Political Realism and Institutions

Abstract Many realist political theorists have sought to stress the central role of institutions in securing order, stability, and legitimacy. Although explicit on the functions of institutions and their influence on the justice of societies, the realist position is theoretically limited with respect to the nature of the social structures at the core of its argument. Yet any normative account of an institutional setup Δ depends, at least in part, on Δ’s make-up, efficacy, and aims. This article begins to address this deficiency by making space for the idea that attention to how institutions act shows a) that they can hardly be distanced from persons or ends; b) that an action-centred account of institutions extends and refines existing realist agendas; and c) that emphasising their causal efficacy reorients principles of institutional design. The upshot is twofold: (i) bringing social ontology into political theory to clarify the actional structure of institutions (as realists claim institutions matter but lack the ontology to explain how they act); (ii) persuade methods-oriented theorists (1st order) and design-engaged theorists (2nd order) to be more perceptive to causal analysis.