Rational Choice Approaches and the Analysis of Institutional Changes
Rational Choice Approaches and the Analysis of Institutional Changes

Summary/Abstract: The endpoint of the present process is the description of the neo-institutional and theoretical elements, with a highlight on their utility in the study of post-communist transitions. My main idea claims that the performances registered by the societies in transition are depending on institutional elections. Practically, the transition processes are depending on the existing structures and on the new institutional elections. Because of this fact, there is no universal prototype of development, but we can clearly observe a large diversity of post-communist traces, since these elections do not take place in an institutional null. From an institutional point of view, we can consider that the study of transactions can be reduced to the idea of following and understanding the way in which institutions change, when the regimes are changing. Nevertheless, the idea of understanding the manner of an institutional change (a dynamic approach) remains a delicate subject, not only in the political science area but also in sociology. In this context, I consider that the non-institutional “rational choice” approaches offer a methodical manner of studying the institutions, but, furthermore, they offer a proper idea of understanding the way in which the change in institutions is made. Having a complete image of the mechanisms that generate important changes in some institutions, the study of transitions, in general, and the post-communist ones, in particular, are becoming more and more important.

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