The Theory of Institutional Change Revisited: The Institutional Dichotomy, Its Dynamic, and Its Policy Implications in a More Formal Analysis

Nonprofit organizations, institutional economics, and systems thinking

“…Given that the rigid elements by definition cannot evolve as fast as the plastic ones, the former elements eventually come to constrain the complexity contained in the latter. On reflection, this constraining effect captures much of what the institutionalist classics, such as Veblen (1990) and Ayres (1978), had to say on the relationship between rigid institutions and complex technology Elsner, 2012;Putterman, 2013). not through their metabolic connection to the environment, but rather through their "operational closure", i.e., the disconnection between their metabolic links to the environment and their unique identity.…”

Institutions and Lagging Development: The Case of the Don Army Region

“…Thus, the institutional structure of the region generated conditions that were less favorable to industrial and trade activities. Positive institutional changes largely have historically depended on public policy, aimed at supporting and cultivating instrumental values (Elsner 2012). In imperial Russia of the nineteenth century, by contrast, government policy aimed at preserving the status quo of archaic social institutions.…”

The Paradox of Water Management Projects in Central Asia: An Institutionalist Perspective

“…Whereas encapsulation per se does not necessarily preclude the realization of instrumental value [25] (p. 187), it does imply that the extant institutions are permissive of the technological progress only as long as the latter reinforces the extant relations of power and "institutional dominance". Consequently, modern institutionalists take institutional change to be truly progressive only if it involves the weakening of encapsulation and of the concomitant institutional dominance, by promoting the diffusion of newly learned instrumental behavior throughout the community [26][27][28].…”