Institutions matter: new institutionalist approaches to the study of ministerial advisers

This chapter explores the development of neo-institutionalist theory in political science and, more specifically, in the literature on ministerial advisers. It reviews the three main strands of the new institutionalism: historical institutionalism, which examines the operation and consequences of institutions over time, including their effects on the formation of preferences and the construction of coalitions that constitute the basis of public authority; sociological institutionalism, which conceptualises institutions as carriers of values, norms, and frames that guide action by shaping how individuals and organisations define their preferences; and rational choice institutionalism, which unlike the other two variants, conceives of self-interested individuals as selecting institutions based on a set of exogenously given preferences. In much of the literature on ministerial advisers, authors explicitly associate their account with one of the three major variants of new institutionalism. Yet, the study of ministerial advisers would benefit from exploration of how the various accounts can complement each other. The chapter also highlights that there is now an abundance of insights into institutional change, so that nobody can any longer maintain that new institutionalism is constrained by the dominance of stability in the approach.