Chapter 13: Institutional Design

Josep M. Colomer

Institutional design Institutional design is the choice of rules for collective decision-making. At the moment of designing institutions, two main questions have to be addressed: who is entitled to participate? and how will decisions be made? The first question points to the design of the community. Collective decisions can be enforceable if people within some boundaries think or accept they share enough with the others to abide by the outcomes, even if they find themselves to be losers or in a minority on some issues, or if the costs of not complying are too high. The Western European model of nation-state building has been too often taken as the only reference and interesting path for building a political community. Political science is still very state-centered. However, recent and current developments, in both Europe and the rest of the world, demand for a more diversified menu, as we will discuss in ...

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