Understanding Asymmetries among Institutions: Hierarchies and Cumulative Causation

Some institutions appear to exhibit ‘pathologies', which are most often analysed in functionalist terms (‘dysfunctional'). The paper firstly underscores that the concept of institutional ‘pathology' may be refined: it implies criteria, ‘pathologies' being assessed in terms of their negative impacts on efficiency, income or welfare. However, many non-industrial societies (but also modern ones) have put in place different criteria of achievement. Conspicuous consumption or endemic warfare may be suicidal from the point of view of economic efficiency, but optimal institutions when status and honour are overarching goals. The paper then argues that institutions are concepts, which are moreover composite, in the sense that they include forms and contents that combine in ways that constantly evolve with time and contexts. They imply cascades of processes involving individual cognition and interactions between individuals. Yet there is a hierarchy in institutions and some institutions are related to others by sequential orders. In an evolutionary perspective, some institutions can be viewed as ‘core' and more resilient, i.e. typically those organising group membership. The point is that in some cases this hierarchy in institutions may evolve in asymmetries: some beliefs, institutions and social norms may absorb or crowd-out others, which become subservient to the former. In terms of mechanisms, such processes typically rely on cumulative causation, self reinforcement, lock-in effects (‘traps'). Due to the compositional nature of institutions, these combinations and asymmetries among institutions are time and space-dependent, they are not ex ante predictable. Because membership institutions are more ‘core' than others, the latter are more exposed to the abovementioned evolution, particularly those defining ethnic groups, territories, classes, or religions. Indeed, such an evolution is favoured by properties that these institutions have in common: the degree of fixation of beliefs is higher, they are organised in non-refutable devices and provide rewards. In the context of cognitive cascades and discontinuities, the institutions that have the strongest deontic force and capacity of providing security thus create the strongest incentives to adhere to them: they have therefore the greatest ability to persist, feed on and reduce the relevance of other institutions.