Whenever a concept is packaged as new, social scientists are apt to be wary, and for good reason. Fads come and go. The enormous number of dissertations, schools of thought, books, and articles based upon prefixes such as post, neo, and which enjoyed a brief stint in the bright sunshine of glory at various conventions only to disappear a few months later serves as a reminder of social science's tendency to reinvent the wheel. Nelson Polsby's question-what is about the new institutionalism?is important. After all, the study of institutions has been central to political science since its inception. The following review holds that the debate among those who argue that institutions matter but disagree over the extent to which they matter is very lively and important. It goes to the heart of the basic problem of social science: how do we explain the things people do? What role do institutions, organizations, and calculations of utility play in decision making? How much weight ought to be given to the individual and to the institutional context within which decisions are made and to the larger environmental factors such as culture, social norms, and
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