Institutions and Decision-Making

Neo-institutionalism has become the main unifying approach within Comparative Politics and International Relations. The goal of this section is to probe the explanatory power of this approach for settings that are characterized by an extraordinary degree of institutional innovation. Such settings are widely, though not exclusively, found at the intersection between international and domestic politics. The expected changes in the institutional setup of the European Union only provides the most vivid example, while other institutional innovations at the domestic level or beyond are often as important. And especially in the realm of decision-making in these areas, neo-institutionalism as an approach appears of considerable value. The section thus aims at bringing together scholars interested in assessing the value of this approach in the study of decision-making. The panels will also discuss the limitations of neoinstutionalist research. Thus, the section invites innovative papers that make a significant contribution to the scientific analysis of political decision making in all subfields of political science. Authors who develop explicit public choice models and link rigorously derived hypotheses to systematic tests are particularly encouraged to apply. This section is part of the activities of the ECPR Standing Group on Analytical Politics and Public Choice. Although we do not want to limit the range of the substantive applications, we particularly welcome proposals that could fit into one of the section panels.