Institutions: Questions of Power and Democracy

Institutions are constraints that structure political, economic, and social interactions. They consist of both informal and formal rules, evolve incrementally, connecting the past with the present and the future; history in consequence is largely a story of institutional evolution in which the historical performance can only be understood as a part of a story. Institutions shape the role of the state over time and are repeated patterns of behavior around which beliefs are deposited. Institutions are also political actors. Multiple disciplinary perspectives, careful scholarly analysis, and the search for recurrent historical patterns inspire this course offering and serve as its framework.