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，而是独立地影响着社会秩序。制度可能在导致其产生的问题变得无关紧要之后很长一段时间仍然存在并形成社会。本研究考察了1800年至1960年间美国南方蓄奴州的立法和法院判决，以调查新制度主义对法院及其与立法机构关系的主张。与美国历史上任何时期和地点相比，内战前南方奴隶制的正当性更突出了制度在塑造社会形态方面的重要性，以及这些制度的演变道路。法院和立法机关之间的紧张关系在一个重要意义上定义了维持社会秩序的斗争。该项目的长期目标是解决三个问题：1)在自由和平等的理想下，奴隶制如何在基督教社会的公众心中被证明是正当的？2)法院为奴隶制辩护并赋予其政治合法性的方式是否塑造了南北战争前南方的意识形态？3)这种意识形态对南方各州的政治制度有什么影响？针对上述问题，提出了三种假设检验：第一，法院判决的内容随着奴隶制度所面临压力的变化而演变；其次，支持奴隶制的意识形态在南方的州立法机构中出现，与该地区的其他利益相交叉；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一种时间关系，这与意识形态理论和新制度主义的预测是一致的。为了验证这些假设，我们收集并分析了两个新的数据集。第一个是基于海伦·卡特罗尔关于奴隶制的案例纲要。调查人员开发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，3000页的Catterall参考。第二个数据集来自北卡罗来纳州和南卡罗来纳州立法机构的“期刊”。这涉及到北卡罗来纳州罗利和南卡罗来纳州哥伦比亚的大量档案工作。这些来源的比较使首席研究员能够调查“鸡生蛋还是蛋生鸡”的问题，这个问题一直困扰着那些研究制度的人：立法领导人的思想是领导还是遵循法院所写的决定？答案似乎是存在一个相互作用的递归过程，这是新制度主义的路径依赖的本质。从南北卡州最高法院案件和立法数据库中提供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.