ABSTRACT
In the past few decades there has been a wealth of scholarship aimed at understanding the origin and development of institutional rules as agents of political, economic, and social change. In the eyes of many scholars, the questions of where institutions originate and how they develop are two of the most important puzzles confronting social science. Indeed, social scientists have spent a great deal of time trying to understand why institutional rules emerge, when and where they emerge, and the effects of their emergence on society. Existing literature examines the development of such political institutions as constitutions (Riker 1988; Tsebelis 1990), legislative rules (Bach and Smith 1988; Binder 1997; Jenkins, Crespin, and Carson 2005; McCubbins, Noll, and Weingast 1987; Shepsle 1986; Shipan 1995, 1996, 1997), and voting rules (Duverger 1954).
