Rationality and Institutional Contingency: The Varying Politics of Economic Regulation in the Fire Insurance Industry

Tim Bartley · Marc Schneiberg

49 citations0/0 files storedSociological Perspectives

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Management and Organizational Studies Economic Theory and Institutions Regulation and Compliance Studies

Abstract

Are the politics of economic regulation contingent on institutions? Drawing on arguments about institutional mediation and the institutional bases of rational action, we explore how institutions shape the dynamics invoked in two theories of regulation. We argue that institutional arrangements affect both the clarity and the content of group interests in regulation. Event history analyses of U.S. states' passage of fire insurance regulation from 1906 to 1930 support these arguments in several ways. Market-heterogeneity dynamics specified by cartel-capture theory affected the passage of regulation only under some conditions—namely, relatively depoliticized settings with little overt conflict or uncertainty about policy outcomes. In addition, interest group dynamics were conditioned by the consolidation of interorganizational fields around a particular model of market order, which allowed divergent interest groups to converge in support of regulation. The research suggests ways of thinking about theoretical generality and specificity, regulatory politics, and the relationship between institutional theory and rationality.

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