The competition and evolution of ideas in the public sphere: a new foundation for institutional theory

Abstract

This paper advances and defends the proposition that the basis for the evolution of institutions is the evolution and competition of ideas in the public sphere. This is based on a deeper proposition that institutions are ideas and ideas become institutions. We draw on the ‘Brisbane School’ of evolutionary/institutional economics and of behavioural/psychological economics to investigate the microdynamics of the competition of ideas in the public sphere, which has been studied at a macroscopic level by Isabel Almudi, Francisco Fatas-Villafranca and Jason Potts. The theory we develop gives us a new vision of institutional evolution as emerging from the microdynamics of the evolution and competition of ideas in the public sphere, and a new foundation for institutional theory. It gives us a new vision of the microdynamics of institutional evolution, the evolutionary fitness of ideas for competition in the public sphere and the likely path of institutional evolution.

Balancing Institutions for Implementing the Sustainable Development Goals Through ‘Network Within Hierarchy’

“…Despite the competition, the marketplace portrayed in this study has only offered conservative ideas and incremental changes. Ideas that are less complicated and less threatening to the institutions and the individual minds are more acceptable for competition [46]. These are ideas that require lower cognitive processing of the actors.…”

Exploring the Dedicated Knowledge Base of a Transformation towards a Sustainable Bioeconomy

“…This means, for example, that both subject rules that shape the sustainability goals of the individual carriers (for example, what they consider good or bad) and object rules that determine what is legitimate and important within a social system or IS are subject to path dependence, competition, and feedback at the level of the underlying ideas (e.g., [58,131,150,151]). The diffusion of normative knowledge about the desired states of a system is therefore always contingent on its context specificity and dependent on cultural evolution.…”

Rules, perception and emotion: When do institutions determine behaviour?

“…Institutions as rules for how to behave must acquire a place in our mind before they can determine our behaviour in their own right. How this comes to pass has been studied at some length in Markey-Towler (forthcoming), extending the evolutionary insights of Institutional Theory and the Brisbane School and fusing them with those of Almudi et al (2017) to show how institutions as rules for interpreting the world (and how to behave in it) are propagated by the selection and retention of ideas as institutions in the competition of ideas in the public sphere.…”

“…Before their desired change may take effect they must first have the ideas that would become institutions selected and retained as such so that individuals carry those institutions as rules for interpreting the world and how to act in it. This is a difficult task of rhetoric and communication, which requires substantial investments of time and effort in campaigns for change in the public sphere (Markey-Towler, forthcoming). Yet this is not the most challenging barrier for the policymaker!…”