Culture, Institutions and Social Equilibria: A Framework

89 Pages Posted: 25 May 2021

See all articles by Daron Acemoglu

Daron Acemoglu

Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) - Department of Economics; Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR); National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)

James Robinson

University of Chicago - Harris School of Public Policy

Multiple version iconThere are 2 versions of this paper

Date Written: May 24, 2021

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 rich cultural responses to changes in the environment and shifts in political power. Specifically, we start 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 also legitimize and support different institutional arrangements. Culture matters as it shapes the set of feasible cultural figurations and via this channel institutions. Yet, changes in politics and institutions can cause a rewiring of existing attributes, generating very different cultural configurations. Cultural persistence may result from the dynamics of political and economic factors - rather than being a consequence of an unchanging culture. We distinguish cultures by how 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) attributes in a culture set are. We illustrate these ideas using examples from African, England, China, the Islamic world, the Indian caste system and the Crow. In all cases, our interpretation highlights that culture becomes more of a constraint when it is less fluid (more hardwired), for example because its attributes are more specific or entangled. We also emphasize that less fluid cultures are not necessarily "bad cultures", and may create a range of benefits, though they may reduce the responsiveness 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, almost diametrically-opposed, cultural configurations are feasible, often compete with each other for acceptance and can gain the upper hand depending on political factors.

JEL Classification: P10,P16,P50

Suggested Citation

Acemoglu, Daron and Robinson, James, Culture, Institutions and Social Equilibria: A Framework (May 24, 2021). University of Chicago, Becker Friedman Institute for Economics Working Paper No. 2021-61, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3852149 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3852149

Daron Acemoglu

Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) - Department of Economics ( email )

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James Robinson (Contact Author)

University of Chicago - Harris School of Public Policy ( email )

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