What are institutions and where do they come from?

1. What are institutions? Formally (like rules) and informally (like codes of behavior),
people will make some rules/constraints to guide/constrain the social, political and economic
interactions, although we may ignore the existence of institutions for no analytical framework in
those interactions, for example, in economic performance. Different from the organization,
organization is about how to organize people to play, if institution is considered as ‘the rule of
game’.
2. Where institutions come from? In order to reduce the uncertainties among people’s
interactions, then, there is the institution. For formal institutions, they are from politics,
built up during the political process; While for the informal institutions, they include
more broad aspects, and they may come from codes of conduct, norms of behaviors, and
conventions. Therefore, institutions either can be made and also can be formulated from
traditions, culture and customs.
Assess the fit of these three types of values with the mainland Chinese
or Hong Kong system of government (you choose).
Take mainland of China for an example: As China is still a developing country, and
also, the command economy system lost it significant status not so far from today, China
still put the sigma-value as its priority. In order to make the whole country into a relative
stable status, more fixed and checkable goals are made by governments. And also,
governments will try to use suitable time and money to fulfill those goals, which is more
often can be described as sparing way to use resources. And also, inn order to build up a
relative stable environmental, China’s governments also take the Lambda-type vale. As a
high-degree centralized country, China governments have a high degree of integration,
which will make multiple governments cooperate together to prevent the system failure.
But, China may lack of the dimensions of high degree of openness and loose pressures of
misinformation. While, for the Theta-type value, it may not be made as a priority in
mainland China, for some arbitrary proceedings can be found especially at street-level
bureaucracies, and also, there is not Hong-Kong style’s independent anti-corruption
investigatory bodies exist. So, it is hard to make those three types of values at the same
time in the government.
What is most distinctive about bureaucracies and bureaucrats’ behavior
in developing countries? Which, if any, of the points they make are
relevant to China?
The most distinctive aspect about bureaucracies and bureaucrats’ behavior in
developing countries: The organizations in developing countries do not conform to
conversational standards in Weberian model. In Weberian model, there is a strict
hierarchy in the whole structure in bureaucracies, and the experience and
educational factors determine the person’s status and position. While in developing
countries, like in India, the bureaucrats who can build up a tied relationship to the
connected communities, then, bureaucrats will provide a higher level of public goods.
What’s more, in Weberian model, bureaucrats may only perform their duties in
accordance with law. While, in developing countries, bureaucrats may have to perform
their tasks following the appropriate culture, which will increase the likelihood of
recipients adopt bureaucrats’ recommendations and decisions.
In China, there is a high degree of embeddedness in street bureaucracy. Like in Xinjiang
province of China, the local bureaucrats will try to live in local families on a regular basis
in order to establish ties to their assigned communities, which will help street bureaucrats
to fulfill their tasks in a high likelihood. And also, in mega-cities, the grid management
system in some ways is another example of high degree of embeddedness in street
bureaucracy.
Research Proposal Draft Thoughts:
Research question: A research on justice related environmental policies in China, from
the perspective of the punctuated equilibrium theory.
Research Units:
1. The analysis of the development process of justice related environmental policies.
2. Differences of environmental justice related environmental policies and ecological
justice related environmental justice.
3. Policy image, policy venues and policy monopoly of justice related environmental
policies.
4. The changes style(punctuated /equilibrium) of justice-related environmental policies in
China.
5. Will ecological justice related environmental polices disturb the policy monopoly of
environmental justice related environmental policies?
The reason of selecting punctuated equilibrium theory:
Some papers have already analyzed the China’s environmental policies change from the
perspective of punctuated equilibrium theory. But there are little papers especially
focusing on the change of justice related environmental policies. Based on this research
limitation, it is reasonable and significant to use punctuated equilibrium theory analyzing
the justice related environmental policies. And also, initially, I assume that environmental
justice related environmental policies have already formulated a kind of policy monopoly
which ecological justice hardly to change. What’s more, with the calling for ecological
justice worldwide, and also the conducting of XI Jinping’s Ecological Civilization
Concept, which I assume there is kind of punctuated change of ecological justice related
environmental polices in China.
Research method: Qualitative analysis will be the domain research method. While if I
want to give out the detailed policy change style (punctuated /equilibrium), quantitate
analysis may be required if necessary.