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Institutional Individualism and Institutional Change: The Search for a Middle Way Mode of Explanation

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  • Toboso, Fernando

Abstract

After noting the lack of enthusiasm of several well-known scholars concerning the adoption of both methodological holism and methodological individualism in its several versions, this paper shows that institutional individualism is a different mode of explanation from both of these and also that it is not the same thing as the so-called Popperian programme of situational analysis. Institutional individualism is a mode of explanation that yields non-systemic and non-reductionist explanations at the same time as it allows for the incorporation into economic theories and models of the many formal and informal institutional aspects surrounding all human interactions, whether these interactions take place within stable structures of legal rules and social norms or whether they attempt to change the said rules and norms. Finally, the paper shows that it is possible for old institutionalists to make institutional individualist analyses of institutional changes while retaining the remaining methodological assumptions of the school. The same is true for new institutionalists. Some examples are offered from both camps. Copyright 2001 by Oxford University Press.

Suggested Citation

  • Toboso, Fernando, 2001. "Institutional Individualism and Institutional Change: The Search for a Middle Way Mode of Explanation," Cambridge Journal of Economics, Cambridge Political Economy Society, vol. 25(6), pages 765-783, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:oup:cambje:v:25:y:2001:i:6:p:765-83
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    Cited by:

    1. František Svoboda, 2007. "Za obzor neoklasické ekonomie: cesta k principům nové institucionální ekonomie [Beyond the horizon of neoclassical economics: navigation to principles of the new institutional economics]," Politická ekonomie, Prague University of Economics and Business, vol. 2007(4), pages 539-557.
    2. Svetlana Kirdina, 2015. "Methodological individualism and methodological institutionalism for interdisciplinary research," Montenegrin Journal of Economics, Economic Laboratory for Transition Research (ELIT), vol. 11(1), pages 53-67.
    3. Jean-Baptiste Fleury & Alain Marciano, 2022. "Methodological Individualism and the Foundations of the "Law and Economics" movement," Post-Print hal-03820441, HAL.
    4. Рубинштейн Александр Яковлевич, "undated". "Теория Опекаемых Благ И Патернализм В Экономических Теориях: Общее И Особенное [The Theory of Patronized Goods and the Paternalism in Economic Theories: General and Special]," Working papers a:pru175:ye:2015:1, Institute of Economics.
    5. Gonzalo Caballero, 2004. "Instituciones e historia económica: enfoques y teorías institucionales," Revista de Economía Institucional, Universidad Externado de Colombia - Facultad de Economía, vol. 6(10), pages 135-157, January-J.
    6. Fernando Toboso, 2006. "Old organizational issues from a new institutional economics perspective. Some introductory remarks," Revista de Analisis Economico – Economic Analysis Review, Universidad Alberto Hurtado/School of Economics and Business, vol. 21(2), pages 3-11, December.
    7. Alberto ZAZZARO, 2002. "How Heterodox is the Heterodoxy of the Monetary Circuit Theory? The Nature of Money and the Microeconomy of the Circuit," Working Papers 163, Universita' Politecnica delle Marche (I), Dipartimento di Scienze Economiche e Sociali.
    8. Essiane, Patrick-Nelson Daniel, 2020. "De l'Ancienne Economie Institutionnelle à la Nouvelle Economie Institutionnelle: une introduction à quelques débats [Old Institutional Economics and New Institutional Economics: an Introduction to ," MPRA Paper 102858, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    9. Anthony J. Evans, 2010. "Only Individuals Choose," Chapters, in: Peter J. Boettke (ed.), Handbook on Contemporary Austrian Economics, chapter 1, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    10. Stefanović Zoran & Petrović Dragan, 2016. "The ‘Institutions-Individual’ Conceptual Nexus as a Basis of Alternative Economic Methodologies," Economic Themes, Sciendo, vol. 54(1), pages 1-20, March.
    11. Anthony Evans & Nikolai Wenzel, 2013. "A framework for the study of firms as constitutional orders," Constitutional Political Economy, Springer, vol. 24(1), pages 2-18, March.

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