New Institutionalism as an Approach
European Integration is a hot topic for almost all times. It has lots of perspectives, and here is a brief introduction to one of them.
New institutionalism is a European Integration study approach that focuses on the significance of institutional agents and their actions in the political arena. While former theories are trying to answer the questions of why and how the European Integration occurred from scratch, this approach sees institutions as the center of the debate and explains these same questions from this specific point of view. Moreover, even though its emphasis is more in accordance with neo-functionalism, there are some perspectives parallel to intergovernmental ideas as well. If you wish to learn more about these two, you can check the other post I wrote on them this week.
There are different subtypes of new institutionalism, namely: rational choice institutionalism, historical constitutionalism, and sociological institutionalism. The rational act of political figures on behalf of self-interest is one of the key factors for intergovernmentalism. Rational choice institutionalism brings a further explanation to the fact that although political actors such as states determine their own preferences, institutions significantly affect how these preferences are fulfilled. So, an emphasis on the increasing relative power of institutions over the decision-making processes is one of the added values that new institutionalism brought to the study of the EU.
Considering European Integration as a process, historical institutionalism, on the other hand, elaborated the answer to the question of how the EI is emerging. This type attracts attention to the historical context of the EI. Highlights the fact that member states have limited power over the EU's development and past choices of both nation-states and EU institutions are affecting the next ones for the foreseeable future. Hence, European Integration is becoming more complex. Also, the interactions occur at both inter-state and supranational levels simultaneously rather than solely one level at a time.
On the other hand, sociological institutionalism indicates that the international political arena’s structure is social, not material. So, the decisions of actors are the results of interactions with others rather than based on self-interest. This view is highly in line with the idea of greater good from neo-functionalism.
New institutionalism tries to find answers by deepening the dimensions of the European Integration debate by increasing the focus on social science studies such as history or sociology. So we can say that while not rejecting rational choice factors, new institutionalism doesn’t take much from intergovernmentalism and it builds up the values of neo-functionalism with a more empirical approach.
Source: Lecours, A., 2005. New Institutionalism. University of Toronto Press, pp.27-28.
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