THE NEO INSTITUCIONALISMO

1. Introduction

The revolution behaviorist in the political science, in the years 1950 and principles of 1970, were a reaction in front of the old institucionalismo that consisted fundamentally, in the study of the details that you/they configured different administrative, legal or political structures. The behaviorists understood that to give bill of the politics's results, to understand it, the analyses should not be focused to the formal attributes of the government institutions, but in the informal distribution of the power, in the attitudes and in the political behavior. However this posture didn't allow to explain the behaviors and attitudes politicians and the distribution of the resources among the groups litigant; as well as neither the answer to the because the groups of interest with characteristic and similar preferences could not always influence in the same way in the political decisions, in a national context and not in others. They emerge this way the new institucionalismos.

By the middle of the years 80 a rediscovery of the State takes place that associates with what you/they have been given in calling neo institucionalismo; that is to say, a revaluation of the elements institucionalistas of the State takes place, recovering to the State as backdrop. The focus noeinstitucionalismo outlines that the power or the strength of a State doesn't only depend on the imposition grade that has on the society or the grade of outrage of its decisions, but rather its power and its strength depends on certain characteristics and/or internal capacities of the State. This revaluation of the State has clear resonance weberianas.

2. Concept

This study line, supposes a resurgence of the study of the institutions forgotten during decades by the different disciplines (political science, sociology and economy); although adopting a new form that is captured from the beginning, in the own one finishes neoinstitucionalismo. It adopts the label again to impact in the differences with the previous average "institucionalista", as much in the definition as in the analysis techniques; therefore neither the institutions that are studied neither the methods that are applied are the same ones.

This new investigation current centers its attention in the aspects nouns, that is to say, to what extent the institutions influence, they condition, they structure or they determine the preferences and the actors' strategies or the results of the political game. It is not of missing that in accordance with these approaches, the definition of institutions is as wide as difficult to apply. Just as North he/she settles down (1993), "The institutions affect to the acting of the economy and it reduces the uncertainty for the fact that they provide a structure to the daily life. They constitute a guide for the human" interaction.

Does the neoinstitucionalismo outline the following questions.) why do they care the institutions? Are the institutions products of the design or of the social evolution? what interests does it promote the institutions: those of a group or those of the whole society?. does The relevance of the institutions rest in that conform the main one half and axis through which are structured, not alone the democracy, the political system, but also and in a special way, the political practices, behavior, rules, norms, routines, codes and likewise the sociabilización processes, participation and social interaction and politics.

The different proposals inside this investigation line, are susceptible to group in two models whose difference resides in the paper that is assigned to the institutions. One of them considers that the institutions are external to the actor, which is aware of such a distance and consequently it can act on the institutions with the purpose of changing them or to maintain them finally of assuring the favorable results of public politics to their interests. Inside this first model authors like D. North or W. Powell is framed.

In the second model the institutions are the actor's same part, through practical and routines; modeling as much the strategies as their preferences. In such a sense, this it cannot be distanced easily, of the institutions neither to originate institutional changes consents. The studies of March and Olsen are in this line.

Also, the new institucionalismo that he/she brings gets a return to the studies of the institutional thought, it takes a new descriptive institutional methodology that in the years 90 are projected implicitly like focus leaning on in the compared politics.

In definitive, the neoinstitucionalismo would conform the most direct expression in the traditional disciplinary rupture among the economy, the sociology, the history and the political science in a vision highly "Transdisiplinaria". it should Also be understood as an extremely dynamic focus, since he/she leaves of the premise that the institutions are a human creation, for what you/they evolve and they are altered by the human beings.

3. Average neoinstitucionales

The recovery of the studies of the institutions has not been exclusive of the political science. According to Peter Hall and Rosemary Taylor, the analysis variety inside the neoinstitucionalismo, allows to distinguish three currents:

a. Historical Institucionalismo
b. Rational Institucionalismo
c. Sociological Institucionalismo

But in fact since the central hypothesis of the new institucionalismo (in anyone of their three versions), it is that the institutions mediate between the power and the political results, the analyses neoinstitucionalistas "discover" the institutions case for case.

a. The historical institucionalismo. - The nature of the State, the strength or weakness of their institutions, the autonomy of the governments and the bureaucracies regarding the other powers of the State, or the configuration of the legislative and judicial power became an extremely recurrent explanatory element in the investigations of Political Science. For the new historical institucionalistas, "The institutions configure the strategies and the objectives of the actors and they mediate in their cooperation relationships and conflict. By means of these roads, they structure the political game and they condition the results of the same" one decisively (Steinmo, Telen and Longstreth, 1992). These authors have not adopted the methodological individualism and supposition of economic rationality as starting point, but rather they have continued believing in, and betting for the explanatory capacity of the structures in front of the individual actions. In opposition to the "theory of the rational" election, the parties of the new historical institucionalismo have sustained that the institutions "define" the preferences, and that these alone one can be understood as a product of the political, social and historical context, and that the actions of the individuals are more guided toward the satisfaction of norms and values that made the maximization of personal benefits or singular. This way to the comment that the "theory of the rational" election, the outstanding thing for the historical institucionalismo, is not that the actors behave rationally inside some structures on the base of some given preference (exogenous), but as explaining the pursuit of this institutions, the changes (endogenous) in the preferences of the actors, the institutional transformations and their impact on the course of the history. In conclusion, for the perspective historical neoinstitucionalista they have been recurrent the considerations to near the influence of the ideas that you/they harbor the political actors, the non deliberate consequences of the institutional designs and the form in that the decisions adopted in the past impact in the decisions of the present, creating a path dependence (path dependency).

b. Rational Institucionalismo. - The rediscovery of the institutions on the part of the politólogos coincided with a similar phenomenon in the field of the "theory of the rational" election. In the economic discipline, the new institucionalismo has been born as compensation of the excesses coming from the neoclassical economy that leaves of the idea of the rational elections of the actors, giving had sat down a rationality without restrictions and without transaction cost. For these theoretical ones, the institutions lacked explanatory values, the individuals were conceived to each other as connected atoms by their interactions, in such a way that the political, little behavior differs of the economic behavior; that is to say that one conceives to the institutions "like group of rules that are obeyed due to the threat of a possible sanction, so that from this position it is assumed that the individuals act as rational beings able to calculate if the benefit of not obeying the rules is bigger or smaller than the sanction, or which is the probability (in the event of breaking rules), of being discovered and sancionados"(Marcha and Olsen, 1997). For Douglas North the institutions prevail or they penalize the behaviors in front of others: they are, therefore "the rules of the game of a society or, more formally, the constraints designed by people to model the human interaction. In consequence, they structure, the incentives of the political, social or economic" exchanges (North; 1990).

For this theoretical current, the institutions would not be another thing that the big reference marks through which were developed the economy, the relationships take place in function of interests, preferences, consumption and satisfaction. Therefore the economic neoinstitucionalismo, grants importance and he/she makes emphasis in the negotiation processes and transaction gestated among the different institutional actors, leaving of the premise according to which the actors act and they are unwrapped of agreement with a rationality and information that it leads them to maximize their decisions in function of some utilities and objectives. This conclusion, this slope is centered in first, the supposition of instrumental rationality and the actors' maximizadora; second, in the position of the political action in terms of dilemmas of collective action, due to which the individual rationality spreads to produce subóptimo from the added point of view; third, the emphasis in the strategic behavior of the actors, that is to say, the supposition that the actors before undertaking a certain action course try to advance that they will make the other ones to conclusion; and room, the consideration of the institutions like initiate former designated instruments to reduce the inherent uncertainty to all human interaction.

c. Sociological Institucionalismo. - besides the previous historical and rational versions, the sociology also sample a renovated interest for the institutions. The sociological institucionalismo can be seen as a process of paradigm change inside the sociology of the organizations. They represent a qualitative jump regarding the old sociological institucionalismo that already accepted that the institutions reflect structures of underlying values assuming that their function consisted more on to take place and to reproduce certain values and behaviors.

The new sociological institucionalismo goes but there, adopting the program agreement constructivista with the one which the reality this socially built one and in consequence the such concepts as "rationality" or "institution" are inseparable of the social context in the one that you reformulan. That is to say, the preferences of the individuals are of the social interaction or they are created by the institutions, the culture, the habitat and other rules, but they are never autonomous, exogenous or individual, therefore the behavior of the political actors responds more to the influence of cultural rules that rational-institutional. In definitive, it is not so much that the institutions mark what is appropriate that to make each moment, but rather they constitute complete structures of meaning to interpret the individual actions in each context, so the institutions constitute mark of meanings, perception and behavior; the actors indicate what you/they should prefer in each moment, and they are not, therefore simple instruments for the realization of their preferences. This turn toward the perceptions, the identities and the cultures, it is captured in the definition of the institutions that adopts the new organizational analysis: "The institutions are not alone the formal rules, the procedures or the norms, but the symbolic systems, the scripts cognitivos and the moral structures that he/she gives meaning to the human" actions (Hall and Taylor, 1996).

Some authors, as Rivas Leone already adds a fourth current to those commented, the neoinstitucionalismo politológico in whose breast is integrated the budgets of rational analysis coming from the economic current and of the sociological institutional analysis in the politics's study. This current centers the attention in the mechanisms starting from those which the individuals and the organizations make decisions, in consequence, the institutions don't understand each other from a normative plane but rather he/she revalues the questions referred to the leadership, the bureaucracy, parliament…

This current privileges the question of the institutional change as process that supposes the emergency of new interactions, "the presence of new political actors, with new transaction costs, they include new routines, game rules, for the sake of bigger efficiency and stability, although many times they don't happen and they are gotten this end". The problem of the social change resides in that is easier to begin the change that controls its results inside the institutional change.

From this posture the paper is recaptured exercised by the State, and parallelly to its importance he/she stands out the paper that you/they play the political parties, economic groups, OGN´s and parliaments like integrative of order and stability of the political systems. These institutions contribute that that March and Olsen (1997) they have identified as order" "elements.

4. Conclusions

In definitive the neoinstitucionalismo supposes the emergency of certain dimensions of the State, fundamentally of the internal capacities; that which has supposed an interesting investigation calendar in politics and in compared economy, at the time that allows to advance toward an interdisciplinary vision, since, in a more direct expression it supposes the traditional disciplinary rupture among the Political Science, the History, the Sociology and the Economy.

The neoinstitucionalismo portions of the conviction that the institutions care and they are spines between the politics's structuring and the stability, for the political interaction in both.

The State should build new public politicians that are constituted as mediation environments between the society and the market. Mediation that should be understood as distribution of revenues, opportunities and capacities for most of the citizens.


A contribution of the Dra. Nieves Presses, Decana of the Political and Social Ability of Science, of the University of Santiago of Compostela