists who have been


following the economists' lead have also neglected these differentials, as

well as the fundamental concept that flows from them: social class.

Just as values are embodied within norms, so power differentials give rise to social classes?large aggregates whose possession of or exclusion from

resources leads to varying life chances and capacities to influence the course

of events. Classes need not be subjectively perceived by their occupants in

order to be operative, for they underlie the obvious fact that people in soci

ety are ranked according to what they can or cannot do or, alternatively, by how far they are able to implement their goals when confronted with resis

tance (Wright 1985; Wright and Perrone 1976; Poulantzas 1975). Class po sition is commonly associated with wealth or its lack, but it is also linked to

other power-conferring resources such as expertise or the "right" connec

tions (Hout, Brooks, and Manza 1993; Bourdieu 1984, 1990; Portes 2000a). As emphasized by Pierre Bourdieu (1985) dominant classes generally com

mand a mix of resources that include not only wealth, but also ties to influ

ential others (social capital) and the knowledge and style to occupy high status positions (cultural capital).

The deep character of power seldom comes to the surface of society, for, as seen previously, its holders aim to legitimize it in the value system in order

to obtain the voluntary consent of the governed. For the same reason, class

position is not readily transparent and it is a fact, repeatedly verified by em

pirical research, that individuals with very different resources and life chances

frequently identify themselves as members of the same "class" (Hout, Brooks,

and Manza 1993; Grusky and Sorensen 1998). Legitimized power (author

ity) produces, in turn, status hierarchies; most social actors actually perceive the underlying structure of power on the basis of such hierarchies and clas

sify themselves accordingly. In turn, status hierarchies are commonly linked

to the performance of occupational roles defined by differential bundles of

norms and skill repertoires (Maclver and Page [1949] 1961; Newcomb, Turner,

and Converse 1965: 336-341; Linton 1945). The various elements of culture and social structure, placed at differ

ent levels of causal importance and visibility, occur simultaneously and ap

pear, at first glance, like an undifferentiated mass. Their analytic separation is required, however, for the proper understanding of social phenomena,

including economic phenomena. Not everything is "constraints on behav

ior"; some elements constrain, others motivate, and still others enable.

Economists have not done the conceptual spadework required to under

stand these differences. The conceptual framework outlined thus far is sum

marized in Figure 1. As the citations accompanying the text suggest, this

framework is neither new nor improvised, but forms part of a classical in

tellectual legacy neglected in the enthusiasm for the "institutionalist turn."

Other sociologists may rearrange some of the elements of this concep tual framework or introduce others, but I think that many will agree with


FIGURE 1 Elements of social life

Causal influence

Deep

Intermediate

i

Visible (individuals)

i Visible (collective)

NOTE: Here and in subsequent figures, arrows indicate the hypothesized direction of causal influence.

its basic contours. In reality, all key elements of social life, both constrain

ing and enabling, are related and influence one another, but arrows are

used sparingly in this diagram in order to highlight their analytic distinct

ness. Only two horizontal double arrows are included, linking the spheres of culture and social structure at the individual level (role and status) and

at the collective level. This latter link is discussed next.

Institutions in perspective

As indicated in Figure 1, status hierarchies with attached roles do not gen

erally exist in isolation, but as part of social organizations. Organizations, economic and otherwise, are what social actors inhabit, and they embody the most readily visible manifestations of the underlying structures of power

(Powell 1990; DiMaggio 1990; Granovetter 2001). Institutions represent the

symbolic blueprint for organizations; they are the set of rules, written or

informal, governing relationships among role occupants in social organiza tions like the family, schools, and other major institutionally structured ar

eas of organizational life: the polity, the economy, religion, communica

tions and information, and leisure (Maclver and Page [1949] 1961; Merton

1968c; North 1990; Hollingsworth 2002). This definition of institutions is in close agreement with everyday uses

of the term, as when one speaks of "institutional blueprints." Its validity does not depend, however, on this overlap, but on its analytic utility. My

position concerning this and other concepts in the preceding sociological framework is nominalist. They are mental constructs whose usefulness is

given by their collective capacity to guide our understanding of social phe nomena, including the economy. If North and his followers denominate

norms "institutions," then they must cope with the conceptual problem of

Culture

Values

Norms Skills repertoires

(cultura], capital)

Roles

Institutions

Social structure

Power

!

Class structure

~* Status hierarchies

"*" Organizations


the relationship between such "institutions" and the roles in which they are embedded, as well as the symbolic blueprints specifying relationships

among such roles and, hence, the actual structure of organizations. As An

thony Giddens (1993) has noted, institutions are not social structures, they have social structure (i.e., organizations) as the actual embodiment of the

blueprints guiding relationships between roles.

A "thick" institutionalism that bounds the concept, while systematically

relating it to other elements of social life, gives us the necessary analytic le

verage to understand phenomena that otherwise would be obscured. For ex

ample, the distinction between organizations and the institutions that under

lie them provides a basis for analyzing how events actually occur in social and

economic life. For it is not the case that, once institutional rules are estab

lished, role occupants blindly follow. Instead, they constantly modify the rules,

transform them, and bypass them in the course of their daily interaction.

No doubt "institutions matter," but they are themselves subject to what

Granovetter (1985, 1992) referred to as "the problem of embeddedness":

the fact that the human exchanges that institutions seek to guide in turn

affect these institutions. That is why formal goals and prescribed organiza tional hierarchies come to differ from how organizations operate in reality

(Dalton 1959; Morrill 1991; Powell 1990). Absent this analytic separation, as well as the understanding that institutions and organizations flow from

deeper levels of social life, everything becomes an undifferentiated mass

where the recognition that "contexts matter" produces, at best, descriptive case studies and, at worst, circular reasoning. The following sections seek to

put the aforementioned conceptual framework into motion on the basis of

two recent examples from the literature on national development.

The failure of institutional monocropping

The most tangible practical result of the advent of institutionalism in the

field of economic development has been the attempt to transplant the insti

tutional forms of the developed West, especially the United States, into the

less developed world. The definition of "institutions" employed in such at

tempts is in close agreement with that advanced here: blueprints specifying the functions and prerogatives of roles and the relationships among their

occupants. Institutions and the resulting organizations may be created from

scratch?as a central bank, a stock exchange, or an ombudsman office?or

they may be remolded?as in attempts to strengthen the independence of

the judiciary or streamline the local legislature (Haggard 2004).

Many authors have noted that these attempts to put the ideas of North

and other institutionalists into practice have not yielded the expected re

sults and have frequently backfired. Evans, in particular, calls these exer

cises in transplantation "institutional monocropping," whereby the set of


rules constructed by trial and error over centuries in the advanced coun

tries is grafted into different societies and expected to have comparable re

sults (Evans 2004a). Roland (2004) diagnoses the cause of the failures of

such efforts as lying in the gap between "slow-moving" and "fast-moving" institutions, but the actual forces at play are much more complex.

Institutional grafting takes place at the surface level of things and, as

such, faces the potential opposition of a dual set of forces grounded in the

deep structure of the receiving societies: those based on values and those

based on power. Within the realm of culture, consider the different bundles

of norms and cultural tool kits that go into formally similar roles. That of

"policeman" may entail, in less developed societies, the expectation to com

pensate paltry wages with bribe-taking, a legitimate preference for kin and

friends over strangers in the discharge of duties, and skills that extend no

further than using firearms and readily clubbing civilians at the first sign of

trouble. The role of "government minister" may similarly entail the expec tation of particularistic preferences in the allocation of jobs and govern

ment patronage, appointments by party loyalty rather than expertise, and

the practice of using the power of the office to ensure the long-term eco

nomic well-being of the occupant through variable levels of graft. Such role expectations are grounded in deeply held values that privi

lege particularistic obligations and ascriptive ties and that encourage suspi cion of official bureaucracies and seemingly universalistic rules. When im

ported institutional blueprints are superimposed on such realities, the results

are not hard to imagine. These plans do not necessarily backfire, but they can have a series of unexpected consequences following from the fact that

those in charge of their implementation and the presumed beneficiaries view

reality through very different cultural lenses (O'Donnell 1994; Portes 1997,

2000b). Institutional grafting has had the purpose of strengthening certain

branches of the state, promoting a more efficient allocation of resources,

and enhancing the attractiveness of the country to foreign investors. These

are worthy goals, but they often clash with the material interests of those

in positions of power. Dominant classes in the target countries seldom will

ingly give up their positions or power-conferring resources. A struggle al

most invariably ensues in which the advantages of incumbency confer the

upper hand on entrenched elites. This is why it has been so difficult to imple ment agrarian reform policies in the face of the organized opposition of land

owners, or to increase the international competitiveness of local industries

owned by privileged groups accustomed to state protection (De Janvry and

Garram?n 1977; Centeno 1994; Evans 1989, 1995). Several authors, including economists who have analyzed these dy

namics, recognize the importance of power. Karla Hoff and Joseph Stiglitz

(2001: 418-420) note, for example, that imposing new sets of formal rules


without simultaneously reshaping the distribution of power is a dubious

strategy. Similarly, in the previously cited passage, Roland (2004: 115) rec

ognizes the obvious, that "whatever group holds power will use that power in its own best interest." Less well understood are two other key features of

social structures. The first is that "power" is not a free-floating entity, but

depends on control of certain strategic resources?capital, means of pro

duction, organized violence?that vary from country to country. Second, and more important, the existing class structure and those on top of it may be legitimized by the value system in such a way that change is resisted not

only by those in positions of privilege, but by the mass of the population as

well. As Weber and the line of Marxist theories inspired by Gramsci recog

nized, legitimized power is particularly hard to dislodge because the masses

not only acquiesce to their own subordination, but stand ready to defend

the existing order. The experiences of "modernizing" regimes seeking to

dislodge entrenched theocratic authorities in the Middle East and elsewhere

illustrate the decisive role of this kind of power (Lerner 1958; Levy 1966;

Bellah 1958).

Following the argument of another Nobel Prize winner, Amartya Sen, Evans (2004a) offers an alternative to institutional monocropping, which

he labels "deliberative development." Sen's argument for participatory de

mocracy starts with the notion that "thickly democratic" initiatives, built

on public discussion and free exchange of ideas, offer the only way to reach

viable development goals. For Sen (1999), thickly democratic participation is not only a means to an end, but a developmental goal in itself. Evans

agrees and cites the "participatory budgeting" process in Brazilian cities domi

nated by parties of the Left as an example of the viability of deliberative

development (Baiocchi 2003). Ostrom's (1990) analysis of and solution to the "tragedy of the com

mons," discussed above, follow parallel lines. She, too, criticizes state at

tempts to impose external rules and deems them doomed to failure for rea

sons similar to those described by Evans. Instead, she advocates institutional

blueprints that grow out of dialogue and commitments among users of com

mon property resources. Thus fishers using the same ocean grounds have

been able to come up with better and more durable solutions to the deple tion of stocks than the set of rules dreamed up by state bureaucrats (Ostrom 1990: 18-20).

The conceptual framework discussed previously is useful to envision

the contrast between institutional grafting and deliberative development. As shown in Figure 2, the idea of importing institutions begins at the sur

face level and tries to push its way "upward" into the normative structure

and value system of society. For reasons already seen, such efforts are likely to meet resistance and frequent failure. The participatory strategy begins at

the other end, by engaging the population in a broad discussion of develop ment goals (values) and the rules (norms) and technical means (skill reper


FIGURE 2 Participatory democracy and institutional monocropping

Causal influence

Deep

i

Intermediate

i

Visible

Norms

Individual

Collective

Deliberative

development

Cultural repertoires

Roles

it tuti

t

Institutions

Institutional grafting

toires) necessary to attain them. Although the process is messy and compli

cated, the institutional blueprints that eventually emerge from these dis

cussions are likely to be successful because they correspond to the causal

directionality of culture itself.

A key problem with deliberative development proposals, however, is

that they ignore the right-side elements of society, as outlined in Figure 1,

namely those grounded in power and crystallized in the class structure. Un

less the dominant classes are somehow persuaded or compelled to go along with such experiments, the latter are not likely to succeed. If implemented

against elite resistance, they are bound to be derailed into just talk?delib

eration as an end in itself. When the population mobilized to take part in

such meetings sees that they lead to nothing or produce outcomes prede termined by the authorities, participation drops rapidly and generalized dis

content sets in (Roberts and Portes 2005; Roberts 2002). As Sen (1999) himself recognizes, technocrats (i.e., technically trained

elites) prefer to impose institutional blueprints that enhance their power and external image, rather than subordinate themselves to the messy delib

erations of ordinary people. Evans (2004a: 40) acknowledges as well that

the dynamics of power are likely to be the biggest impediment to the "insti

tutionalization of deliberative institutions." Not surprisingly, only when par ties of the Left have gained solid control of governments have experiments in participatory democracy been given a reasonable chance of success. This

occurs because authorities can mobilize the resources of government to neu

tralize resources possessed by local elites, persuading them that it is "in their

interest" to join the deliberative process (Biaocchi 2003; Agarwala 2004).


The privatization of the Mexican economy

Starting in 1982, Mexico's government began a massive program of divesti

ture of the many companies that it had created. This program amounted to

a radical departure from the previous state-centric model of development and affected the interests of almost everyone in Mexican society (Centeno

1994; Ariza and Ramirez 2005). The shift came in the aftermath of the Mexi

can default of 1982 and the conditions imposed by the International Mon

etary Fund (IMF) and the US Treasury to bail out the country. Over the

next three sexenios (presidential terms), the Mexican state divested itself of

almost everything?from the telecommunications company to the two na

tional airlines (Mexicana de Aviaci?n and Aerom?xico). This massive economic realignment was not accomplished without re

sistance. A great deal of money was to be made from privatizations, but

there were also a number of actors who lost power, wealth, or their jobs. In

a recent study, Dag MacLeod (2004) examined how the program was imple mented and with what results. Mexico's privatization of the economy

amounted to drastic institutional change?a profound modification of the

legal/normative blueprints under which firms operate and their internal or

ganization. This transformation, however, could not have been accomplished at the level of the institutions themselves, for it required the intervention

of much deeper forces.

State-owned firms operated with a logic of their own, creating con

stituencies around themselves. Although frequently inefficient, they gave secure employment to many and political capital to the line ministers and

managers who operated them (Lomnitz 1982; Eckstein 1977). Thus,

Aeromexico operated with a staff of 200 employees per airplane at a time

when the inefficient and about-to-be-bankrupt Eastern Airlines had 146.

Yet, the minute that plans for Aeromexico's restructuring were announced,

its employees struck, arguing that the firm would be profitable "if only"

management were more efficient (MacLeod 2004: 123, 133). The battle for divestment and market opening pitted the unions, the

managers of state-owned industries, and the ministries that supervised them

against a group of reformers imbued with the new neoliberal doctrines at

the Treasury Ministry and other strategic places in the Mexican bureau

cracy. Large capitalists, foreign multinationals, and the IMF supported di

vestiture and opening; while small-firm owners, who had much to lose from

the removal of state protection, opposed it:

Although Mexican capitalists had united briefly..., they were soon divided

again, between large and small, internationally oriented and domestically fo

cused. As President de la Madrid began lowering tariff barriers and allowing

greater foreign investment, it soon became clear that labor would not be the

only casualty of restructuring.... (MacLeod 2004: 96)


During President de la Madrid's sexenio, only smaller and relatively

marginal firms were privatized. Defenders of the status quo could keep faith

that the strong corporatist traditions of the ruling party, the PRI, would in

the end prevail. Despite sustained external pressure, institutions (i.e. state

owned corporations) would not reform themselves and attempts at reform

were effectively resisted:

When it became clear during the de la Madrid administration that the very source of political power and patronage?the parastate firm?might actually

be taken away, officials within the bureaucracy quickly developed strategies for resisting privatization.

From their positions on the executive committees and boards of directors of

parastate firms, line ministers could keep a watchful eye on the efforts of

would-be reformers.... [L]ine ministers withheld data or presented contra

dictory and incorrect data, making it virtually impossible to evaluate a com

pany.... (ibid.: 71, 75-76)

True reform, as the IMF and the multinational corporations envisioned

it, could only come from the top of the power structure. This actually hap

pened during the next sexenio under President Carlos Salinas de Gortari. A

convinced free marketeer, Salinas appointed economists of the same per suasion to key positions in the Central Bank and the Treasury Ministry.

Once there, they created new, compact, and powerful agencies to ensure

that privatization would move forward. The president shifted the balance

of power, abandoning erstwhile allies in the unions, the smaller industrial

ists, and farmers to establish a firm alliance with the larger and more inter

nationalized sector of the Mexican capitalist class.

Not willing to believe that things would take such a turn for the worse,

union leaders and firm managers bypassed the new bureaucratic structures

to take their case directly to the president. To no avail:

When the UDEP [Unit for the Divestiture of Parastate Entities] began the pro cess of privatizing parastate firms, labor leaders, line ministers, and execu

tives of parastate firms often sought to circumvent the authority of the UDEP

by appealing directly to the president. President Salinas regularly sent these

supplicants back to the director of the UDEP.... This process quickly solidified the authority of the UDEP within the Mexican bureaucracy, (ibid.: 81-82)

The "sale of the state" engineered by UDEP in subsequent years amounted to a major case of institutional transformation; it also represents a clear example of the dynamics of power. As shown in Figure 3, reforms

initiated from the outside and from below barely made a dent in the Mexi

can corporatist structure. It was necessary for the country's top political and


FIGURE 3 The divestiture of parastate corporations in Mexico

Causal influence

Deep

i

Intermediate

i

Visible Individual

Collective Institutions

Social

structure

Power

u s stn.

u

Class structure

Status hierarchies

u Organizations

(parastate firms)

Presidential

mandate in

alliance with top

capitalists and

state bureaucrats

External influence and

pressure from the IMF and

other foreign agencies

economic leadership to get involved in order to overcome strong and orga nized resistance from various classes. Unionized workers and national en

trepreneurs became the losers in this giant power struggle that saw the Mexi

can labor market become far more "flexible" and the Mexican corporation far more open to external competition and takeover (Shaiken 1990, 1994;

Ariza and Ramirez 2005). As elsewhere, significant institutional and orga nizational change did not originate with organizations themselves, but re

quired major transformations at deeper levels of the social structure.

However, just as attempted transformations of existing institutions can

meet with resistance from power holders in the social structure, power plays that impose institutional change can produce generalized opposition when

the underlying values remain unaltered. The Salinas reforms took place

against a background of public skepticism about the need to denationalize

the economy and strong opposition from many sectors of Mexican society

(MacLeod 2004). Salinas ended his term in disgrace, becoming an unpopu lar figure and eventually being forced to leave the country. While the course

on which he set the Mexican economy remains unaltered, there are grow

ing signs of resistance from the mass of the population inasmuch as the

announced benefits of privatization have failed to materialize (Ariza and

Ramirez 2005). "Neoliberalism" itself has become an epithet, and Mexican

parties and politicians seeking office now distance themselves from the term

and the privatizing reform imposed from above under its guidance (Delgado Wise 2005).


The problem of change

Diffusion and path dependence

In his recent book, Institutional Change and Globalization (2004), John

Campbell systematically describes the different schools of institutional anal

ysis that exist today. These he labels "rational choice institutionalism," as

sociated primarily with economics; "organizational institutionalism," asso

ciated with the sociology of organizations; and "historical institutionalism,"

based on political economy and certain strands of political science. Depend

ing on the school, social change is seen primarily as an evolutionary pro

cess, developing gradually over time, or as a combination of evolution and

"punctuated evolution" when drastic shifts occur.

Despite these differences, Campbell characterizes all three schools as

favoring two major determinants of change. These are "path dependence,"

meaning the tendency of events to follow a set course where "what existed

yesterday" largely determines what happens today and what is likely to oc

cur tomorrow (Thelen 2004; North 1990); and "diffusion," meaning the ten

dency of established institutional patterns to migrate, influencing the course

of events. Diffusion is identified by the school led by John Meyer as a mas

ter process in the contemporary global system in which the institutions of

the advanced countries, particularly the United States, are commonly re

produced in weaker societies, either under the aegis of international agen cies or out of the desire of local rulers to imitate the modern world (Meyer and Hannan 1979; Meyer et al. 1997).

Campbell argues that "the problem of change" has been a thorny one

for institutional analysis. This is not difficult to understand. First, with a

vague and contested definition of "institution," the analysis of change con

fronts an elusive target. When an institution can be anything?from the

incest taboo to the central bank?we do not have a sufficiently delimited

object to examine how it changes over time. The sociological definition ad

vanced here?sets of rules that govern the regular relationships among role

occupants?is sufficiently specific to allow consideration of how processes of change take place in this sector of social life. Thus defined, institutional

change is not the same as change in the class structure or in the value sys

tem?processes that ultimately affect institutions but that occur elsewhere.

Second, with concepts such as path dependence and diffusion as the

main tools for the analysis of change, it is not difficult to understand how

the predicted course of events for institutional analysis would be either

evolution or "punctuated evolution." It is a fact that, at the surface level

of social life, change tends to be gradual with patterned ways of doing

things largely determining the future course of events, and transforma

tions in roles and institutional blueprints occurring almost imperceptibly.


Inter-societal diffusion of culture may operate at deeper levels, affecting the normative and skill contents of specific roles. Diffusion of new tech

nologies (skills repertoires) and patterns of consumption (norms) from the

advanced world to the less developed countries is indeed one of the most

common and most important sources of change in these countries (Sassen

1988; Meyer et al. 1997). But dynamics of change are not limited to diffusion and path depen

dence; they can also exist at deeper levels of the culture and social struc

ture, producing drastic and nonevolutionary outcomes. To be sure, as ar

gued by some institutionalists, radical change tends to have long periods of

gestation, but this does not negate the fact that once such change occurs,

consequences for the affected populations can be abrupt and often trau

matic. Technological changes, to take but one example, can be endogenous rather than brought about solely by diffusion. Once they occur, technologi cal breakthroughs can affect, in a very short time, the skills repertoires and,

hence, the roles of large numbers of social actors. One such example, the

advent of the Internet, is an innovation that has altered the content of oc

cupational roles and the rules linking them in most institutions of modern

society (Castells 1998, 2001).

Religion and religious prophecies can affect the culture in still more

radical ways because they impinge directly on the value system (Wuthnow

1987, 1998). Weber's theory of social change focuses on the history of reli

gion and, specifically, on the role of charisma and charismatic prophecy as

forces capable of breaking through the limits of reality, as hitherto known,

and providing the impetus necessary to dismantle the existing social order

and rebuild it on a new basis. The influence of the Protestant Reformation,

especially Calvinism, in revolutionizing economic life in western Europe is

perhaps the best-known illustration of the effects that charismatic proph

ecy can have on society (Weber [1922] 1964; [1915] 1958). The advent of charismatic prophecy capable of revolutionizing the value

system and, hence, an entire civilization occurs after a long period of his

torical gestation, but this does not prevent it from having immediate and

profound consequences once it bursts onto the scene. After Calvinism had

transformed the social order of much of western Europe, historians had

little difficulty in tracing the concatenation of events that led to it. But they would not have bothered to engage in such an exercise had Luther not

nailed his 95 theses at Wittenberg and had Calvin not risen to power in

Geneva. Post-hoc reconstruction of revolutionary social change can always be "evolutionary."

For those who dismiss the role of religious charisma as a thing of the

past, one need only point to the decisive influence that Evangelical Chris

tianity continues to have in transforming large portions of American soci

ety (Wuthnow 1998; Roof 1999) and to the emergence of a fundamentalist


brand of Islam set on ultimate confrontation with the West. The "war on

terrorism" that is today the overriding concern of states in North America

and Europe is interpretable as a direct consequence of a reenergized, char

ismatic religious prophecy seeking to remake the world in its own image

(Kastoryano 2004; Kepel 1987).

Revolutionary change can also occur in the realm of social structure, as when power is wrested from its current possessors and vested in a new

elite. The question of power and of class struggles has been addressed by a

long line of historians and social scientists, classic and contemporary. Vilfredo

Pareto's ([1902] 1966) theory of the circulation of elites and his remark

that "history is but a graveyard of aristocracies" focus on the fact that domi

nant groups have never been able to maintain power indefinitely and on

the analysis of the mechanisms leading to their demise. From very different

theoretical quarters, Marx privileged the class struggle and, at a deeper level,

the conflict between new modes of production and entrenched "social rela

tions of production" as the master mechanisms leading to revolutionary

change. For Marx and his numerous followers, the internal contradictions

of feudalism that brought about its end were being recreated anew under

capitalism, as rising social classes clashed with the dominant class structure.

Thus, "what the bourgeoisie creates above all are its own gravediggers" (Marx and Engels [1847] 1959: 20).

Much of contemporary historical sociology?including the writings of

Barrington Moore (1966), Theda Skocpol (1979), Charles Tilly (1984), Im

manuel Wallerstein (1974, 1991), and Giovanni Arrighi (1994)?is concerned

with the same question of revolutionary change and elite replacement. To

take one example, Skocpol's theory of social revolutions highlights inter

elite conflict, external military pressure, and an oppressed peasantry as fac

tors that, when coming together, can drastically transform the class struc

ture and bring about a new social order. While structural change of this

magnitude occurs after a lengthy concatenation of events, this is only made

evident by the moment of social explosion itself and the ensuing events.

Had Louis XVI not made the fateful decision to convene the Estates General, he could have continued residing in Versailles undisturbed, and reams of

historical accounts about the origins of the French Revolution would not

have been written.

Seen from the perspective of the profound consequences wrought by transformations in a society's value system or class structure, a theory of

change based on path dependence and cultural diffusion looks limited in

deed. Change?whether revolutionary or not?at deeper levels of the cul

ture and social structure filters upward to the more visible levels, including institutions and organizations. Thus it is possible to distinguish at least five

forces impinging on institutions and leading to their transformation: path

dependence, producing evolutionary change at the more visible institutional


level; diffusion, also leading to evolutionary and sometimes "punctuated"

change at the intermediate levels of culture; scientific/technological break

throughs affecting the cultural skills repertoires and normative order; at a

deeper level, charismatic prophecy?religious or secular?capable of trans

forming the value system and, hence, the rest of the culture; and inter-elite

and class struggles with the potential for transforming the distribution of

power. The last three sources hold the potential for profound institutional

change, of the type seen in the aftermath of social revolutions and epoch

making inventions.

Figure 4 graphically summarizes this discussion. Campbell (2004) con

cludes his review of institutional change by recommending that we con

sider such processes only within well-limited time frames and "in its mul

tiple dimensions." These recommendations are unobjectionable, but do not

go far enough. While limited time frames prevent infinite regress into his

tory, they do not distinguish between evolutionary change over a given

period and abrupt, revolutionary transformations. Similarly, the "multiple dimensions" to be considered in the analysis of change are left unspecified.

A conceptual framework such as that outlined in Figure 4 helps to

distinguish between different elements of culture and social structure and

the relative impact of processes of change taking place at different levels.

An institutional analysis of change limited to institutions themselves pro duces an impoverished account of these processes, relative to what the so

cial sciences in general and sociology in particular have already accomplished.

FIGURE 4 Levels and forces of change_

Level CULTURE

Deep Values

Intermediate aKms

repertoires

Norms

Visible (individuals) Roles ^

Visible (collective) Institutions

Forces of

change

Charisma/

charismatic

prophecies

Scientific/

technological innovations

Cultural

diffusion

Path

dependence

SOCIAL

STRUCTURE

Power

Class structures

Status

hierarchies

Organizations

Forces of

change

Class struggles and inter-elite

competition

Path

dependence


Fertility transitions

As an integral part of social science, demography has been centrally con

cerned with the question of change. In particular, the issue of fertility transitions has occupied theorists in this field to the point that Charles

Hirschman (1994) complained that a single-minded focus on this ques tion had diverted attention from other important demographic phenom ena. Karen Mason (1997) replied that, while this may be true, the ques tion of fertility transition has been the "bread and butter" of demographic

theorizing and a good point of departure for a systematic analysis of popu lation change. Mason performed the spadework of reviewing all major theories of fertility transition?from the "classic" view of urbanization and

industrialization as the key causal factors (Notestein 1953) to more re

cent "ideational" theories that emphasize the effect of diffusion on the

family normative system and its knowledge of means of birth control

(Cleland and Wilson 1987). Mason finds fault with all these theories, noting, among other prob

lems, their failure to specify the temporal scope of their predictions and

their lack of proper attention to the mortality declines that generally pre cede fertility transitions. She notes accurately that the forces impinging on

the process are multiple and that seeking to identify a single major cause

dooms theories to failure. She then advances a complex "interactive" model

in which such factors as "acceptable number of surviving children" and "low

ered costs of prenatal controls" bear on individual perceptions, leading to a

modified calculus among families about the feasibility and convenience of

implementing fertility controls.

As a descriptive model, Mason's account is unobjectionable; as a pre dictive theory, however, it suffers the fatal flaw of failing to specify the forces

that set the process into motion in the first place. Recast in the conceptual framework outlined in the preceding sections (Figures 1 and 4), changes in

"acceptable number of children" are changes in values, and "lowered costs

of prenatal controls" are changes in the cultural skills repertoire. The ques tion then is what factors produced these changes, for values and cultural

skills do not transform themselves. If the answer were to be "cultural diffu

sion," the question would simply shift to what factors determined change in those geographic regions and societies from which the new values and

skills emanated in the first place. Robert Pollak and Susan Watkins (1993) cover much of the same ter

rain, but with an emphasis on orthodox economic theory and its attempts to cope with fertility transitions. These attempts mostly seek to fit a major, discontinuous process of change into an inflexible model concerned with

individual cost-benefit calculations under the assumption of stable prefer ences. To the contrary, institutional schools of every stripe recognize that


this model is insufficient for the analysis of both stability and change at the

macro-social level. Pollak and Watkins's essay performs the useful service

of highlighting the shortcomings of both standard neoclassical economics

and "bounded rationality" models that seek to incorporate the effects of

factors such as diffusion and culture.

"Economists in mufti" (Pollak and Watkins 1993: 481) have come to

recognize that preferences are not stable and that things like "aspirations,"

"attitudes," and "values" affect them. When they turn to culture for an an

swer, the results are not impressive because the definition of this area of

social life remains utterly vague. Some economists define culture as a pool of ideas from which individuals can sample; others as evaluative conversa

tions constructed on the basis of tradition; still others, closer to North, as a

set of constraints within which economic actors maximize utilities (ibid.:

484-485). With such inadequate conceptual tools, it is not difficult to see

why economists have failed to unravel the determinants of fertility transi

tions, just as they have seldom gone beyond institutional monocropping in

attempts to promote national development. Missing is a systematic under

standing of the different components of culture, their interrelationships, and

the causal forces impinging on them at various levels.

Geoffrey McNicoll (1980, 1992, 2001) has provided succinct reviews

of the theoretical controversies over fertility transitions and the more re

cent contributions to these debates. Like Pollak and Watkins, he does not

advance a theory of his own, but in an early article he explicitly endorsed

an institutionalist approach to the problem, writing that "careful analysis of

institutional settings, covering both statics and dynamics, can produce quite

convincing explanations of fertility levels and trends" (McNicoll 1980: 444). He approvingly cites Ben-Porath's (1980) then-novel attempt to model fer

tility transitions within the framework of the economics of transaction costs,

where "the family is seen as a social device for minimizing (over the long

run) a broad array of transaction costs" (ibid.: 455).

Unfortunately, this appeal for institutional analysis comes without an

explicit definition of what institutions are, or of what their relationships

may be with other elements of social life. Instead, McNicoll offers a series of

case studies delineating how fertility transition occurred (or did not occur) in places like China, Bali, and Bangladesh. Although interesting, this de

scriptive material does not produce any theoretical innovation, serving only to validate the now familiar nostrum that "institutions (whatever they are)

matter." The observation was probably novel at the time it was penned, but

the assertion that the cause of fertility transitions depends on the particu larities of each local context does not take us far.

About the same time, John Caldwell (1980) published an essay that

advanced a genuine theory of fertility transitions. From a logic-of-science

standpoint, Caldwell's is the most compelling argument reviewed thus far.


This is the case not because it is necessarily true, but precisely because it is

falsifiable, as it singles out a real institutional determinant present in mul

tiple contexts. This determinant is the advent of mass public education. In

Caldwell's view, "The direction of the wealth flow between generations is

changed with the introduction of mass education, at least partly because

the relationships between members of the family are transformed as the

morality governing those relationships changes" (Caldwell 1980: 225). The theory possesses several formal advantages over its competitors.

First, it does not simply state that transitions take place when values change or when fertility control becomes possible, but specifies the actual force that

brings about these changes in the culture; second, it does not say that tran

sitions depend on the particular institutional context, but advances a prin

ciple that is generalizable across many such contexts; third, it avoids the

trap in which theories of diffusion fall, by identifying the force that pro duced the early fertility transitions from which new values and skills subse

quently migrated to other societies.

Placed within the conceptual framework of Figure 4, Caldwell's theory

represents a case of changes in one institution (education) bringing about a

major change in another (the family) through multiple effects on the ben

efits/costs calculus concerning children:

[E]ducation increases the cost of children far beyond the fees, uniforms, and

stationery demanded by the school. Schools place indirect demands on fami

lies to provide children with better clothing, better appearance, ... and extras

that will enable the child to participate equally with other school children. But costs go beyond this. School children demand more from their parents than do their illiterate siblings fully enmeshed in the traditional family sys tem and morality, (ibid.: 227)

The same conceptual framework in Figure 4 immediately suggests the

question of what forces produced changes in educational systems in the

first place. Apart from diffusion processes, which may be invoked to ex

plain the adoption of mass education in less developed societies, the ques tion is what precipitated its introduction in the more advanced ones.

Caldwell was so preoccupied with demonstrating the universality of the

mass education/fertility connection that he largely neglected this funda

mental issue, although here and there glimpses appear of what the full

theory would look like.

First, the campaign for universal education, like the campaign for uni

versal suffrage, was an integral part of the class struggle that in England (in

particular) and western Europe (in general) pitted the industrial working class against the capitalist bourgeoisie. Once democracy was established and

the right to vote extended to all citizens, it was but one step to the recogni


tion by the elites that those newly enfranchised voters had to be made liter

ate (ibid.: 226). Still more important was the western European competitive state sys

tem and the growing awareness among national elites that states with an

educated populace gained significant advantages, both technologically and

militarily. The rapid Prussian ascent during the nineteenth century and

Prussia's decisive victory over France in 1870 played a key role in these

changed perceptions:

In Prussia, Frederick the Great instituted compulsory schooling in 1763.... While

the schooling was not good...it had sufficient impact to stir the rest of Europe,

especially after the Franco-Prussian War of 1870, and was a much-quoted pre

cedent in the struggle elsewhere for universal schooling, (ibid.: 233)

Thereafter, no governing elite in the European system could afford to

ignore this precedent and still dream of retaining its place in the competi tive interstate struggle. Compulsory education became a raison d'Etat. In

the more industrially advanced countries, its implementation was aided by the mobilization of the urban working class pressing for the same outcome

from below, but even in the countries of Europe's southern and eastern

peripheries, autocratic governments had to yield to the inevitable.

This expanded version of Caldwell's theory is graphically summarized

in Figure 5. It not only provides a plausible causal interpretation of the forces

FIGURE 5 Expanded version of Caldwell's theory of fertility transitions_

Level of causality

Basic: Structural power struggles

Intermediate: Institutional change

Immediate demographic outcomes:

Events

I. Intrastate class II. Interstate competition in

struggles in early the nineteenth-century industrialized countries European system

\ / III. State decisions to transform the

educational system: Advent of

compulsory mass education

IV. Families transformed as inter

generational wealth flows were

reversed i

V. Families take steps to reduce

natality

VI. Fertility transitions launched


leading to the outcome of interest, but it is congruent with the previous

analysis of change in recognizing that: 1) institutions do not revolutionize

themselves; and 2) major institutional transformations depend on deeper levels of the culture and the social structure. In the present case, the dy

namics of intrastate class struggles and interstate competition were the fac

tors propelling one country after another to implement major changes in

their educational systems, which (according to Caldwell) transformed the

institution of the family by reversing the traditional offspring-to-parents wealth flows. While the theory may be falsified, it places us on a solid foot

ing to understand how major processes of change come about and, in par

ticular, what led to cascading fertility transitions.

Conclusion

Disciplinary myopia is perhaps inevitable as new generations of scholars

seek to make their mark in the world. The unfortunate consequence, how

ever, is the rediscovery or re-elaboration of what had already been found

in earlier times.

Advocates of the "institutions are everything" approach may reply that

the conceptual framework proposed in this essay is dated since it is largely based on the work of nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century precursors.

They may add that there has been progress since then, and that "thin insti

tutionalism"?a loose definition of the concept of institutions?is more flex

ible and, for that reason, preferable in many circumstances. To this I reply that progress is indeed desirable but that, with the exception of debunking the patently implausible assumptions of neoclassical economics, neoinsti

tutionalism is still far from achieving its potential. I would attribute this

failure, first, to the neglect of a rich theoretical heritage and, second, to care

less definitions. It is impossible to cumulate scientific knowledge when the

master concepts can mean practically anything. No better conceptual frame

work has been developed to replace that which is our legacy from earlier

generations of thinkers and researchers. For that reason alone, thick insti

tutionalism?a precise definition of the concept placed within a systematic framework?is preferable as the basis for future progress.

I hasten to add that the theoretical synthesis presented here is tenta

tive and subject to modification. I claim no intrinsic truth for it, save its

utility for delimiting the scope of the concept of institutions and for moving us away from an impoverished understanding of social change. The excur

sion into fertility transitions in demography may provide the basis to evalu

ate the logical character of alternative explanations of social change and

the extent to which they represent true hypotheses rather than truisms or

hyped descriptions.


Note

This is a revised version of a paper presented at the conference on Economic Sociology,

meetings of the Eastern Sociological Society,

Washington, DC, 19 March 2005.1 thank the

discussants at the session, Victor Nee and Ri

chard Swedberg, for their valuable comments.

I also acknowledge the useful comments and

suggestions of Paul DiMaggio, Douglas Massey, Mauro Guillen, and Christopher Young.

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