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Abstract
This article argues that North does not conceptualise the difference between ideologies as shared beliefs, which arise from shared mental models in consequence of bottom-up processes, and ideologies as views which stimulate top-down institutional processes, by means of which informal norms and existing beliefs are re-oriented. Top-down processes are possible because shared beliefs are characterised by variety and malleability, rather than by a (homogeneous) “cultural heritage”. Although in North’s theory the reciprocal influence between informal and formal norms is interpretable as an alternation of bottom-up and top-down processes, he does not develop this perspective.
Acknowledgements
We thank the two anonymous reviewers for their helpful suggestions and comments.
Notes
1 In terms of institutional analysis, this perspective regards both dynamics of “reconstructive downward causation” (Hodgson Citation2003), and dynamics according to which changes at the institutional level affect the lower level and induce changes in individuals’ and shared mental models in a reconstructive way (Ambrosino Citation2016).
2 North points out that “Organizations with sufficient bargaining strength will use the polity to achieve objectives when the payoff from maximizing in [a certain] direction exceeds the payoff from investing within the existing constraints” (North Citation1990, p. 79).
3 Mokyr (Citation2017, chs. 6-8) defines “cultural entrepreneurs” as people who persuade individuals to accept new beliefs, influence their behaviour, affect institutions. Among them he considers Luther, Bacon, and Newton. These figures are akin to North’s “ideological entrepreneurs”, Greif’s “moral entrepreneurs”, and Swedberg’s “social entrepreneurs” (Mokyr Citation2017, p. 59). Also Sunstein’s (Citation1996) “norm entrepreneurs” are similar to North’s ideological entrepreneurs.
4 As Helmke and Levitsky (Citation2004, p. 732) also remark, “to the extent that formal institutional change alters costs and benefits of adhering to particular informal rules, it can serve as an important catalyst for informal institutional change”.
5 For example, some private economic activities were legalized, and with Glasnost more freedom of expression and reduction of censorship were introduced (North 2005, pp. 152-153).
6 In North’s model, policies alter perceptions of reality and engender new beliefs, also by providing incentives which shape individuals’ and organizations’ behaviours. Similarly, for example, policies during the “era of war communism” produced “negative incentives with respect to worker productivity and peasant agricultural output [which] had the expected consequences” (North 2005, p. 147).
7 This implies that the two kinds of ideology can be relatively autonomous. In this perspective Roe underlines that ideology, as a set of “opinions of average people”, often does not influence policy choices. People can be uninterested and confused, and “when the political issue at hand evokes cross-cutting ideological preferences, confusion, and indifference, politicians can safely ignore ideology” (Roe Citation1994, p. 27). Therefore, policies, with their ideological contents, are not always expressions of popular ideologies.
8 Aoki (Citation2010, p. 140) remarks that North (2005) considers ideologies in top-down processes, when he “argues throughout the book that the dominant beliefs held by political and economic entrepreneurs in policy-making positions play important roles in determining the direction of institutional change”.
9 These two social orders “arose over the last ten millennia”. In particular, natural states or “limited access orders” “emerged in the first social revolution”. Their feature is that “Personal relationships […] form the basis for social organization”, while “In the open access orders that emerged in the second social revolution, […] impersonal categories of individuals, often called citizens, interact over wide areas of social behavior with no need to be cognizant of the individual identity of their partners.” (North, Wallis and Weingast 2009, p. 2).
10 The idea of a uniform cultural heritage has been criticized. In anthropology, also in reference to North, Olivier de Sardan (Citation2013, pp. 285-287) prefers to adopt the notion of “normative pluralism” (Olivier de Sardan Citation2008b). And Zweynert (Citation2009), partially following Kahlil (2006), and criticizing North, observes that “The notion of culture as a more or less homogenous, randomly given, and unchangeable ‘cultural heritage’ holds the dangers of turning culture into a ‘catch-all’ explanation for the differences between societies that cannot be explained otherwise […] and of cultural fatalism.” (Zweynert Citation2009, p. 347). By contrast, culture is not something that is homogeneous, but rather a heterogeneous and changeable toolkit.
11 The construction of the institutional system and of social reality is discussed within sociology of knowledge by Berger and Luckmann (Citation1966).
12 “‘Invented tradition’ is taken to mean a set of practices, normally governed by overtly or tacitly accepted rules and of a ritual or symbolic nature, which seek to inculcate certain values and norms of behavior by repetition, which automatically implies continuity with the past.” (Hobsbawn Citation1983, p. 1).
13 From a different perspective, Hodgson (Citation2009) discusses the role of the State and of law, and he points out that they cannot be reduced to a mere extension of customs.
14 This expression introduced by Schelling (Citation1960) indicates “some clue for coordinating behaviors” (p. 57) on the basis of its salience.
15 Also the libertarian paternalism, which presents choice architecture as a strategy which mobilizes civic behaviours, seems compatible with the perspective of the social construction of meanings (see Thaler and Sunstein Citation2008).
16 For example, effects of alignment and misalignment are that “A common belief system which embodies social norms consistent with the policies of the ruler will reduce the use of coercion; and conversely, diverse belief systems or a common belief system at odds with the policies of the ruler will increase the ruler’s reliance on coercion.” (North 2005, p. 104).
17 As regards the notion of efficiency, North maintains that he uses “the term efficient […] to indicate a condition where the existing set of constraints will produce economic growth. Specifically, institutions that enable the parties in the exchange to capture more of the gains from trade will grow relative to those that fail to realize this potential” (North Citation1990, p. 92). On the notion of efficiency and the reduction of transaction costs see also North (Citation1990, chap. 8).
18 “[F]ormal rules, or political status makes informal constraints change at a different rate than formal rules” (North Citation1990, p. 87). Rapid changes in formal rules are particularly evident in consequence of revolutions (North Citation1990, p. 89).
19 The definition of alignment and misalignment can be problematic. Corruption, clientelism, political patronage and clan politics corrode formal norms. For this reason, as expressions of informal organizations and informal norms, these degenerative phenomena engender an institutional misalignment and are usually repressed by law. However, they often prosper at the expense of formal institutions, from which they extract resources. This can determine an inefficient alignment, rather than a misalignment, between formal and informal institutions. It is not unusual for mafias or similar organizations to seek to exert direct influence upon political decisions (Lauth Citation2000, pp. 25–6). The practice of “blat” in the Soviet Union shows that it can be difficult to distinguish between inefficient alignment and misalignment. “Blat is the use of personal networks and informal contacts to obtain goods and services in short supply and to find a way around formal procedures”. If, on the one hand, this practice was a “’deviant’ outcome of the centralised system of control” (i.e., it denoted misalignment), on the other, it was “indispensable for the functioning of the system” (i.e., it denoted inefficient alignment) (Ledeneva Citation1998, p. 1 and p. 77).
20 Of course, the same scheme can be applied to explain the persistence of efficient norms.
21 In other words, the role of “entrepreneurs of ideology” is not performed only by intellectuals and opinion leaders, who work to change existing shared beliefs and try to introduce into formal institutions the ideas they support; it is also exercised by existing formal institutions which try to influence the formation of new shared beliefs. In the former case, this function accelerates bottom-up processes, while in the latter, it stimulates top-down processes.
22 Of course, a reverse movement occurs in bottom-up processes when opinion leaders try to change existing popular ideologies by exploiting the porosity of shared beliefs.