The Study of International Institutions: From Old Institutionalism to New Institutionalism

The early study of international institutions had the obvious features of the formal or legal institutional analysis with the title of old institutionalism. The revolution of behavioralism and the concept of international regimes provided academic background for replacement of the new institutionalism for the old institutionalism. At least, the new institutionalism has been divided into three different types of new institutionalism: rational choice institutionalism, sociological institutionalism and historical institutionalism. As far as the basic logic of action is concerned, the rational choice institutionalism can be ascribed to the logic of expected consequences, and sociological institutionalism can be attributed to the logic of appropriateness. However, rational choice institutionalism and sociological institutionalism share the same concept of efficient histories. On the contrary, the historical institutionalists insist that histories are often inefficient and thus bring history back in their institutional approach.