北京师范大学
教育研究方法讲座系列 (2):
教育政策研究
第五講
教育政策研究的制度基础：政策制度主义的综述
A. Boundedness and Embeddedness of Public Policy
1. If public policy is (for simplicity sake) defined as what the state choose to
act or not to act, these state actors certainly act in particular historical,
socioeconomic, cultural and political contexts.
2. In the field of policy-making studies, it is common knowledge that policymakers cannot employ their rationality freely to seek the maximal solutions
for the policy problems at hand. As Herbert Simon has aptly reminded us
that policy-makers' rationalities are "bounded" by the relational networks
and the institutional environment, in which they reside.
3. In the field of policy-implementation studies, it has become conventional
wisdom that the state cannot omni-potently impose a policy directive onto
the policy field and expects it to be carried out to the full because
individuals as well as organizations responsible for the implementation are
not operate in social vacuum but are heavily embedded in relational
networks and institutional environments.
4. These concepts of boundedness and embeddedness emerged from policy
studies can be put against the theoretical framework of new institutionalism
and construe them as enduring patterns found in institutions, organizations,
interpersonal relationship, or even personal habitual actions and
perceptions.
B. Conception of Institution: The Contextual Embeddedness of Public Policy
1. Douglass C. North stipulates that “institutions are rules of the game in a
society or more formally, are the humanly devised constraint that shape
human interaction. In consequence they structure incentives in human
exchange, whether political, social or economic.” (North, 1990, p. 3)
2. Elinor Ostrom writes, “Broadly defined, institutions are the prescriptions that
humans use to organize all forms of repetitive and structured interactions
including those within families, neighborhoods, markets, firms, sports
leagues, churches, private associations, and government at all scales.
Indiviudals inacting within rule-structured situations face choices regarding
the actions and strategies they take, leading to consequences for
themselves and for others." (Ostrom, 2005, P.3)
2. James March and Johan Olsen’s defines that “An institution is a relatively
enduring collection of rules and organized practices, embedded in
structures of meaning and resources that are relatively invariant in the face
of turnover of individuals and relatively resilient to the idiosyncratic
preferences and expectations of individuals and changing external
circumstances.” (March and Olsen, 2006, p.3) According, in institutions
a. “There are constitutive rules and practices prescribing appropriate
behavior for specific actors in specific situations.
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b. There are structures of meaning, embedded in identities and
belongings: common purposes and accounts that give direction and
meaning to behavior, and explain, justify and legitimate behavioral
codes.
c. There are structures of resources that create capabilities for action.”
(ibid, my numbering)
3. John Campbell’s states that “Institutions …consist of formal and informal
rules, monitoring and enforcing mechanisms, and systems of meaning that
define the context within which individuals, corporations, labor unions,
nation-states and other organizations operate and interact with each other.
Institutions are settlements born from struggle and bargaining. They reflect
the resources and power of those who made them and, in turn, affect the
distribution of resources and power in society. Once created, institutions are
powerful external forces that help determine how people make sense of
their world and act in it. They channel and regulate conflict and thus ensure
stability in society.” (Campbell, 2004, p. 1)
4. Richard Scott defines that “Institutions consist of cognitive, normative, and
regulative structures and activities that provide stability and meaning to
social behavior. Institutions are transported by various carries ── cultures,
structures, and routines ── and they operate at multiple levels of
jurisdiction.” (Scott, 1995, p.33)
5. Peter Berger and Thomas Luckmann indicate that “institutionalization
occurs whenever there is a reciprocal typiifcation of habitualized actions by
types of actors. Put differently, any such typification is an institution. What
must be stressed is the reciprocity of institutional typifications and the
typicality of not only the actions but the actors in institution. The typifications
of habitualized actions that constitute institutions are always shared ones.
They are available to all members of the particular social group in question,
and the institution itself typifies individual actors as well as individual
actions.” (1966, p. 72)
C. Academic Origins of New Institutionalism
1. One of initiative of the new institutionalist perspective is the reaction to
prevailing perspectives in political sciences in the 1960s. One is the “old
institutionalism”, which focuses their studies of the political institutions on
formal-legal structure of the government, e.g. the legislative, executive and
juridical structures. The other is the political behavior approach, which
applies the behaviorism in psychology and concentrate o analyzing the
political behaviors of individual political actors, such as voters. In reaction to
them, new institutionalism focuses on the political meanings, symbols and
cultures that constitute the regularity and durability underwriting the political
institution and its structures.
2. Another initiative of the new institutionalist perspective is the reaction to the
methodological individualism found in economics, which manifest in
theories of rational choice and preference. In reaction to these, new
institutionalism put its emphasis on meanings and cultures, i.e. the logic of
appropriateness, underlying human behaviors and choice. Hence, the new
institutionalism reinstates the methodological collectivism (or more
specifically methodological institutionalism) in economics by accounting for
economic actions with social units such as firms, classes, status groups,
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ethnic groups, nation, and so on rather than individuals’ preferences and
choices.
3. In sociology, the rise of new institutionalism is mainly in reaction to the
legal-rational system model prevailing in organization studies and the
structural-functionalism dominating the marco-sociological studies, such as
development studies. Based on the social phenomenological perspective
made popular by Berger and Luckmann in their work The Social
Construction of Reality (1967), new institutionalists emphasize the informal
structure of organization and the subjective elements underlying patterned
actions and enduring practices.
D. The Perspectives in New Institutionalism:
1. Peter Hall and R.C.R. Taylor have distinguished three perspectives in new
institutionalism in political science:
a. Historical Institutionalism:
i. This perspective tends to see enduring human behavior-patterns as
outcomes evolve from specific historical and socio-economic contexts.
Hence “historical institutionalists tend to view have a view of
institutional development that emphasizes path dependence and
unintended consequences.” (P. 938)
ii. “Historical institutionalists define institution the formal or informal
procedures, routines, norms and conventions embedded in the
organizational structure of the polity or political economy. They can
range from the rules of a conventional order or the standard operating
procedures of a bureaucracy to the conventional governing trade
union behaviour or bank-firm relations.” (P. 938)
iii. “In this perspective, the individual is seen as an entity deeply
embedded in a world of institutions, composed of symbols, scripts and
routines, which provide the filters for interpretation, of both the
situation and oneself, out of which a course of action is constructed.
Not only do institutions provide strategically-useful information, they
also affect the very identities, self-images and preferences of the
actions.” (p. 939)\
b. Rational-choice institutionalism:
i. “The rational choice institutionalists in political science drew fruitful
analytical tools from the ‘new economics of organization’, which
emphasizes the importance of property rights, rent-seeking, and
transactions costs, to the operation and development of institutions.
Especially influential was Willamson’s argument that the particular
organizational form can be explained as the result of an effort to
reduce the transaction cost of undertaking the same activity without
such as institutions.” (P. 943)
ii. Rational-choice institutionalists “posit that the relevant actors have a
fixed set of preferences or tastes, …behave entirely instrumentally so
to maximize the attainment of these preferences and do so in a highly
strategic manner that presumes extensive calculation.” (Pp. 944-945)
iii. Rational-choice institutionalist tend to see politics as a series of
collective action dilemmas. The latter can be defined as instances
when individuals acting to maximizing the attainment of their own
preferences are likely to produce an outcome that is collectively
suboptimal. …Typically, what prevents the actors from taking a
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collectively-superior course of action is absence of institutional
arrangements that would guarantee complementary behaviour by
others. Classic examples includes the ‘prisoner’s dilemma’ and the
‘tragedy of the commons’ and the political situations present a
varieties of such problems. (P. 945)
c. Sociological institutionalism:
i. "The sociological institutionalists tend to define institutions …not just
formal rules, procedures or norms, but the symbol systems, cognitive
scripts, and moral templates that provide the 'frames of meaning'
guiding human action." (p. 948) Accordingly, they "argue that many of
the institutional forms and procedures used by organizations were not
adopted simply because they were most efficient for the tasks at
hand. …Instead, they argued that many forms and procedures should
be seen as culturally-specific practices, akin to the myths and
ceremonies derived by many societies." (p. 947)
ii. To some sociologists of new institutionalism, individual actions are
construed as role performances or prescriptive norms of behavior
attached in particular institutional contexts. "In this view, individuals
who have been socialized into particular institutional roles internalize
the norms associated with these roles, and in this way institutions are
said to affect behaviour." (P. 948) Furthermore, some sociological
institutionalists "emphasize the way in which institutions influence
behaviour by providing the cognitive scripts, categories and models
that are indispensable for action, not least because without them the
world and the behaviour of others cannot be interpreted. Institutions
influence behaviour not simply by specifying what one should do but
also by specifying what one can imagine oneself in a given context."
(p. 948)
iii. One of the distinctive features of the sociological institutionalism is the
explanation it offered for the endurance of institutional practices.
Instead of accounting them for rational-choices out of game situations
or traditional "dependent paths" inherited from the past, sociologists in
new institutionalism strive to reveal the legitimate bases from which
reciprocal practices among social actors derived and consensual
arrangements among reasonable agents endure.
2. Normative Institutionalism: More recently, B. Guy Peters (2005) argue that
“the root of the new institutionalism” is founded in what called “normative
institutionalism”.
a. Peters suggests that one of the basis of the endurance, resilience, and
persistence of patterned actions found among a definite group of people,
i.e. the institution, is the sense of appropriateness, righteousness,
legitimation, and duty and calling, which are planted deeply in sense and
minds of the designated group of persons. He argues that it is this
“principle of appropriateness” (March, 1989) which motivate persons in
particular roles in the respective institutions to perform the prescribed
duties against all odds even in views of scarifying their own lives, such as
firemen, civil soldiers, etc. It is this deep sense of moral appropriateness
which lends an institution its endurance, resilience and persistence
across space and time.
b. This perspective of new institutionalism can be founded in the
conceptions of institution among numbers of prominent advocates of
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new institutionalism. For example, Peters to March and Olsen’s pathbreaking article in 1984 and their conception of “the principle of
appropriateness” (as in dichotomy with the principle of consequence in
rational-choice institutionalism), which lay the bases of the perspective in
political science.
c. Furthermore, we may trace the foundation of normative institutionalism
back to Berger and Luckmann (1966) conception of legitimation.
Accroding to Berger and Luckmann’s conceptualization, legitimation is
“best described as a ’second-order’ objectivation of meaning.” (1967, p.
110) That is, if meanings are externalized, objectivated and typified
through continuous human interactions and practices in the first place,
they further need the “second” round of meaning-endowing efforts in
order to formally institutionalized within a given society.
i. Berger and Luckmann have divided the process of legitimation into
two subprocesses. Legitimation is a “process of ‘ecplaining’ and
justifiying’.” (1967, p. 111)
- Explanation of cognitive validity: “Legitimation ‘explains’ the
institutional order by ascribing cognitive validity to its objectivated
meaning. …It always implies ‘knowledge’. ” (1967, p. 111)
- Justification of normative dignity: “Legitimation justifies the
institutional order by given normative dignity to its practical
imperatives. ….Legitimation is …a matter of ‘value’.” (1967, p. 111)
ii. Berger and Luckmann further differentiate that there are four levels of
legitimation:
- Incipient level of legitimation: It refers to the “linguistic objectivations
of human experiences.” (1967, p. 111) That is a given institutional
order is assigned with a sets of names and vocabularies to provide
it with cognitive as well as normative forms of objectivations. For
examples, the system of vocabularies a culture ascribed to the
kinship institution has not only provided various kinship
relationships with cognitive validity but also lend them normative
justifications of ‘what can be done and what not’.
- ‘Theoretical’ level of legitimation: This level of legitimation “contains
theoretical propositions in a rudimentary form. Here may be found
various explanatory schemes relating sets of objective meaning.
These schemes are highly pragmatic, directly related to concrete
actions. Proverbs, moral maxims and wise sayings are common on
this level.” (1967, p.112)
- Formal-knowledge level of legitimation: It contains established
systems of knowledge and groups of specialized personnel who are
entrusted with the authorities to use, produce, transmit and
disseminate the designated sets of knowledge. The process entails
the formal systems of education as well as those of the professions
and scientists in modern society.
- Cultural level of legitimation: It refers to the process in which
various provinces of meanings are integrated into what Berger and
Luckmann called “the symbolic universe”. “The symbolic universe is
conceived of as the matrix of all socially objectivated and
subjectively real meanings. the entire historic society and the entire
biography of the individual are seen as events taking place within
this universe. …On this level of legitimation, the reflective
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integration of discrete institutional processes reaches its ultimate
fulfillment. A whole world is created.” (1967, p. 114) Living and
acting in this universe, individuals take the respective knowledge
and norms as natural, given and ‘taken-for-granted’ similar to the air
they breath within the physical universe.
3. John Campbell has further made two categorizations of perspectives in new
institutionalism
Source: Campbell 2004, P. 11.
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Source: Campbell and Pedersen, 2001, P. 10.
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E. Conceptual Apparatuses in the Studies of Institutional Effects: Why Institutions
Endure?
1. Categorization of orders: March and Olsen account for the enduring
patterns of human practices by signifying the following institutional orders.
(March and Olsen, 1984)
a. Symbolic orders: They refer to the patterns and ordering of productions,
circulations and consumptions of meanings, ideas, concepts, symbols,
rituals, ceremonies, stories and drama in social life.
b. Normative orders: They refer to the organizations and practices of rights,
duties, obligations, roles, rules, norms and regulations in social life.
c. Endogenous orders: They signify the internal mechanism and processes,
which affect things like the power distribution, distribution, the distribution
of preferences, or the management of control” within an institutions.
d. Historical orders: They refer to the essential concept of “the efficiency of
historical processes” in new institutionalism. By efficiency of historical
efficiency, it refers to the way in which history moves quickly and
inexorably to a unique outcome, normally in some sense an optimum.”
(March and Olsen, 1984, p. 743) Accordingly, the internal order of an
institution will be constrained by the particular period in history and its
condition of optimum within which the institution operates.
2. The conception of institutional elements
Richard Scott suggests that “institution are viewed as made up of three
component elements” (1994, p.56) or as he later called three pillars (1995)
a. The regulative pillar: The effect or order of institutions is accounted for by
ways of emphasizing the prominence of explicit regulative processes
prevailing in institutions. They consist of “rule-setting, monitoring, and
sanctioning activities” undertaken in institutions. Hence, the institutional
effects, i.e. the institutional order, depend on “the capacity to establish
rules, inspect or review others’ conformity to them, and as necessary,
manipulate sanctions ──rewards or punishments── in an attempt to
influence future behavior.” (Scotts, 1995, p. 35)
b. The normative pillar: Theorists emphasize the normative pillar in
accounting for institutional effects by focusing on the “prescriptive,
evaluative, and obligatory dimensions” of social life. “Normative systems
include both values and norms. Values are conceptions of the preferred
or the desirable together with the construction of the standards to which
existing structures or behavior can be compared and assessed. Norms
specify how things should be done; they define legitimate means to
pursue value ends.” (p. 37)
c. The cognitive pillar: The institutional effects can also be accounted for by
emphasizing cognitive elements in institutions, which refer to “the rules
that constitute the nature of reality and the frames through which
meaning is made.” (p. 40) Constitutive rules have been identified as the
foremost cognitive elements in this perspective. By constitutive rules, it
refers “rules involve the creation of categories and the construction of
typifications: processes by which ‘concrete and subjectively unique
experiences… are ongoingly subsumed under general orders of meaning
that are both objectively and subjectively real.” (p.41)
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3. Levels of institutional analysis: “Institutional arrangements (i.e. elements)
can be found at a variety of levels in social system – in societies, in
organizational fields, in individual organizations, and in primary and small
groups” (Rowan & Miskel, 1999, p. 359; Scott, 1995, p. 55-60)
a. System level – The conception of Institutional environment
i. Institutional environment: “Institutional environments are, by definition,
those characterized by the elaboration of rules and requirements to
which individual organizations must conform if they are to receive
support and legitimacy” (Scott and Meyer, 1991, p.123)
ii. Two of the most prominent institutional environments in modern
society are the nation-state and market, both of which share one of
the most salient features of modernity, namely, rationality.
b. Sector level – The conception of organizational fields
i. Organizational field: It refers to “a community of organizations that
partakes of a common meanings system and whose participants
interact more frequently and fatefully with one another than with actors
outside of the field.” Hence, “fields are defined in terms of shared
cognitive or normative frameworks or a common regulative system.”
(Scott, 1995, p. 56)
ii. Isomorphism: Organizations in an a organization field tends to
become homogenous in terms of cognitive, normative and regulative
aspects of the organizations. The concept best captures this process
is isomorphism. “Isomorphism is a constraining process that forces
one unit in a population to resemble other units that face the same set
of environmental conditions.” (DiMaggio and Powell, 19991, p. 66)
iii. Two of the forces at work in modern society are efficiency and
legitimacy. The former is more likely to be related to the
competitiveness of the market, while the latter to the state.
c. Organization level – The formal structure of the organization
i. To comply with the isomorphic constraints of the organizational field
and institutional environment, individual organizations have to
structure themselves in regulative, normative and cognitive aspects to
meet with the institutional elements of the filed and environment.
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ii. As a result, two of the ideal typeal types of formal structure of the
organizations have constituted in modern society, the firm and the
bureaucracy of government agencies.
d. Human interaction level – “reciprocal typifications and interpretations of
habitualized actions”
i. Members of an individual organization, organizational field, or
institutional environment will share many commonalities in meanings,
interpretations, and typifications, i.e. common cognitive elements.
ii. They will institutionalize common languages, interacting and
communicating patterns, and routines in practices.
iii. They will also institute common “logic of appropriateness and
normative elements.
iv. Their inactions are also subjected to the regulative elements of the
institution in which they find themselves.
e. Individual level - Internalization and Identity
i. In reaction to rational choice theory, new institutionalism perceives
individuals not simply as actors governed by rational calculus of
preferences and self-interest, i.e. logic of consequences (James,
1994, p.3) but as agent having internalized set of norms, values and
rules and their agency is governed by the logic of appropriateness of
particular institutional settings.
ii. When individuals and organizations fulfill identities, they follow rules or
procedures that they see as appropriate to the situation in which they
find themselves. Neither preference as they are normally conceived
nor expectations of future consequences enter directly into the
calculus.” (March, 1994, p. 57)
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4. Paul Pierson’s conception of path dependence and positive feedback
Paul Pierson summarizes the thesis of path dependence suggested by
institutionalists to account for the durability of institutional effects.
a. Path dependence indicates that “once a country or region has started
down a track, the costs of reversal are very high. There will be other
choice points, but the entrenchments of certain institutional
arrangements obstruct an easy reversal of the initial choice. Perhaps
the better metaphor is a tree, rather than a path. From the same trunk,
there are many different branches and smaller branches. Although it is
possible to turn around or to clamber from one to the other ─ and
essential if the chosen branch dies ─ the branch on which a climber
begins is the one she tends to follow. (Levi, 1997; quoted in Pierson,
2004, p. 20)
b. Simply put, path dependence refers “to social possesses that exhibit
positive feedback and thus generate branching patterns of historical
development.” (ibid, p.21)
c. Accounting for path dependence (ibid, p. 24)
i. Large set-up or fixed cost: “When setup or fixed costs are high,
individuals and organizations have a strong incentive identify and
stick with a single option.”
ii. Learning effects: “Knowledge gained in the operation of complex
systems also leads to higher returns from continuing use.”
iii. Coordination effects: “These occur when the benefits an individual
receives from a particular activity increase as other adopt the option.
If technologies embody positive network externalities, a given
technology will become more attractive as more people use it.
Coordination effects are especially significant when a technology
has to be compatible with an infrastructure (e.g. software with
hardware, automobiles with an infrastructure of roads, repair
facilities and fueling stations).”
iv. Adaptive expectations: “It derives from the self-fulfilling character of
expectations. Projections about future aggregate use pattern lead
individuals to adapt their actions in way that help to make those
expectations come true.”
5. The concept of isomorphism: New institutionalism at organizational filed
level
a. Conception of isomorphism: New institutionalists stipulate that
organizations in modern rational institutional environment and/or
organizational field tend to develop similar structures, procedures and
practices (organizational elements in Meyer & Rowan's terminology).
They term this process of homogenization of organization isomorphism.
"Isomorphism is a constraining process that forces one unit in a
population to resemble other units that face the same set of
environmental conditions." (DiMaggio & Powell, 1991, p.66)
b. Distinction between competitive and institutional isomorphism: DiMaggio
& Powell (1991) and Meyer & Rowan (1991) have made similar
distinctions between competitive and institutional isomorphism.
i. By competitive isomorphism, it refers to the process of
homogenization of organizations taken place in "those field which free
and open competition exists." (DiMaggio & Powell, 1991, p.66)
Organizations in these fields usually possess "clearly defined
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technologies to produce outputs" and therefore those "outputs can be
easily evaluated" (Meyer & Rowan, 1991, p. 54) As a result,
development of common organizational elements, i.e. isomorphism,
can be attained through market competition, competitive niche,
standardized output performance and organizational efficiency.
(DiMaggio & Powell, 1991, p. 66)
ii. By institutional isomorphism, it refers to the process of
homogenization of organizations invoked in the context of "collective
organized society" (Meyer & Rowan, 1991, p. 49) in which institutional
environment of modern bureaucratic states have replaced market
mechanism to act as institutional rules of the field. As a result, in
institutional organizations, the development of common organizational
elements can not be attain by market competition and internal
efficiency, instead "they incorporate elements which are legitimated
externally" and "they employ external or ceremonial assessment
criteria to define the value of structural elements." (Meyer & Rowan,
1991, p. 49)
"For example, American schools have evolved from producing rather
specific training that was evaluate according to strict criteria of
efficiency to producing ambiguously defined services that are
evaluated according to criteria of certification." (Meyer & Rowan,
1991, p. 55)
c. Mechanism of institutional isomorphism
DiMaggio & Powell identify three mechanism through which institutional
isomorphism are achieved, maintained or changed. The thesis can be
taken as analysis apparatus to study how schools, as institutional
organization, adopt to education policy changes.
i. Coercive isomorphism: "Coercive isomorphism results from both
formal and informal pressures exerted on organizations by other
organizations upon which they are dependent and by cultural
expectations in the society within which organizations function. Such
pressures may be felt as force, as persuasion, or as invitations to join
in collusion." (DiMaggio & Powell, 1991, p. 67)
Organizational restructures undertaken by HK schools in response to
Quality-Assurance Inspection, School Self Evaluation, External
School Review, Senior-Secondary Curriculum reform, School-based
Management and Incorporated Management Committee, etc. may be
analyze in light of the concept of coercive isomorphism.
ii. Mimetic isomorphism: Apart from coercive authority, "uncertainty is
also a powerful force that encourages imitation. When organizational
technologies are poorly understood, when goals are ambiguous, or
when the environment creates symbolic uncertainty, organizations
may model themselves on other organization." (DiMaggio & Powell,
1991, p. 69)
Confronted by collective puzzlement in policy implementation, such as
those initiated by Senior-Secondary curriculum reform or more
specifically the teaching of Liberal Studies, or School-Self Evaluation,
most HK schools could only imitate, model or simply copy from other
schools.
iii. Normative isomorphism: Instead of compliance with modern
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rational state, isomorphism may take the form of professionalization.
Organizations and their operations, which are predominately identified
with a profession, such as hospitals with doctors and schools with
teachers, can incorporate cognitive, normative and regulative bases of
that profession into their organizations and apply them as criteria in
assessing the performance as well and legitimation bases of their
organization.
6. The concept of social capital: New institutionalism at interpersonal level
a. According to Berger and Luckmann, institution embeds in individuals
and groups of individuals in the form of "reciprocal typifications" and
"habitualized actions." In recent years sociologists have initiated
concepts such as social network and social capital to depict the
enduring interpersonal relationship in institutional context. For example
Lin conceptualizes that "social capital as …is rooted in social network
and social relations, and must be measured relative to its roots.
Therefore social capital can be defined as resources embedded in a
social structure which are accessed and/or mobilized in purposive
action." (Lin, 2001, p.12)
b. Homophily: Lin further specifies that one of the structural foundations of
social capital is the principle of homophily. "The principle of homophily,
also known as the like-me hypothesis, is that social interactions tend to
take place among individuals with similar lifestyles and socioeconomic
characteristics." (Lin, 2001a, p. 39) Lin's the principle of homophily
basically echoes Berger and Luckmann's indication that identity as the
basis of "reciprocal typification of habitualized action" in institutional
setting.
c. Portes and Sensenbrenner (1998) have specified four sources from
which enduring interpersonal co-operations, i.e. social capitals, are
constituted.
i. Value introjection: It refers to "moral character" and "value
imperatives" individuals learned in the process of socialization.
(Portes and Sensenbrenner, 1998, p. 129) This resource is basically
in congruent with Beger and Luckmann's conception of
internalization in the process of institutionalization at individual level.
ii. Reciprocity transactions: It "consists of an accumulation of 'chits'
earned through previous good deeds to others, backed by the norm
of reciprocity." In comparison with value introjection, in this type of
social capital "individuals are not expected to behave according to a
higher group morality but rather to pure selfish end." (p. 130)
iii. Bounded solidarity: It refers to social capitals invoke from "situational
circumstances leading to the emergence of principled grouporientated behavior. …Its classic sources are best exemplified by
Marx and Engels's analysis of the rise of proletarian consciousness
and the transformation of workers into class for themselves." (p. 130)
This type of collective sentiments grown out of common (usually
socially inferior) situations can also be found in unions, minority
groups, etc.
iv. Enforceable trust: It refers of social capitals grown out of community,
in which "particularistic rewards and sanctions" are enforceable on its
members in the form of collective expectation and trusts. This type of
social capitals may manifest in informal institutional settings such as
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peer group pressures or solidarity within new immigrant communities
or in formal institutional setting such as community sanction in
professional associations.
F. Conceptual Apparatuses in the Studies of Institutional Change
1. Identifying types of institutional changes
a. Categorization of institutional changes
i. Evolutionary or incremental changes: It has been signified within the
perspective that "Institutions are sticky and prone to inertia and, as a
result, change quite gradually." Hence, changes undertaken by
institutions have commonly been characterized as evolutionary
changes. By evolutionary changes, it refers to "continuous change that
proceeds in small, incremental steps along a single path in certain
direction." (Campbell, 2004, p. 33)
ii. Revolutionary changes or punctuated equilibrium: Despite the
institutional inertia and resistance to change, "some scholars recognize,
nonetheless, that relatively rapid and profound institutional change
does occur sometimes. They often describe this discontinuous pattern
of change as punctuated equilibrium." (Campbell, 2004, p. 34)
iii. Punctuated evolution: Some scholars further specify that "The periods
of equilibrium occurring between punctuations are better characterized
as evolutionary rather than static." Hence, they prefer to characterize
change in institutions as punctuated evolution. That is, there are
evolutionary changes in terms of self reflection and social learning
within periods of equilibrium and equilibrium may be "punctuated
occasionally by crises that involve open struggle over the very core of
the institutional status quo and the eventually result in truly fundamental
institutional transformation." (p. 34)
b. Identifying the dimensions of changes
i. Scott’s conception of three pillars
- Changes in regulative dimension of pillars
- Changes in normative dimension of institutions
- Changes in cognitive dimension of institutions
ii. Levels of abstraction
- World systemic level
- Societal level
- Discursive level
- Organizational level
- Interactive level
- Individual cognitive level
c. Identifying the time frame: Time frame refers to the duration of time within
which institutional changes are set against for investigation.
2. Explaining institutional changes
Explaining institutional changes: John Campbell (2004) has stipulated the
causal mechanism accounting for institutional changes as follows
a. Negative feedbacks and critical junctures on dependence path: As
indicated above the maintaining and sustaining of institutional patterns
depends on the continuous feedbacks from the prevailing "dependence
path" of the institution. (Pierson, 2004) However, as negative feedbacks
from the dependence path appear and subsequently accumulated to a
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b.
c.
e.
f.
critical point. It may then trigger fundamental changes in institution.
(Campbell, 2004, p.65-68)
Bricolage: It refers to innovations in combining existing repertoire of
institutional principles and practices so as to solve crises or dilemma
confronting an institution. (Campbell, 2004, p. 69) According to March and
Olsen's conception, bricolage can be categorized into
i. Substantive bricolage: It refers to innovative combination of wellestablished technical principles or practices within an institution in order
to bring about adjustment or fundamental change.
ii. Symbolic bricolage: It refers to innovative combination of normative and
cognitive principles and practices so as to reconcile normative or
cognitive conflicts invoked by changes.
The role of institutional entrepreneurs or bricoleurs: The conception of
institutional entrepreneurs or bricoleurs can specify the agent of change in
the causal explanation of institutional changes. The performance
entrepreneurs depend basically on two factors, namely their connectivity
within the institution and the availability of repertoires to be combined. As
Campbell indicates "entrepreneurs with more diverse social,
organizational, and institutional connections tends to have more expansive
repertoires with which to work. In turn, the broader their repertoire, the
more likely they are to create a bricolage that is very creative and
revolutionary rather than one that is less creative and evolutionary,
(Campbell, 2004, p.75)
Diffusion, translation and enactment:
i. Changes in punctuated equilibrium may not be invoked by bricoleurs
from within an institution. It may be triggered by input from other
institutions. In other words, institutional innovation or changes may
diffuse and circulated among institutions. Hence, institutional changes
can be copies and learnt.
ii. However, input of changes or innovations from outside will not be
copied automatically and totally by a given institution. They must be
translated and innovatively combined with existing principles and
practice.
iii. Finally, in order for any principles and practice input from without to
substantiate within a given institution, they must be internalized
cognitively or normatively by members of the institution to become part
of their daily routines and practice. In other words, changes have to be
enacted by members on daily basis.
Normative and cognitive ideas about institutional changes
i. In accounting for institutional changes, new institutionalists play
particular attentions to how agents accept (interpret, identify,
internalize, enact, etc.) new ideas and in turn make changes in their
practices, i.e. agencies.
ii. Typology of ideas about institutional change: Campbell has constructed
a framework to classify ideas into paradigms, public sentiments,
programs and frames.
iii. Typology of actors and their ideational roles: According to the
classification of ideas, Campbell has further differentiated actors within
an institution into five
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G. Education Policy Changes as Education Institutional Changes
1. Policy changes at the level institutional environment: Policy changes can be
conceived as changes in the institutional environments of modern societies.
a. The transformation of monarchical state to formal-rational bureaucratic
state in the 18th to 19th centuries have brought fundamental changes to
the institutional environment to the educational sector, i.e.
organizational field of schooling. As a result, education policy assumed
the role of part of the apparatus of modern-state formation. It in turn
triggered global education reform which changed schooling into statecontrolled, bureaucratic organized, specialized and standardized,
universal and compulsory schooling systems. (Boli and Ranirz, 1986;
Boli and Meyer, 1985; Meyer and Ramirez, 2000; Ramirz and Boli 1982
& 1987)
b. The recent education reform undertaken by governments in most of the
developed countries in the last two decades, can be account for as the
another waves of changes in the technological and institutional
environments of the rise of network society and information age and
subsequent transformations of Keynesian Welfare National State
(KWNS) to Schumpterian Workfare Postnation Regime (SWPR)
(Campbell and Pederson, 2001; Rowan, 2006; Harvey, 2005)
2. Policy changes at the level of societal sector and organizational field:
In response to the changes in institutional environments, different
organizational fields, such as those of basic education and/or higher
education, have to undertake correspondent changes in their regulative,
normative and cognitive elements/pillars.
a. The institutionalization of modern education system taken place since
the 18th century in the forms of (i) standardization of examination and
certification system; (ii) formalization of curriculum and instructional
practices, and (iii) legal-rationalization of school management can all be
construed as responses to the institutionalization of the rational
imperatives of institutional environments of modern state as well as
industrial-capital economy.
b. Recent education reforms in the forms of (i) modularization and
flexiblization of curriculum and instructional practice, (ii) deregualtion,
devolution, performance-based evaluation of school management, (iii)
privatization and liberalization of school place supply can all be
understood in the institutional contexts of competition state and globalinformational economy.
3. Policy changes at the level of organization:
In responses to the changes in institutional environments, societal sectors,
and organization fields, individual organizations have to re-institutionalization
their regulative, normative and cognitive elements. As a result, isomorphism
among organizations, such as schools, began to take shape.
a. The school organizations, which take the forms of centralized,
bureaucratized, standardized and publicly funded, can be understood as
the result of isomorphic changes in the societal sector or organizational
field of education.
b. The school re-structuring reforms, which take the directions of
decentralization, de-bureaucratization, and privatization, can also be
account for as responses to the isomorphic pressures from the
organizational field of education in the network society.
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4. Policy changes at the level of human interaction level
The fundamental effects of any policy and institutional changes have to be
institutionalized into patterns of human interactions. They will affect the
“reciprocal typifications and interpretations of habitualized actions” among
members of a given organization and institution.
a. Since the 19th century, the “reciprocal typification and interpretation of
habitualized interactions” between role occupants of teachers and
students, teachers and school management staffs, teachers and
government official have been institutionalized according to the
centralized and bureaucratized organizational structure in industrial
society.
b. In response to the rise of the network society and network organization in
the new millennium, the interaction patterns including its respective
cognitive, normative and regulative bases, have to undertake
correspondent changes, which can be characterized as compatible,
flexible, dispensable, delete-able and even virtual.
Additional References
Lin, Nan (2001) Social Capital: A Theory of Social Structure and Action.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
North, Douglas C. (1990) Institutions, Institutional Change and Economic
Performance. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Portes, Alejandro Portes and Julia Sensenbrenner (1998) “Embeddedness and
Immigration: Notes on the Social Determinants of Economic Action. Pp. 127153. In M. C. Brinton and V. Nee (Eds.) New Institutionalism in Sociology. New
York:Russel Sage.
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