Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
theorized. Definitions usually refer to a situation with relaxed structural influences that leads
first to more options for actors and second to a higher impact of their decisions (Capoccia,
Kelemen 2006: 3 7; Thelen 1999: 390 392; Hall, Taylor 1996: 942). Capoccia and Kelemen
(2006: 7) define critical junctures as “relatively short periods of time during which there is a
substantially heightened probability that agents' choices will affect the outcome of interest”.
However, it is impossible to create a general hypothesis of why and how a juncture turns out
to be a critical one, i.e. how a change in behavior becomes institutionalized. The question that
needs to be addressed is then in our case: Do the new rules and organizations formally de
signed for new modes of water governance get institutionalized (hence effective) or are they
undermined by informal institutions and by powerful actors interested in the persistence of old
institutional arrangements?
3.3.1.2
Institutional Bricolage
While critical junctures are conceptualized as a temporary, external challenge for the institution
in question, others argue that change can also come from within. Friedland and Alford for
example conceptualize society as a “potentially contradictory interinstitutional system” (Fried
land, Alford 1991: 240), in which institutions are interdependent but also contradictory, and
which is hence “constituted through multiple institutional logics” (Friedland, Alford 1991:
243). These different logics can come into conflict: Some logics are appreciated for a certain
institutions, but despised when added to another (e.g. unconditional loyalty is perceived as
good in family, but bad in the political sphere). Hence, individual or collective actors can
choose between different logics. Change occurs when one certain institutional logic is applied
to another institution and transforms it. Streeck and Thelen (2005) describe such a gradual
institutional transformation with their concept of
displacement
:
different incoherent logics of
institutions enable deviant behavior, as other institutional logics can be rediscovered and reac
tivated to legitimize it.
Institutions are therefore subject to constant manipulation by social actors who do not
follow all norms and rules blindly but, according to the specific situation and circumstances,
weigh them against each other (Lewellen 2003: 98). The constant dynamic of society and insti
tutions hence provides options for actors to choose and change institutions. Tensions between
institutions can culminate in a crisis which indicates a turning point in a certain political field
and results in a new balance of power between the respective components (Lewellen 2003:
99f). This may be the case when a certain institutional logic possesses more legitimacy than
another and is applied to other fields as well. Concerning the subject of water, those contradic
tions can occur within the water institutional structure as well as between water institutional
structure and institutional environment (Saleth, Dinar 2005: 3f).
An approach to institutional change that stresses these constraining as well as enabling
aspects of institutions and the gradual change from within is the concept of
institutional bricolage
.
Claude Levi Strauss introduced the term
bricolage
to describe an intellectual activity characteris
tic for the “savage mind” in which pre existing materials which are ready to hand are appro
priated.
10
The French verb
bricoler
is used “to emphasize a non presaged movement”
11
(Levi
Strauss 1968: 29), although the choice is limited by the elements available. The individual ele
10
Mary Douglas (1987: 66f) made the point that bricolage as a way of institutional thinking can be found in every
culture and stage of development and hence is not restricted to the so-called 'primitive thought'.
11
“um eine nicht vorgezeichnete Bewegung zu betonen” translation JS.
Search WWH ::
Custom Search