Criteria of Stabilisation and Stability to Preserve Institutions – Stability of German Estate Assemblies under Conditions of Great Environment/Niche Change

In the 12th and 13th century the rulers of the German principalities needed the three estates (clergy, nobility and commoners) to grant taxes. The three estates constituted in form of estate assemblies and got the right to assemble whenever the politics of the rulers affected their rights. The assemblies gained more power and competences over time and some of them become extremely stable and lasted for over 400 years. Analyzing the German estate assemblies by using the Evolutionary Institutionalism approach allows – among other things – to show how institutions achieve stable reproduction and how and why they change. It also allows to carve out the circumstances of stability and how institutions try to stabilize themselves – even under the conditions of great environment/niche change. The question here is: What made the estate assemblies so stable – not just preserving the institution itself but also in maintaining the (approximate) originally institutional form? By answering this question with EI approach it should be possible to find substantial criteria of stabilization and stability which might be useful for analyzing strength and stability of other institutions. Especially in the case of institutional engineering – or better institutional gardening – this criteria might be helpful to evaluate the durability of political institutions.