Social Rule System Theory - Rule System Change and Evolution

Rule System Change and Evolution

Institutional change entails changes in particular rule complexes and/or enforcement activities to the effect that new or deviant patterns of action and interaction are generated and encouraged . Social rule system theorists point to three major power mechanisms of rule system reproduction and change to explain the evolution of social rule systems and institutional arrangements : the selective action of the environment; the constraining and facilitating conditions of institutional arrangements with their technologies, available resources, and participants; and creative/destructive human agency.

Selective environments operate to bring about the successes of some rule structures and the failure of others and, thereby, shifts in the prevalence of different forms. Rule system changes may be also initiated by social agents. For instance, an elite "legislates" an institutional change, or a social movement brings about change through coming to direct power or effectively pressuring and negotiating with an established power elite. Changes are also brought about through more dispersed processes, e.g. where one or more agents of a population discover a new technical or performance strategy and others copy the strategy, and, in this way, the rule innovation diffuses through social networks of communication and exchange.

The introduction by social agents of new rules and their expression in transformed patterns of action or in innovative physical artifacts – such as technologies and socio-technical infrastructures – is a major part of institutional change and evolution. In other words, institutionalized changes may be brought about by the "selective forces" of social as well as physical environments or by the direct action of social agents. This model of change is applicable to economic, political, administrative, socio-technical, and scientific institutional arrangements .