Institutional Rigidity and Evolutionary Theory: Trapped on a Local Maximum

Abstract

A prime focus for social scientists, and in particular political scientists, is on institutions. Institutions are stabilized sets of expectations that establish frameworks for social action that affect behavior because they affect calculations and inspire attachments. Institutions do change, but they change slower than life changes. This creates a paradoxical reality. On the one hand, the relative stability of institutions-the rules and procedures they establish for interaction and decision-compared to the fluctuations of circumstances and preferences is what makes it possible for human groups to take effective action. On the other hand, their very stability means that the decisions they enable are almost inevitably suboptimal. Accordingly, although most political scientists are committed to a general view that the interests and beliefs of human beings and human groups are the primary drivers of political behavior and political change, a good deal of attention by 'institutionalists' is directed to relishing the ironies or bemoaning the tragedies of rationality ignored and interests contradicted. Indeed you do not need a political scientist to point out numerous examples of institutional forms or collective beliefs or norms that are severely suboptimal for precisely those populations and communities that uphold and honor them. Political scientists, as well as pundits, are well aware of the obstacles sclerotic institutions pose to good policy, progress, and a general sense that our political communities work for us rather than against us. References abound to 'institutional inertia,' 'the stickiness of institutions,' or the institutionalization of answers to questions that current circumstances no longer pose.However, if it is well understood that institutions cannot change fluidly with changing needs and changing insights, it is also known that institutions do change, and sometimes they adapt. What is not well understood are the limits to the effectiveness and pace of institutional change and, specifically, why some institutions are exceedingly resistant to change, even when the deficiencies of the practices, policies, and predicaments associated with them

Geographical Approaches to Understanding Urban Decline: From Evolutionary Theory to Political Economy…and Back?

“…While this situation persisted for quite some time, there has been a recent revival of evolutionary‐minded social science (e.g., Nelson ). This is due in part to wider‐spread recognition that evolution is not a teleological or goal‐directed process, but merely one whereby individual‐level differences produce population‐level consequences (Lustick , b). Moreover, increasingly influential evolutionary perspectives such as multilevel selection theory have clarified the misimpression that, as implied by the ecological school, evolution is unidirectional and disfavors cooperative social outcomes (e.g., Henrich and Henrich ; Wilson and Wilson ; Wilson et al ).…”

Evolutionary Mismatch as a General Framework for Land Use Policy and Politics

“…While correcting market failure is therefore of foremost concern to LU law, there is much more to be said about LU policymaking. Principally, LU systems are dynamic [5,7,9,17], whereas policies and political institutions tend to be rather rigid and persistent over time [22,[25][26][27]. The implication is that inter-temporal changes within a regulated LU environment can render certain policies and institutions ineffectual, superfluous, or even injurious after they enter into service [28].…”

“…For these reasons, we propose a framework for critically analyzing LUMs that actively seeks out these details and is at once motivated by and fully compatible with the LU&S model. In building this framework we draw heavily on evolutionary theory, chiefly for its: (i) utility for explaining changes in complex population systems [25,26,39]; and (ii) instructive work on identifying and managing "evolutionary mismatches" [15]. The next section briefly introduces these foundations.…”

“…Recent work in, among other disciplines, economics [39,40], the political and policy sciences [25,26], and human geography [41][42][43][44] is demonstrating the potential for evolution by selection to serve as a general framework for studying social phenomena. LU and urban planning have not been exempted from this trend.…”

“…That being said, although the preceding paragraph captures the essentials of evolution as a process, it does not represent the whole of evolutionary theory. Rather, reaching further down into the evolutionary toolkit offers researchers a wealth of concepts that can be adopted and interlocked to round out and enrich our understandings of why various traits exist in a particular environment [25,26,40]. Three such concepts are critical in developing a framework for studying the policy and politics of LUMs.…”