Abstract This essay critically analyses how historical institutionalists and rational choice scholars study institutional stability and change. Special attention is paid to the thorny issue of how political actors’ preferences are formed, with historical institutionalists considering preferences as endogenously formed, and rational choice analysts postulating that preferences are fixed and exogenous. An argument is made in favour of the perspective that considers preferences as being formed within the functioning of the political system over time, endogenously. The essay also proposes […]

This article proceeds from the premise that, even if you accept the principle that justice is impossible in the complete absence of virtue, a good political system ought to be parsimonious in any requirement of virtue as an input, so as not to impose undue restrictions on its own ability to function. Assuming a more or less random distribution of virtue through time and space, it would be preferable, all other things being equal, to have a system equipped to […]