The Divergence of Institutional Change as a Style-Theoretic Phenomenon

Divergent institutional change and performance is a common phenomenon in recent economic history, such as the post-socialist transition. The paper raises the question how this divergence should be appropriately described. Against typologies of economic systems which rest on time-independent sets of distinctive features, the concept of 'economic style' is adapted from the German-language literature of the early 20th century. However, style is related to an evolutionary view of institutional change, such that styles emerge as clusters of ideas and institutions out of a multi-level selection process. These clusters stay in an interactive relation with culture, order and power as further determinants of institutional change, partly exogenous, partly endogenous. An economic style synthesises common features of economic systems during a particular period of time and allows to identify lines of descent between economic systems. As opposed to conventional economic analysis, style-theoretic work requires interpretive skills in thick descriptions