Understanding the nature of change: how institutional perspectives can inform contemporary studies of development cooperation

Abstract

This article argues that core lines of sociological institutionalist thought provide a set of valuable conceptual and theoretical vocabularies for exploring and explaining contemporary concerns of development cooperation. It identifies four broad categories of issues of central attention in the current study of development cooperation, and couples these with four avenues of sociological institutional research that may provide us with theoretical and conceptual frameworks for further empirically exploring and theoretically extrapolating these. Increasing attention to these theoretical concerns not only helps us progress the study of development cooperation, it may also allow us to inform contemporary institutional thinking.

Keywords:

• Development cooperation
• institutional theory
• organisational change
• development studies
• new actors in development

Notes

1. Lawrence and Suddaby, “Institutions and Institutional Work”, p. 216.

2. Greenwood and Suddaby, “Institutional Entrepreneurship in Mature Fields”; and Zucker, “The Role of Institutionalization.”

3. Barley and Tolbert, “Institutionalization and Structuration.”

4. Suddaby and Greenwood, “Methodological Issues”, p. 177.

5. Kragelund, “The Return of Non-DAC Donors”; and Woods, “Whose Aid? Whose Influence?”

6. Horký and Lightfoot, “From Aid Recipients to Aid Donors?”

7. Moran, Private Foundations and Development Partnerships; McGoey, No Such Thing as a Free Gift; and Fejerskov, “From Unconventional to Ordinary?”

8. See Richey and Ponte, “Better (Red)^TM than Dead?”

9. Chin and Quadir, “Introduction”; Rowlands, “Individual BRICS or a Collective Bloc?”; Zimmermann and Smith, “More Actors, More Money”; and Kragelund, “The Return of Non-DAC Donors.”

10. Mawdsley, “The Changing Geographies of Foreign Aid”; and Fejerskov, “From Unconventional to Ordinary?”

11. Byrkjeflot et al., “From Label to Practice.”

12. Scott, Institutions and Organizations.

13. Fligstein, The Transformation of Corporate Control, p. 6.

14. Dingwerth and Pattberg, “World Politics and Organizational Fields.”

15. Brint and Karabel, “Institutional Origins and Transformation.”

16. Hoffman, “Institutional Evolution and Change.”

17. Vetterlein and Moschella, “International Organizations and Organizational Fields.”

18. Giddens, Central Problems in Social Theory.

19. DiMaggio and Powell, “The Iron Cage Revisited.”

20. Ibid.

21. Scott et al., Institutional Change and Healthcare Organizations.

22. Cornwall, “Buzzwords and Fuzzwords.”

23. Sehnbruch et al., “Human Development and Decent Work.”

24. Mosse, “Is Good Policy Unimplementable?”; and Mosse and Lewis, ”Theoretical Approaches to Brokerage.”

25. DiMaggio and Powell, “The Iron Cage Revisited.”

26. Ansari et al., “Made to Fit.”

27. Ikenberry, “Rethinking the Origins of American Hegemony.”

28. Land et al., “Religious Pluralism and Church Membership.”

29. Strang and Meyer, “Institutional Conditions for Diffusion.”

30. Ibid.

31. Czarniawska and Joerges, “Travels of Ideas.”

32. Ibid.

33. Mosse and Lewis, “Theoretical Approaches to Brokerage.”

34. Cornwall, “Buzzwords and Fuzzwords”; and Long, Sociology of Development.

35. Friedland and Alford, “Bringing Society back In.”

36. Thornton and Ocasio, “Institutional Logics”, p. 207.

37. Meyer et al., “Of Bureaucrats and Passionate Public Managers.”

38. Reay et al., “Transforming New Ideas into Practice.”

39. Hoffman, “Institutional Evolution and Change.”

40. Reay and Hinnings, “Managing the Rivalry.”

41. Thornton et al., The Institutional Logics Perspective.

42. See Chant and Sweetman, “Fixing Women or Fixing the World?”

43. Abrutyn and Turner, “The Old Institutionalism.”

44. Bierschenk and Olivier de Sardan, “Studying the Dynamics of African Bureaucracies.”

45. Selznick, TVA and the Grass Roots; and Selznick, Leadership in Administration.

46. DiMaggio, “Interest and Agency in Institutional Theory”, p. 14.

47. Lawrence and Suddaby, “Institutions and Institutional Work”; and Lawrence et al., “Institutional Work.”

48. DiMaggio, “Interest and Agency in Institutional Theory”, p. 14.

49. Battilana et al., “How Actors change Institutions.”

50. Hardy and Maguire, “Institutional Entrepreneurship.”

51. Beckert, “Agency, Entrepreneurs, and Institutional Change.”

52. Strang and Meyer, “Institutional Conditions for Diffusion.”

53. Lawrence and Suddaby, “Institutions and Institutional Work”, p. 218.

54. DiMaggio, “Interest and Agency in Institutional Theory.”

55. Oliver, “Strategic Responses to Institutional Processes.”

56. Schatzki et al., The Practice Turn in Contemporary Theory, p. 2.

57. Davis and Marquis, “Prospects for Organization Theory.”

58. Suddaby et al., “Introduction to Special Topic Forum.”

59. Boxenbaum and Rouleau, “New Knowledge Products as Bricolage.”

60. Birkinshaw et al., “Debating the Future.”

61. Suddaby et al., “Introduction to Special Topic Forum.”