How institutional factors foster behaviour in state actors

The Weberian thesis has often been explained as the relevance of motivational factors for the development of the capitalist mode of production. In its traditional form Weberianism stresses the importance of the protestant work ethic in bringing about the industrial revolution in Europe and the subsequent western economic hegemony. Entrepreneurship in the West, in particular in England during the industrial revolution, is explained as behaviour – in the Weberian sense of the word, i.e. as opposed to actions – motivated by a protestant work ethic. Studies of the rise of Asian economies have often focussed on identifying such motivational factors in eastern culture and religion. For an example see Kim and Park (2003), who identify such ʻWeberian virtuesʼ in confucianism as it was recruited by the South Korean political elite in the second half of the 20th century.

Bellah (1968: 55) stresses that institutional factors, such as the political environment and the economic order, play an equally important role in bringing about economic development. Moreover he shows that Weber was aware of the importance of such factors, and claims that the interpretation of the Weberian thesis has often attached greater importance to motivational factors to the detriment of institutions. With regard to motivational factors Bellah agrees with Geertz (1956, quoted in Bellah, 1968: 56) that the protestant ethic isnʼt unique in bringing about a change in the mode of production, but rather that protestantism possesses a certain ʻtransformative capacityʼ that can change the entire value system of society. The protestant reformation serves as a case in point. This transformative capacity, so says Bellah, is a property of religion, not some special feature of protestantism. Hence confucianism has alternatively been employed to explain the failure and the success (see again the case of Kim and Park) of eastern economies. In such cases where economic development has successfully been brought about in the East, confucianism was successfully recruited to bring about a change of the underlying value system.

In this essay I content that not only motivational factors have the ability to bring about behavioural change, but that institutional factors are also important in shaping the behaviour of individual actors. I will use the institutional setting in conjunction with the illegal but licit framework to show how state actors justify their actions. Through personal examples and case studies from literature it will be shown that the institutional framework fosters a sense of entitlement in state actors. If institutional factors also give rise to certain behaviours then it must be concluded that such factors equally posses a transformative capacity.

• Download ‘Entitlement and extortion‘ as a .pdf document.
• Download ‘Entitlement and extortion: presentation‘, a short .pdf presentation on entitlement and extortion.

Since I’ve enrolled into my master programme – Contemporary Asian Studies at the University of Amsterdam – I’ve had very little time to post new articles to my blog. Hence this experiment, in which I publish my academic writing to my blog.