An Analysis of the New Institutionalism

“新制度主义”主张制度不是社会秩序的简单反映，而是独立影响社会秩序。在导致这些机构建立的问题变得无关紧要之后，这些机构可能会长期存在并塑造社会。 本调查研究了1800年至1960年美国南部奴隶制的立法和法院判决，以调查新制度主义关于法院及其与立法机构关系的主张。 比美国历史上任何其他时期和地方，南北战争前南方奴隶制的正当性突出了制度在塑造社会方面的重要性，以及这些制度的演变路径。 法院和立法机关之间的紧张关系在很大程度上决定了维护社会秩序的斗争。该项目的长期目标是解决三个问题：1）在一个既有自由又有平等的基督教社会的公众心目中，奴隶制如何被证明是正当的？ 2)奴隶制被法庭证明是合理的，并被赋予政治合法性的方式，塑造了南北战争前南方的意识形态吗？ 3)这种意识形态对南方各州的政治制度有何影响？ 三个测试的假设，提供了相应的上述问题：第一，法院判决的内容演变与不断变化的压力对奴隶制政权;第二，亲奴隶制的意识形态出现在南部的州立法机构，交叉在该地区的其他利益的发展;第三，法院意见内容的变化与立法机关分裂结构的变化之间存在着时间关系，这一关系与宪法理论的预测是一致的。为了验证这些假设，本文收集并分析了两组新的数据。 第一个是基于海伦卡特拉尔的案例汇编有关奴隶制。 调查员建立了一个涉及实际奴隶制法律的案件的计算机数据库。 这项工作涉及密集的数据收集和编码工作，重点是五卷，3,000页的卡特拉尔参考。 第二个数据集是从北卡罗来纳州和南卡罗来纳州立法机关的“期刊”中开发的。 这涉及到在北卡罗来纳州的罗利和南卡罗来纳州的哥伦比亚的大量档案工作。 这些资料的比较使主要研究者能够调查困扰那些研究机构的人的“鸡和蛋”问题：立法领导人的思维是引导还是遵循法院的判决。 答案似乎是存在一个相互作用的递归过程，这是新制度主义路径依赖的本质。从南北战争前北卡罗来纳州和南卡罗来纳州的州最高法院案件和立法数据库中获得的信息为未来的调查人员提供了丰富的资源。

The "new institutionalism" claims institutions are not simple reflections of the social order, but independently influence that order. Institutions may survive and give shape to society long after the issues that led to their creation are irrelevant. This investigation examines legislation and court decisions in the slave-holding U.S. south from 1800-1960, to investigate claims derived from the new institutionalism regarding the courts and their relationship to the legislature. More than any other period and place in U.S. history, justifications of slavery in the antebellum South highlight the importance of institutions in giving shape to society, and the path of evolution of those institutions. The tension between the courts and the legislature defines, in an important sense, the struggle to maintain the social order.The long-term goal of the project is to address three questions: 1) how could slavery be justified in the public mind of a Christian society, with ideals of both liberty and equality? 2) did the way that slavery was justified and given political legitimacy by the courts shape the ideology of the antebellum South? 3) what was the impact of that ideology on the political systems of southern states? Three tests of hypotheses are offered that correspond to the questions posed above: first, the content of court decisions evolved with changing pressures on the slave regime; second, the development of a pro-slavery ideology emerged in the state legislatures of the South that cross-cut other interests within the region; and third, a temporal relationship between changes in the content of court opinions and changes in the cleavage structure in the legislature existed and was consistent with the predictions of the theory of ideology and the new institutionalism.To test these hypotheses, two new data sets are collected and analyzed. The first is based on Helen Catterall's compendium of cases concerning slavery. The investigator develops a computer database of cases that involve the actual law of slavery. This work involves an intensive data collection and coding effort focused on the five-volume, 3,000 page Catterall reference. The second data set is developed from the "journals" of the North Carolina and South Carolina legislatures. This involves extensive archival work in Raleigh, North Carolina and Columbia, South Carolina. The comparison of these sources allows the Principal Investigator to investigate the "chicken and egg" question that has plagued those who study institutions: does the thinking of legislative leaders lead, or follow, the decisions written by the courts. The answer appears to be that there is a recursive process of mutual interaction, the essence of path dependence in the new institutionalism.The information made available from a database of state Supreme Court cases and legislation in antebellum North and South Carolina represents a rich resource for future investigators.