The Making of Policy: Institutionalized or Not?

Carlos Scartascini and Mariano Tommasi

American Journal of Political Science, 2012, vol. 56, issue 4, 787-801

Abstract: This article attempts to build bridges in the formal study of policymaking across polities of different degrees of institutional development. It explores the reasons why policymaking is fairly institutionalized in some polities but not in others. It suggests extending standard models of institutionalized policymaking to allow for a wider set of actions, including the threat of violence or of damage to the economy. It engages the discussion of institutions as rules and institutions as equilibria, delivering multiple equilibria with different degrees of institutionalization. The likelihood of institutionalized policymaking increases as the cost of alternative political actions increases, as the damage these alternatives cause decreases, and as the economy becomes wealthier. In cases in which the distribution of de jure political power is more asymmetric, it is more likely to observe use of alternative political technologies as well as low degrees of institutionalization.

Date: 2012
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (17)

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-5907.2012.00591.x

Related works:
Working Paper: The Making of Policy: Institutionalized or Not? (2009)
Working Paper: The Making of Policy: Institutionalized or Not? (2009)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:wly:amposc:v:56:y:2012:i:4:p:787-801

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in American Journal of Political Science from John Wiley & Sons
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Wiley Content Delivery ().