Rule-Making Rules
An Analytical Framework for Political Institutions

Defines and distinguishes political institutions in their various forms, whilst exploring the constitutive ambiguities of the term.

Stefano Bartolini (Author)

9781009206273, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 30 June 2022

300 pages, 2 b/w illus. 8 tables
23.5 x 16 x 2 cm, 0.6 kg

'Rule-Making Rules makes an invaluable contribution to the old European tradition of placing institutions at the core of political life. Bartolini is courageous in terms of his time perspective and the number of disciplines covered, and he presents an analytical framework making a clear distinction between political institutions, and their ordering of human coexistence, and other institutions.' Johan P. Olsen, Professor emeritus and founding director of Center for European Studies, University of Oslo, Norway

Stefano Bartolini argues that, despite the growth of a large theoretical literature about institutions and institutionalism over the last thirty years, the specific nature of political institutions has been relatively neglected. Political institutions have been subsumed into the broader problems of the emergence, persistence, change and functions of all types of institutions. The author defines political institutions strictly as norms and rules of 'conferral', to be distinguished from norms/rules of 'conduct' and of 'recognition'. They are those norms and rules that empower rulers, set limits to the capacity to ensure behavioural compliance, and define the proper means for achieving such compliance. This book draws logical and empirical consequences from this understanding, to distinguish different types of norms/rules, and to specify the peculiarities of those norms/rules that are 'political'. The book will appeal to researchers of political institutions in comparative politics, and in political science and political sociology more broadly.

Introduction: Institutions and political science
Part I. On Institutions: 1. The origins of institutions
2. Approaches to institutions
3. A framework for institutional analysis and a typology of institutions
Part II. On Political Institutions: 4. What political institutions are
5. Meso-institutions: political institutes
6. Macro-institutions: territories, constitutions and regimes
7. Conclusion: specificities of political institutions.

Subject Areas: Comparative politics [JPB], Political science & theory [JPA], Politics & government [JP]