Working Paper: CEPR ID: DP16181
Authors: James A. Robinson; Daron Acemoglu
Abstract: This paper proposes a new framework for studying the interplay between culture and institutions.We follow the recent sociology literature and interpret culture as a \repertoire", which allows richcultural responses to changes in the environment and shifts in political power. Specifically, westart with a culture set, which consists of attributes and the feasible connections between them.Combinations of attributes produce cultural configurations, which provide meaning,interpretation and justification for individual and group actions. Cultural figurations alsolegitimize and support different institutional arrangements. Culture matters as it shapes the set offeasible cultural figurations and via this channel institutions. Yet, changes in politics andinstitutions can cause a rewiring of existing attributes, generating very different culturalconfigurations. Cultural persistence may result from the dynamics of political and economicfactors - rather than being a consequence of an unchanging culture. We distinguish cultures byhow fluid they are - whereby more fluid cultures allow a richer set of cultural configurations.Fluidity in turn depends on how specific (vs. abstract) and entangled (vs. free-standing) attributesin a culture set are. We illustrate these ideas using examples from African, England, China, theIslamic world, the Indian caste system and the Crow. In all cases, our interpretation highlightsthat culture becomes more of a constraint when it is less fluid (more hardwired), for examplebecause its attributes are more specific or entangled. We also emphasize that less fluid culturesare not necessarily "bad cultures", and may create a range of benefits, though they may reduce theresponsiveness of culture to changing circumstances. In many instances, including in the African,Chinese and English cases, we show that there is a lot of fluidity and very different, almostdiametrically-opposed, cultural configurations are feasible, often compete with each other foracceptance and can gain the upper hand depending on political factors.
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JEL Codes: No JEL codes provided
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| culture (Z00) | set of feasible cultural configurations (Z10) |
| set of feasible cultural configurations (Z10) | institutional arrangements (D02) |
| changes in political power (P26) | rewiring of cultural attributes (Z13) |
| rewiring of cultural attributes (Z13) | different configurations (Y91) |
| different configurations (Y91) | institutional legitimacy (F55) |
| cultures that are less fluid (Z13) | binding constraints on economic and political arrangements (F55) |
| binding constraints on economic and political arrangements (F55) | development outcomes (O15) |