Cultural Contributions to Explaining Institutional Form, Political Change, and Rational Decisions
Author(s)
Lockhart, Charles
Abstract
Relying on culture as an important explanatory variable is regarded with skepticism by many contemporary political scientists. Yet, doubts about culture’s usefulness rest in large part on false perceptions of various sorts. These misunderstandings relegate an important explanatory variable to the social science scrap heap. Accordingly, the author engages in three tasks. First, selected prominent arguments for culture’s lack of explanatory usefulness are discussed. Second, it is demonstrated how at least one conceptualization of culture, Mary Douglas and Aaron Wildavsky’s grid-group theory, overcomes aspects of these difficulties and contributes to explaining institutional form and political change. Third, it is argued that grid-group theory contributes significantly to both institutional analysis and rational choice theory.
