Rule-Making Rules

Stefano Bartolini is Emeritus Professor, Department of Political Science, European University Institute, Florence, Italy. He has previously published several books, including Identity, Competition, and Electoral Availability (1990), The Class Cleavage (2000), Restructuring Europe (2005) and The Political (2018).

'With sweeping historical reference and discerning judgment, Stefano Bartolini takes on one of the central problems of contemporary social science, namely, how we should understand 'institutions', with a view to establishing what is distinctive about political institutions. This is a book full of insights from which everyone who wants to understand the role of institutions in political life can learn.' Peter A. Hall, Krupp Foundation Professor of European Studies, Harvard University

• Introduction: Institutions and political science; Part I. On Institutions: 1. The origins of institutions; 2. Approaches to institutions; 3. A framework for institutional analysis and a typology of institutions; Part II. On Political Institutions: 4. What political institutions are; 5. Meso-institutions: political institutes; 6. Macro-institutions: territories, constitutions and regimes; 7. Conclusion: specificities of political institutions.