Political science is the scientific study of politics. It is a social science dealing with systems of governance and power, and the analysis of political activities, political thought, political behavior, and associated constitutions and laws.
An institution is a humanly devised structure of rules and norms that shape and constrain individual behavior. All definitions of institutions generally entail that there is a level of persistence and continuity. Laws, rules, social conventions and norms are all examples of institutions. Institutions vary in their level of formality and informality.
New institutionalism is an approach to the study of institutions that focuses on the constraining and enabling effects of formal and informal rules on the behavior of individuals and groups. New institutionalism traditionally encompasses three major strands: sociological institutionalism, rational choice institutionalism, and historical institutionalism. New institutionalism originated in work by sociologist John Meyer published in 1977.
Karl Gunnar Myrdal was a Swedish economist and sociologist.
Arend d'Angremond Lijphart is a Dutch-American political scientist specializing in comparative politics, elections and voting systems, democratic institutions, and ethnicity and politics. He is Research Professor Emeritus of Political Science at the University of California, San Diego. He is influential for his work on consociational democracy and his contribution to the new Institutionalism in political science.
Comparative politics is a field in political science characterized either by the use of the comparative method or other empirical methods to explore politics both within and between countries. Substantively, this can include questions relating to political institutions, political behavior, conflict, and the causes and consequences of economic development. When applied to specific fields of study, comparative politics may be referred to by other names, such as comparative government.
Theda Skocpol is an American sociologist and political scientist, who is currently the Victor S. Thomas Professor of Government and Sociology at Harvard University. She is best known as an advocate of the historical-institutional and comparative approaches, as well as her "state autonomy theory". She has written widely for both popular and academic audiences. She has been President of the American Political Science Association and the Social Science History Association.
Historical institutionalism (HI) is a new institutionalist social science approach that emphasizes how timing, sequences and path dependence affect institutions, and shape social, political, economic behavior and change. Unlike functionalist theories and some rational choice approaches, historical institutionalism tends to emphasize that many outcomes are possible, small events and flukes can have large consequences, actions are hard to reverse once they take place, and that outcomes may be inefficient. A critical juncture may set in motion events that are hard to reverse, because of issues related to path dependency. Historical institutionalists tend to focus on history to understand why specific events happen.
Paul Pierson is an American professor of political science specializing in comparative politics and holder of the John Gross Endowed Chair of Political Science at the University of California, Berkeley. From 2007-2010 he served at UC Berkeley as Chair of the Department of Political Science. He is noted for his research on comparative public policy and political economy, the welfare state, and American political development. His works on the welfare state and historical institutionalism have been characterized as influential.
Bo Abraham Mendel Rothstein is a Swedish political scientist. He is a former Professor of Government and Public Policy at University of Oxford's Blavatnik School of Government.
Comparative historical research is a method of social science that examines historical events in order to create explanations that are valid beyond a particular time and place, either by direct comparison to other historical events, theory building, or reference to the present day. Generally, it involves comparisons of social processes across times and places. It overlaps with historical sociology. While the disciplines of history and sociology have always been connected, they have connected in different ways at different times. This form of research may use any of several theoretical orientations. It is distinguished by the types of questions it asks, not the theoretical framework it employs.
Vivien A. Schmidt is an American academic of political science and international relations. At Boston University, she is the Jean Monnet Chair of European Integration Professor of International Relations in the Pardee School of Global Studies, and Professor of Political Science. She is known for her work on political economy, policy analysis, democratic theory, and new institutionalism. She is a 2018 recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship and has been named a Chevalier in the French Legion of Honor.
Peter Flora is an Austrian citizen and taught until his retirement in spring 2009 as a professor of sociology at the University of Mannheim. Peter Flora is a son of the Austrian drawer, caricaturist, graphic artist and illustrator Paul Flora.
Rational choice institutionalism (RCI) is a theoretical approach to the study of institutions arguing that actors use institutions to maximize their utility, and that institutions affect rational individual behavior. Rational choice institutionalism arose initially from the study of congressional behaviour in the U.S. in the late 1970s. Influential early RCI scholarship was done by political economists at California Institute of Technology, University of Rochester, and Washington University. It employs analytical tools borrowed from neo-classical economics to explain how institutions are created, the behaviour of political actors within it, and the outcome of strategic interaction.
Sergio Fabbrini is an Italian political scientist. He is Head of the Department of Political Science and Professor of Political science and International relations at Libera Università Internazionale degli Studi Sociali Guido Carli in Rome, where he holds the Intesa Sanpaolo Chair on European Governance. He had also the Pierre Keller Visiting Professorship Chair at the Harvard University, Kennedy School of Government (2019/2020). He is the co-founder and former Director of the LUISS School of Government He is also recurrent professor of Comparative Politics at the Institute of Governmental Studies at the University of California at Berkeley.
Policy network analysis is a field of research in political science focusing on the links and interdependence between government's sections and other societal actors, aiming to understand the policy-making process and public policy outcomes.
Kathleen Thelen is an American political scientist specializing in comparative politics. She is the Ford Professor of Political Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), a permanent external member of the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies (MPIfG), and a faculty associate at the Center for European Studies (CES) at Harvard University.
NORFACE Welfare State Futures (WSF) Programme is an interdisciplinary transnational research programme focusing on future developments of European welfare states. It was launched in 2014 by the New Opportunities for Research Funding Agency Co-operation in Europe (NORFACE) network. Including 15 transnational projects with 250 researchers from 25 European countries, the programme analyzes the societal, economic, political and legal aspects of welfare state development and suggests pathways of its evolution in the future. As a key element of their research, the WSF projects enable and encourage cross-national cooperation, multi-disciplinary research and offer a wide European approach with opportunities for comparison. The programme is coordinated by Scientific Programme Coordinator Prof. Ellen Immergut at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin (HUB)/European University Institute (EUI). It is funded by 15 NORFACE partners and the European Commission under the ERA-Net Plus funding, grant agreement number 618106. After the inception of the WSF Programme, NORFACE has gained 4 new partners, such that there are currently 19 members. More information about the NORFACE network and its partners can be found on the NORFACE website. The final conference including projects of all clusters, policymakers and industry experts was held at the European University Institute (EUI) on May 24–25, 2018. The Programme ends in June 2019.
Critical juncture theory focuses on critical junctures, i.e., large, rapid, discontinuous changes, and the long-term causal effect or historical legacy of these changes. Critical junctures are turning points that alter the course of evolution of some entity. Critical juncture theory seeks to explain both (1) the historical origin and maintenance of social order, and (2) the occurrence of social change through sudden, big leaps.
