James G. March and Johan P. Olsen (1989) provide a fresh perspective on institutions in their book Rediscovering Institutions. As Terry M. Moe (1991, p. 106) points out, "In some fashion or another, political scientists spend much of their time trying to understand organizations," and this is precisely what March and Olsen attempt to do as they think through the political dynamics of organizations in their book. Taking an institutional perspective on politics, they note that institutions have become larger and more complex than in the past, thus challenging traditional organizational theory. As they address the gap between traditional theory and the realities of modern institutions, they identify a number of themes that characterize the new organizational theories-contextualism, rules, and meaning.
The authors identify contextualism as resulting from the loss of the state's "centrality in the discipline," noting along with Easton (1968) that "politics mirrors its context" (March & Olsen, 1989, p. 3). This shift is analogous to the shift in society from a reliance on traditional ethical values that were derived from a central moral or religious tradition to that of situation ethics, where the ethics of any given situation is predicated on the situation instead of on any moral authority. Thus, context becomes everything. Consistent with contextualism is the authors' assertion that in the new political world, "Alliances are formed and broken...Rarely can the terms of trade be specified with precision. Future occasions requiring coordinated action are unknown, as are the future sentiments with which individuals will confront them" (March & Olsen, 1989, p. 10). Moreover, the authors assert, "It is often not a world of precise contracts, but one of informal loose understandings and expectations" (March & Olsen, 1989, p. 10). Thus, not only do decisions change with the context, but as the context changes, alliances...