Predicting Institutional Failure: A Comparative Theory of When Institutional Engineering Goes Awry

We have a real conflict in the literature here. On one hand, you have studies like Drake and Skovgaard's (2024), which show that institutions like proportional representation and corporatism can work as expected to produce difficult policy outcomes like dismantling fossil fuel subsidies. On the other hand, you have classic cases like Moser's (2001) Russia, where institutional design completely missed its mark. Why the difference? This project seeks to generate a new theory from this very conflict. I suspect the answer lies in the interaction between the formal institution and the underlying informal institutional environment, as Helmke and Levitsky (2004) would suggest. Perhaps institutional engineering works best when it aims to change low-conflict, technical policies (like subsidy reform) and is supported by strong, pre-existing informal norms of consensus. Conversely, it might fail when it tries to reshape high-stakes political competition (like party systems) and runs headlong into competing informal institutions like clientelism or patrimonialism. This research would systematically test this hypothesis by comparing a set of "successful" and "failed" institutional design attempts across different policy domains and regime types, building a predictive framework that could help policymakers understand when their grand institutional plans are likely to work and when they're destined to create another "unexpected outcome."

References:

1. Unexpected Outcomes. R. Moser (2001).
2. Do Political Institutions Influence the Dismantling of Fossil Fuel Subsidies? Lessons from the OECD Countries and a Comparative Analysis of Canadian and German Production Subsidies. Evan Drake, Jakob Skovgaard (2024). Journal of Comparative Policy Analysis.
3. Informal Institutions and Comparative Politics: A Research Agenda. Gretchen Helmke, S. Levitsky (2004). Perspectives on Politics.
4. Informal Institutions and Comparative Politics: A Research Agenda. Gretchen Helmke, S. Levitsky (2004). Perspectives on Politics.