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The Creation, Interpretation and Contestation of Institutions — Revisiting Historical Institutionalism
Author(s) -
Lindner Johannes,
Rittberger Berthold
Publication year - 2003
Publication title -
jcms: journal of common market studies
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.54
H-Index - 90
eISSN - 1468-5965
pISSN - 0021-9886
DOI - 10.1111/1468-5965.00430
Subject(s) - treaty , interpretation (philosophy) , historical institutionalism , unintended consequences , institutionalism , law and economics , set (abstract data type) , dysfunctional family , political science , sociology , positive economics , epistemology , law , economics , psychology , computer science , philosophy , politics , psychotherapist , programming language
Abstract One shortcoming of much of the historical institutionalist literature is its alleged lack of testable propositions and the elusive notion of ‘unintended consequences’ of initial institutional choices. This article, which offers an historical institutionalist explanation of institutional creation and operation, aims to overcome these shortcomings. We develop a set of propositions and demonstrate their plausibility by exploring the creation of the European Community's budgetary treaty in 1970 and the operation of the enacted treaty provisions. We demonstrate that, under specific conditions, actors may be doomed to opt for ‘dysfunctional’ institutions at the moment of their creation. Furthermore, we show that the notion of ‘unintended consequences’ does not necessarily help us to understand the reason for the contestation of treaty provisions.