The so-called ‘new institutionalism’ is a relatively recent addition to the pantheon of theories of the state and, like some of the other perspectives considered in this volume, it is by no means only a theory of the state

Nonetheless, and as explained in the introductory essay, its origins lie in the attempt to ‘bring the state back into’ mainstream political science by a range of theorists critical of the dominant agent-centred and behaviouralist approaches of the time (see, for instance, Evans etal.

Institutionalism is characterized, unremarkably perhaps, by its emphasis upon the institutional context in which political events occur and for the outcomes and effects they generate. In contrast to the then prevailing behaviouralist and rational choice orthodoxies it emphasizes the extent to which political conduct is shaped by the institutional landscape in which it occurs, the importance of the historical legacies bequeathed from the past to the present and the range of diversity of actors’ strategic orientation to the institutional contexts in which they find themselves (Hay 2002: 14-15). Each contributes to its distinctive view of the state.

In recent years, ‘new institutionalism,’ which involves ‘bringing institu­tions back in’ to the explanation of politics and society, has gained increasing currency in political science. What political scientists mean by new institutionalism, however, depends upon their preferred methodolog­ical approach to political science, and its particular epistemological and ontological presuppositions. And this in turn has significant implications for the study of the state. There are three main new institutionalisms - rational choice, historical, and sociological institutionalism - plus a fourth newer ‘new’ institutionalism-discursive institutionalism. Each has different objects, goals, and standards of explanation with regard to the state, and each has different advantages and disadvantages with regard to analyses of the state.

Rational choice institutionalism portrays the state either as itself a rational actor pursuing the ‘logic of interest’ or as a structure of incentives within which rational actors follow their preferences. Historical institution­alism concentrates instead on the origins and development of the state and its constituent parts, which it explains by the (often unintended) outcomes of purposeful choices and historically unique initial conditions in a ‘logic of path-dependence’. Sociological institutionalism sees the state as socially constituted and culturally framed, with political agents acting according to the ‘logic of appropriateness’ that follows from culturally-specific rules and norms. Finally, the newest of the ‘new’ institutionalisms, ‘discursive’ insti­tutionalism, considers the state in terms of the ideas and discourse that actors use to explain, deliberate, and/or legitimize political action in institu­tional context according to the ‘logic of communication.’

This chapter begins with a discussion of the ‘old institutionalism’ that provided a largely descriptive view of the state’s institutional arrangements, of the ‘holistic’ approaches that looked instead to political systems, of the behaviourism that rejected both in favour of a focus on individual human behaviour, and of the ‘new institutionalism’ that proposed to supersede all the previous approaches. It follows this with a closer analysis of each of the three main ‘new institutionalisms’, providing definitional accounts of their main characteristics, their epistemological and ontological differences, their benefits and their drawbacks, and how they interrelate and intersect. It concludes with a consideration of the fourth and newest new institutionalism, as a remedy for some of the problems of the older new institutionalisms.