Deinstitutionalization

Most theorists conceive of an institution as a set of rules or norms that shape individual or group behavior. Deinstitutionalization describes the weakening of the norms and rules that previously dictated individual and group behavior within organizations or, more generally, in the political arena. Institutions are often reinforced by a concrete set of formal organizations or procedures. When deinstitutionalization occurs, these formal organizations or procedures may breakdown as they lose broad support, funding, and other resources. Writing on deinstitutionalization falls into three broad categories: (1) studies of the breakdown of rational-legal institutions, (2) studies of the decline of formal organizations, and (3) studies of how and why norms change or weaken.

Certain scholars use the term deinstitutionalization to refer to the displacement or breakdown of the rules and formal procedures that Max Weber identified as the basis for the modern state. Weber argued that in modern states, formal procedures rather than personal prerogative govern state action because the state is organized around a set of rules embodied in law and bureaucratic procedure. Deinstitutionalization of a modern state, therefore, entails the breakdown of formal, impersonal rules and procedures and their replacement by a personalized or an informal system of governance. For example, the Senegalese bureaucracy today is being deinstitutionalized as civil service laws are being pushed aside in favor of recruitment based on personal contacts, and public policies are increasingly dictated by presidential prerogative rather than by bureaucratic policy-making procedures.

A second category of scholars equates an institution with a formal organization that plays a fundamental role in structuring political activity, such as a political party. For these scholars, deinstitutionalization refers to the weakening of specific organizations and their increasing irrelevance to political and social life. This concept of deinstitutionalization is used, for example, to describe the increasing political impotence of labor unions in Latin America.

Finally, scholars of organizational theory concentrate on institutions as shared sets of values that structure activity. As such, their concern with deinstitutionalism has primarily been with explaining under what circumstances values change and norms disappear.

Because there is no consensus about the definition of deinstitutionalization, it is difficult to hypothesize what causes it. Deinstitutionalization of a specific organization may be caused by endogenous forces such as a performance crisis or technological change, but most scholars agree deinstitutionalization likely comes from exogenous forces, such as large-scale economic, demographic, or social change. Latin American labor unions, for example, were deinstitutionalized in part because neoliberalism caused a change in the composition of the labor force. Why rules and norms weaken is difficult to assess. Some scholars use large-scale exogenous change to explain deinstitutionalization. Others see moments of crisis, learning, or technological innovation as sources of institutional change.