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Building from either public choice or social choice assumptions, this is the study of how actors behave within an institution (or otherwise-defined rule set). Institutional design is the study of how actors behave within an institution (or otherwise-defined rule set) and of how to shape an institution to yield certain behavior.

It implicitly assumes [[PoliticalScience/Instrumentalism|instrumentalism]] in that the form of institutions derives from utility rather than [[PoliticalPhilosophy|philosophy]]. Beyond this, it generally builds from either public choice or social choice methods for measuring and comparing utility. Legislators are generally characterized by some combination of [[CongressTheElectoralConnection|credit claiming]] and [[ThePoliticsOfBlameAvoidance|blame avoiding]].

If assumptions about rationality and utility functions are not being made, the work is better classified under [[PoliticalScience/ElectoralSystems|comparative politics]].
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Legislators are generally characterized by some combination of [[CongressTheElectoralConnection|credit claiming]] and [[ThePoliticsOfBlameAvoidance|blame avoiding]].
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 * [[TheClosedRuleAndTheParadoxOfVoting|The Closed Rule and the Paradox of Voting]], John C. Blydenburgh, 1971
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 * [[WinningTheWestToMunicipalReform|Winning the West to Municipal Reform]], Amy Bridges, 1992
 * [[IncentivesToCultivateAPersonalVote|Incentives to Cultivate a Personal Vote: a Rank Ordering of Electoral Formulas]], Matthew Shugart and John Carey, 1995
 * [[CentralizedVersusDecentralizedProvisionOfLocalPublicGoods|Centralized versus decentralized provision of local public goods: a political economy approach]], Timothy Besley and Stephen Coate, 2003
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 * [[DidHamiltonJeffersonAndMadisonCauseTheUSGovernmentShutdown|Did Hamilton, Jefferson, and Madison “Cause” the U.S. Government Shutdown? The Institutional Path from an Eighteenth Century Republic to a Twenty-first Century Democracy]], John H. Aldrich, 2015
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 * [[DolceFarNiente|Dolce far niente? Non-compliance and blame avoidance in the EU]]; Lisa Kriegmair, Berthold Rittberger, Bernhard Zangl, and Tim Heinkelmann-Wild; 2021
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 * [[AgencyInstitutionsAndWelfareChauvinism|Agency, institutions, and welfare chauvinism: Tracing the exclusion of European Union migrant citizens from social assistance in Germany]]; Dominic Afscharian, Cecilia Bruzelius, and Martin Seeleib-Kaiser; 2024
 * [[WhenIncumbentsSuccessfullyRetrenchBigAndPopularSocialPolicies|When incumbents successfully retrench big and popular social policies: policy design matters]], Marta Arretche and Pedro H. G. F. Souza, 2024
 * [[TermLimitsInParliamentAndElectoralDisconnection|Term limits in parliament and electoral disconnection: the case of the Five Star Movement]]; Francesco Bromo, Paolo Gambacciani, and Marco Improta; 2024
 * [[TheEffectsOfDistrictMagnitudeOnTheNumberOfIntraPartyFactions|The effects of district magnitude on the number of intra-party factions: the case of Colombia, 1958–1990]] Germán Campos-Herrera and Patricio Navia, 2024
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 * [[BureaucraticPoliticsInCustomizedImplementationOfTheEUSingleUsePlasticsDirectiveInFranceAndGermany|Bureaucratic politics in customized implementation of the EU Single-Use Plastics Directive in France and Germany]], Anna Simstich, 2025
 * [[CompanyTowns|Company Towns: Single-Industry Dominance and Local Government Capacity]], Elizabeth Mitchell Elder, 2025
 * [[WhoKnowsHowToGovern|Who Knows How to Govern? Procedural Knowledge in India’s Small-Town Councils]]; Adam Michael Auerbach, Shikhar Singh, and Tariq Thachil; 2025
 * [[LegislativeEffectivenessInTheAmericanStates|Legislative Effectiveness in the American States]]; Peter Bucchianeri, Craig Volden, and Alan E. Wiseman; 2025
 * [[DecentralizationAndIdeology|Decentralization and ideology]]; Anna M. Wilke, Georgiy Syunyaev, and Michael Ting; 2026

Institutional Design

Institutional design is a field that studies the game theoretic and comparative outcomes of structures.

Contents

  1. Institutional Design
    1. Description
    2. Reading Notes

Description

Institutional design is the study of how actors behave within an institution (or otherwise-defined rule set) and of how to shape an institution to yield certain behavior.

It implicitly assumes instrumentalism in that the form of institutions derives from utility rather than philosophy. Beyond this, it generally builds from either public choice or social choice methods for measuring and comparing utility. Legislators are generally characterized by some combination of credit claiming and blame avoiding.

If assumptions about rationality and utility functions are not being made, the work is better classified under comparative politics.

For studies of democratic (little d, one-person-one-vote) voting rules, the theory of rational choice voting is the appropriate specialization.

Reading Notes

CategoryRicottone

PoliticalScience/InstitutionalDesign (last edited 2026-03-09 17:57:44 by DominicRicottone)