How do individual agents enact the institutions that govern collective behavior in a social situation? How do individuals come to share self-enforcing expectations about collective behavior, so that societal rules and constraints have an effect on individual choice? Conventional accounts, such as contract and evolutionary theories or the analysis of conventions and social conflict, cannot explain the origins of social institutions because they do not address the origins of shared and self-enforcing expectations about collective behavior in a social situation. I analyze two separate stages of institutionalization. First, agents must imagine collective intentionality, so that an ‘imagined institution’ entailing a symbolic representation of collective behavior becomes common knowledge. Second, they must ‘enact’ it through shared and self-enforcing expectations on the path of play. In my model, the agents are goal-oriented, so the process is strategic throughout.
Acemoglu D. ( 2003) Why not a political coase theorem? Social conflict, commitment, and politics. Journal of Comparative Economics31(4): 620-652.
2.
Acemoglu D. and Johnson S. ( 2005) Unbundling institutions. Journal of Political Economy113(5): 949-995.
3.
Acemoglu D., Johnson S. and Robinson JA ( 2001) The colonial origins of comparative development: an empirical investigation. American Economic Review91(5): 1369-1401.
4.
Alchian AA ( 1950) Uncertainty, evolution, and economic theory. Journal of Political Economy58(3): 211-221.
5.
Anderson B. ( 1983) Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. London: Verso.
6.
Aoki M. ( 2001) Toward a Comparative Institutional Analysis. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
7.
Aumann RJ ( 1976) Agreeing to disagree. Annals of Statistics4(6): 1236-1239.
8.
Bednar J. and Page SE ( 2007) Can game(s) theory explain culture? The emergence of cultural behavior within multiple games. Rationality and Society19(1): 65-97.
9.
Berger PL and Luckmann T. ( 1966) The Social Construction of Reality: A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge. Garden City, NJ: Anchor Books.
10.
Biddle BJ ( 1986) Recent developments in role theory. Annual Review of Sociology12: 67-92.
11.
Boyd R. and Richerson PJ ( 1985) Culture and the Evolutionary Process. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
12.
Brandenburger A. and Dekel E. ( 1993) Hierarchies of beliefs and common knowledge. Journal of Economic Theory59(1): 189-198.
13.
Bratman ME ( 1992) Shared cooperative activity. Philosophical Review101(2): 327-341.
14.
Bratman ME ( 1993) Shared intention. Ethics104(1): 97-113.
15.
Cohen MD, March JG and Olsen JP ( 1972) A garbage can model of organizational choice. Administrative Science Quarterly17(1): 1-25.
16.
Coleman JS ( 1990) Foundations of Social Theory. Cambridge : Harvard University Press.
17.
Demsetz H. ( 1967) Toward a theory of property rights. American Economic Review57(2): 347-359.
18.
Denzau AT and North DC ( 1994) Shared mental models: ideologies and institutions . Kyklos47(1): 3-31.
19.
Diermeier D. and Krehbiel K. ( 2003) Institutionalism as a methodology. Journal of Theoretical Politics15(2): 123-144.
20.
Dowding K. ( 1991) Rational Choice and Political Power. Aldershot: Edward Elgar.
21.
Findley MG and Edwards S. ( 2007) Accounting for the unaccounted: weak-actor social structure in asymmetric wars. International Studies Quarterly51(3): 583-606.
22.
Fudenberg D. and Levine DK ( 1993) Self-confirming equilibrium. Econometrica61(3): 523-545.
23.
Fudenberg D. and Levine DK ( 1998) The Theory of Learning in Games. Cambridge : MIT Press.
24.
Geertz C. ( 1980) Negara: The Theatre State in Nineteenth-Century Bali. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
25.
Greif A. ( 1993) Contract enforceability and economic institutions in early trade: the Maghribi Traders’ Coalition. American Economic Review83(3): 525-548.
26.
Greif A. ( 1994) Cultural beliefs and the organization of society: a historical and theoretical reflection on collectivist and individualist societies. Journal of Political Economy102(5): 912-950.
27.
Greif A. ( 2006) Institutions and the Path to the Modern Economy: Lessons from Medieval Trade. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
28.
Greif A. and Laitin DD ( 2004) A theory of endogenous institutional change. American Political Science Review98(4): 633-652.
29.
Hammond RA and Axelrod R. ( 2006) The evolution of ethnocentrism. Journal of Conflict Resolution50(1): 1-11.
30.
Hardin G. ( 1968) The tragedy of the commons. Science162: 1243-1248.
31.
Hardin R. ( 1982) Collective Action. Baltimore : Johns Hopkins University Press.
32.
Hart HLA ( 1961) The Concept of Law. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
33.
Hayek FA ( 1960) The Constitution of Liberty. Chicago : University of Chicago Press.
34.
Hayek FA ( 1988) The Fatal Conceit: The Errors of Socialism. London: Routledge.
35.
Helmke G. and Levitsky S. ( 2004) Informal institutions and comparative politics: a research agenda. Perspectives on Politics2(4): 725-740.
36.
Hirshleifer J. ( 1977) Economics from a biological viewpoint. Journal of Law and Economics20(1): 1-52.
37.
Hobbes T. ( 1998[1651]) Leviathan. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
38.
Hodgson GM ( 2002) The evolution of institutions: an agenda for future theoretical research. Constitutional Political Economy13(2): 111-127.
39.
Hodgson GM ( 2006) What are institutions? Journal of Economic Issues40(1): 1-25.
40.
Hodgson GM ( 2007) Meanings of methodological individualism. Journal of Economic Methodology14(2): 211-226.
41.
Holland JH, Holyoak KJ, Nisbett RE and Thagard PR ( 1986) Induction: Processes of Inference, Learning, and Discovery . Cambridge: MIT Press .
42.
Hume D. ( 1986[1739-40]) A Treatise of Human Nature. New York: Penguin Books.
43.
Hurwicz L. ( 1996) Institutions as families of game forms. Japanese Economic Review47(2): 113-132.
44.
Jones BD ( 1999) Bounded rationality. Annual Review of Political Science2: 297-321.
45.
Keohane RO ( 1984) After Hegemony: Cooperation and Discord in the World Political Economy. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
46.
Knight J. ( 1992) Institutions and Social Conflict. New York: Cambridge University Press.
47.
Knight J and Sened I (eds) (1998) Explaining Social Institutions . Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
48.
Kuran T. ( 1991) Now out of never: the element of surprise in the East European revolution of 1989. World Politics44(1): 7-48.
49.
Lewis DK ( 1969) Convention: A Philosophical Study. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
50.
Locke J. ( 1980[1689]) Second Treatise of Government. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing.
51.
Mailath GJ and Samuelson L. ( 2006) Repeated Games and Reputations: Long-Run Relationships . New York: Oxford University Press .
52.
Metcalfe JS ( 1995) Technology systems and technology policy in an evolutionary framework. Cambridge Journal of Economics19(1): 25-46.
53.
Meyer JW and Rowan B. ( 1977) Institutionalized organizations: formal structure as myth and ceremony. American Journal of Sociology83(2): 340-363.
54.
Nelson RR and Winter SG ( 1982) An Evolutionary Theory of Economic Change. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
55.
North DC ( 1990) Institutions, Institutional Change and Economic Performance . New York: Cambridge University Press.
56.
North DC and Weingast BR ( 1989) Constitutions and commitment: the evolution of institutions governing public choice in seventeenth-century England. Journal of Economic History49(4): 803-832.
57.
Ogilvie S. ( 2007) Whatever is, is right? Economic institutions in pre-industrial Europe. Economic History Review60(4): 649-684.
58.
Osborne MJ and Rubinstein A. ( 1994) A Course in Game Theory. Cambridge : MIT Press.
59.
Ostrom E. ( 1990) Governing the Commons: The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action. New York: Cambridge University Press.
60.
Ostrom E. ( 2005) Understanding Institutional Diversity. Princeton: Princeton University Press .
61.
Pierson P. ( 2000) The limits of design: explaining institutional origins and change. Governance13(4): 475-499.
62.
Riker WH ( 1980) Implications from the disequilibrium of majority rule for the study of institutions. American Political Science Review74(2): 432-446.
63.
Rodrik D., Subramanian A. and Trebbi F. ( 2004) Institutions rule: the primacy of institutions over geography and integration in economic development. Journal of Economic Growth9(2): 131-165.
64.
Rubinstein A. ( 1998) Modeling Bounded Rationality. Cambridge : MIT Press.
65.
Savage LJ ( 1954) The Foundations of Statistics. New York: John Wiley and Sons.
66.
Schelling TC ( 1960) The Strategy of Conflict. Cambridge : Harvard University Press.
67.
Schotter A. ( 1981) The Economic Theory of Social Institutions. New York: Cambridge University Press.
68.
Scott WR ( 2008) Approaching adulthood: the maturing of institutional theory . Theory and Society37(5): 427-442.
69.
Searle JR ( 1990) Collective intentions and actions. In: Cohen PR, Morgan J and Pollack ME (eds) Intentions in Communication . Cambridge: MIT Press.
70.
Searle JR ( 1995) The Construction of Social Reality. New York: Free Press.
71.
Searle JR ( 2005) What is an institution? Journal of Institutional Economics1(1): 1-22.
72.
Shepsle KA ( 1986) Institutional equilibrium and equilibrium institutions . In: Weisberg HF (ed.) Political Science: The Science of Politics. New York: Agathon.
73.
Stinchcombe AL ( 1968) Constructing Social Theories. Chicago : University of Chicago Press.
74.
Sugden R. ( 1989) Spontaneous order. Journal of Economic Perspectives3(4): 85-97.
75.
Taylor M. ( 1987) The Possibility of Cooperation. New York: Cambridge University Press.
76.
Tuomela R. ( 1995) The Importance of Us: A Philosophical Study of Basic Social Notions. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
77.
Tuomela R. and Miller K. ( 1988) We-intentions. Philosophical Studies53(3): 367-389.
78.
Ullmann-Margalit E. ( 1977) The Emergence of Norms. New York: Oxford University Press.
79.
Vanberg VJ ( 1994) Rules and Choice in Economics. New York: Routledge.
80.
Weick KE ( 1995) Sensemaking in Organizations. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications.
81.
Weingast BR and Marshall WJ ( 1988) The industrial organization of congress: or, why legislatures, like firms, are not organized as markets. Journal of Political Economy96(1): 132-163.
82.
Williamson OE ( 1975) Markets and Hierarchies: Analysis and Antitrust Implications . New York: The Free Press.
83.
Williamson OE ( 1985) The Economic Institutions of Capitalism: Firms, Markets, Relational Contracting. New York: The Free Press.
84.
Witt U. ( 1989) The evolution of economic institutions as a propagation process. Public Choice62(2): 155-172.
85.
Wydra H. ( 2007) Communism and the Emergence of Democracy. New York: Cambridge University Press.
86.
Young HP ( 1993) The evolution of conventions. Econometrica61(1): 57-84.
87.
Young HP ( 1998) Individual Strategy and Social Structure: An Evolutionary Theory of Institutions. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
88.
Zaibert LA ( 2003) Collective intentions and collective intentionality . American Journal of Economics and Sociology62(1): 203-232.
89.
Zucker LG ( 1977) The role of institutionalization in cultural persistence . American Sociological Review42(5): 726-743.
