Blackwell Publishing Ltd.Oxford, UK and Malden, USAGOVEGovernance0952-18952004 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

January 20051813552Articles APPROPRIATENESS AND CONSEQUENCES

KJELL GOLDMANN

Appropriateness and Consequences: The Logic of Neo-Institutionalism

KJELL GOLDMANN* Skeptical questions may be raised about the neo-institutionalist approach of James G. March and Johan P. Olsen, in which a logic of expected consequences is set against a logic of appropriateness: (1) it is difcult to determine what kind of constructs the so-called logics arewhether they are to be seen as perspectives, theories, or ideal types; (2) the logics, far from being mutually excluding, overlap very considerably; (3) analytical utility is debatable not only in the case of the logic of expected consequences but also when it is a matter of the logic of appropriateness; (4) the normative virtue of substituting a logic of appropriateness for a logic of expected consequences is less obvious than March and Olsens readers may be led to think. It is tempting to conclude that March and Olsens approach has proven compelling because of its consequences for the scholarly community rather than by virtue of its analytical appropriateness.

The neo-institutionalist approach of James G. March and Johan P. Olsen, in which a logic of expected consequences is set against a logic of appropriateness, has inspired scholars in elds ranging from public administration to international relations. Their Rediscovering Institutions, published in 1989, is one of the most frequently referenced books in A New Handbook of Political Science (Goodin and Klingemann, 32). Since then they have rened their thoughts for audiences as different as those of Governance (1996) and International Organization (1998). It will be argued in this article, however, (1) that it is difcult to determine what kind of constructs the so-called logics arewhether they are to be seen as perspectives, theories, or ideal types; (2) that the logics, far from being mutually excluding, overlap very considerably; (3) that analytical utility can be discussed not only in the case of the logic of expected consequences this is well-knownbut also when it is a matter of the logic of appropriateness; and (4) that the normative virtue of substituting a logic of appropriateness for a logic of expected consequences is less obvious than March and Olsens readers may be led to think. March and Olsens work is inuential enough to justify a consideration such as the one to follow, but the analysis has a broader relevance. Dichot*Stockholm University Governance: An International Journal of Policy, Administration, and Institutions, Vol. 18, No. 1, January 2005 (pp. 3552). 2005 Blackwell Publishing, 350 Main St., Malden, MA 02148, USA, and 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford, OX4 2DQ, UK. ISSN 0952-1895

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omies such as theirs form part of the discourse of political science. It seems an irresistible temptation to reduce the complexity of a eld of research by subsuming everything under just a few approaches taken to be mutually excluding and to be upheld by opposing schools. The current preoccupation with setting rationalism against constructivism is but one example. There is often a reason to pose questions about theoretical status, mutual exclusiveness, analytical utility, and normative implications.1 These questions hang together. Scholarship arguably aims at clarifying issues by specifying concepts, by making clear how the validity and utility of alternative approaches is to be assessed, and by problematizing their implications. Scholarship may also aim at being powerfully suggestive and persuasive, however, and this is easier if concepts are vague, methods of assessment are ambiguous, and implications are taken for granted. There will be more about this at the end. The scope of the present article is limited in several ways. First, the article is not about the premises and problems of March and Olsens neoinstitutionalism in toto. It has been argued, for example, that March and Olsen exaggerate the novelty of their logic of appropriateness (Persson, 61) and that the logic of appropriateness is untenable as a theory of action (Sending). It is not my objective to consider matters such as these and even less to relate March and Olsens thinking to basic issues in epistemology and ethics. The focus will be on the very distinction between two logics. Far from being simply a technicality, however, the distinction is fundamental to the argument and has proven inuential in itself.2 Second, the article primarily cites March and Olsens contributions to Governance and International Organization, even though their earlier Rediscovering Institutions (1989) and Democratic Governance (1995) will also be quoted. Arguably, a skeptical comment such as the present should be based on a perusal of the authors writings in their entirety.3 However, the 1996 and 1998 articles, published in prestigious journals, are among March and Olsens most recent accounts of their thinking, and are two of the best published ones. They may be taken to reect what they themselves, as well as others, have come to see as their most important contributions.4 Third, the purpose is not to quarrel with March and Olsen about details of wording but to indicate problems users may have when assessing the two-logic approach and applying it to classifying authors and decision processes, explaining political action, and taking a reected stance on normative issues.
THE LOGICS AS CONSTRUCTS

There are three ways of interpreting the assertion that there is a logic of expected consequences, on the one hand, and a logic of appropriate-

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ness, on the other: (1) The logics form perspectives from which politics may be seencontrasting views about what is the essence of politics, contending approaches to the study of politics, or the like; (2) The logics represent theories about politicspropositions about what politics is like and why; and (3) The logics dene ideal types with which actually existing politics may be compared. Perspective is the term used here for what could have been called approach, paradigm, or, more simply, point of view or outlooka set of assumptions about man and knowledge, what questions to ask and how to seek the answers. This is in contrast to theory in the sense of a set of propositions whose validity is subject to evidence. Theories may be set against each other, and their relative validity may be assessed by research. Perspectives, in contrast, represent alternative ways of looking at things and are not meant to be assessed in relation to each other.5 Theories are opposed to each other because we do not (yet) have sufcient evidence to decide the issue. Perspectives are opposed to each other because people have different outlooks, interests, and concerns; there is no issue between them that can be decided by scholarly inquiry; pluralism arguably is a value in itself. March and Olsen often express themselves as if their logics are to be seen as perspectives in this sense. Students of the dynamics of social and political action, they write, are divided about the basic logic of action by which human behavior is interpreted. There are, on the one side, those who see action as driven by a logic of anticipated consequences and prior preferences. There are, on the other side, those who see action as driven by a logic of appropriateness and senses of identity (1998, 949). There are, they also write, two ways of telling stories about politics (1996, 248). This way of introducing the argument cannot but suggest that we are dealing with opposing perspectives on politicswith different ways of interpreting the history of international orders, or even different views about the nature of history, as March and Olsen also put it (1996, 55; 1998, 949). They repeatedly characterize the logics as ways of seeing or interpreting things, and when they use the term explain about the logics they often put it within quotation marks. Some see politics as a matter of rationality and interest, others as a matter of affection and identitythis appears to be the opposition March and Olsen mean to characterize. The implication of shifting from one logic to the other, they assert, is a shift in ones research agenda, because different topics for research are invited (1996, 5859). They also write about the logics as if they were theoretical propositions, however. The question, they write, is whether (or when) one logic is more likely than the other to be observed as the basis for actual behavior (1998, 949). Here we are dealing with empirical theory rather than with mere perspectives. From this point of view, the two sides are to be combined: political action generally cannot be explained exclusively in terms of a logic of either consequences or appropriate-

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ness (1998, 952). Both logics thus are taken to play a part in most cases, in spite of the fact that one is assumed to be promoted by one side and the other by another side. In this context, March and Olsen do not put explain within quotation marks. They instead raise the issue of the conditions in which one explanatory device prevails over the other (1998, 952954). It is justiable to interpret the logics in a third way: neither as perspectives, nor as explanatory devices, but as ideal types with which actually existing action may be compared. March and Olsen, read in this way, outline two simplied models to be used as tools for empirical enquiry. To regard the logics as ideal types goes along with much of what March and Olsen write (see, for example, their summary characterization of the logics in 1998, 949951). However, it cannot easily be reconciled with their assertions that they are dealing with alternative ways of telling stories about politics, nor with the assertion that the logics represent explanatory theories that need to be combined. The bottom line is that it is difcult to determine what kind of construct the logics represent. The logics are ascribed both to scholars and to actors. In the former case they are generalizations about opposing perspectives among analysts. In the latter case they are theories about the way in which actors think and argue. In either case they can be regarded as efforts at realistic description or as idealized simplication. The opposition between the sides is sometimes about general outlook, sometimes about empirical theory, and occasionally about stipulative denition. This makes for confusion about what the issue between the logics is, whether it ought to be resolved, and how it is to be resolved if it ought to be.
KEEPING THE LOGICS APART

Regardless of whether the logics are perspectives, theories, or ideal types, they must be separable from each other when applied to the same object. We must be able to determine whether a particular piece of research represents one side or the other side. It must be possible to assess the separate contribution of each factor in the explanation of action. Ideal types must be mutually excluding. Is this the case with the logic of expected consequences and the logic of appropriateness? March and Olsen discuss four ways in which the logics may be interrelated and conclude that, even though the logics are not mutually exclusive, they are sufciently distinct to be viewed as separate explanatory devices (1988, 952953). They fail to distinguish in this context between the methodological question of the construction of concepts and the empirical question of what inuences actors, however. It is essential for the use of the distinction between two logics that they are mutually exclusive from a conceptual point of view and, of course, that it is clear to what object of analysis they are meant to apply. If they turn out to be

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interrelated in an empirical sense, on the other hand, this is not a problem but a nding.

The Problem of Consequentialist Altruism March and Olsens point of departure was their observation that decision making in organizations may diverge from the cannons of rational choice. In Ambiguity and Choice in Organizations (1976), an early, important work, garbage can is a central concept. A choice opportunity, in this model, is a garbage can into which problems and solutions are dumped. A solution is not a result of the analysis of a problem but an answer actively looking for a question. Choice is a somewhat fortuitous conuence of problems, solutions, and participants (1976, 2627). Empirical observations to this effectpertaining, among other things, to the University of Oslomust have inspired their skeptical view of rationality.6 Those who see actions as driven by expectations of consequences, March and Olsen later wrote, imagine that human actors choose among alternatives by evaluating their likely consequences for personal or collective objectives. Society, such people think, is constituted by individuals for the fulllment of individual ends (there will be a comment below on the omission of collective ends in the latter quote). The only obligations recognized by individuals are those created through consent and contracts grounded in calculated consequential advantage. Those who see politics in this light link action exclusively to a logic of expected consequences and ignore the role of identities, rules, and institutions in shaping human behavior (1998, 949951). Those who commit themselves to the logic of appropriateness, on the other hand, see action as rule based. Actors are presumed to follow rules that associate particular identities to particular situations. Action is a matter of matching the obligations of ones identity to a specic situation. Scholars committed to an identity position see agents in politics as acting in accordance with rules and practices that are socially constructed and publicly known, anticipated, and accepted (1998, 949 952). This, at rst blush, is simple enough. It turns out, however, that whereas the former commitment excludes the latter, the reverse is not true. Those on the latter side, in contrast to those on the former, are deemed capable of taking more than one thing into account. They do not link action exclusively to anything: they emphasize identities but do not exclude interests; they do not deny the reality of calculations and anticipations of consequences (1996, 251; 1998, 951). In other words, those who interpret action in terms of the logic of expected consequences are simple-minded and unimaginative, whereas those who do it in terms of the logic of appropriateness are open-minded and sophisticated. This may be seen as (relatively) innocent academic salesmanship,

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but it undermines the idea that we are dealing with mutually excluding perspectives, theories, or ideal types.7 More important is the fact that March and Olsen tend to confuse the form of an argument with its content. In their 1989 book, they compare two methods of reasoning, which they call the conventional litanies for action, in the way shown in Table 1. However, they also distinguish between the logics in terms of the substance of the reasoning pursued by either method. In their approach, consequentialist reasoninga methodis associated with the pursuit of self-interesta substantive featureand non-consequentialist reasoning with the application of rules grounded in socially constructed identities. Aside from self-interest, they often use other terms, such as individual interests, individual ends, personal objectives, and [an actors] own values, but even if one cannot be sure it must be reasonable to assume the meaning to be the same.8 Similarly, even though the rules assumed in the logic of appropriateness may include mere routines and standard operating procedures (1996, 249), March and Olsen often express themselves as if the rules were social obligations: in the logic of appropriateness, individuals are seen as able to share a common life and identity, and to have concern for others (1996, 253).9 Hence it needs to be considered how to characterize consequentialist obligations and non-selsh interests. Obviously, consequentialist argument in terms of identity-related social obligations is an everyday matter in politics. Self-interest, furthermore, is not necessarily the same as selshness: [if] a sister is concerned for the welfare of her brother, the sisters self-interest can be thought of as including . . . this concern for the welfare of her brother (Axelrod, 7). This renders March and Olsens distinction problematic. Either point 2 in the right-hand column of Table 1 may include consequentialist rules and point 3 an assessment of consequences, but then the distinction in terms of method of reasoning breaks down, or else point 2 in the left-hand column may include non-selsh values, but this does damage to the distinction in terms of substance. The indistinctness of March and Olsens argument is indicated by the fact that they mostly associate the logic of expected consequences with the pursuit of individual ends, but occasionally also with the pursuit of collective ends, as pointed out above.
TABLE 1 Two Methods of Reasoning, According to March and Olsen Anticipatory Action 1. What are my alternatives? 2. What are my values? 3. What are the consequences of my alternatives for my values? 4. Choose the alternative that has the best consequences.
Source: March and Olsen (1989, 23).

Obligatory Action 1. What kind of situation is this? 2. Who am I? 3. How appropriate are different actions for me in this situation? 4. Do what is most appropriate.

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FIGURE 1 Three Ways of Reasoning

egotism

deontism

mixed

The bottom line is not that the logics are one and the same but that they overlap, as in Figure 1. The gure distinguishes between three rather than two logics. We are dealing with an actor in a system; his identity is constructed by his membership; the issue is whether his action is determined by rules embedded in his identity. One possibility is that action is contingent on what the actor thinks is best for him without any consideration of the rules of the system to which he belongs; this may be called the logic of egotism and is part, but only part, of the logic of expected consequences seen as method. Another possibility is that action is determined by non-consequentialist rules implicit in systemically constructed identities; this, if a neologism is permitted, may be called the logic of deontism and is part, but only part, of the logic of appropriateness seen as substance. There remains a common situation in social life, in which expected consequences are evaluated on the basis of what is systemically appropriate, or self-interest is dened as that which is appropriate in view of the fact that the actor is fullling the obligations of a role and is adhering to the imperatives of holding a position (1989, 160161). This is a mixed situation, in which the distinction between the logic of appropriateness and the logic of expected consequences, as dened by March and Olsen, is difcult to apply. March and Olsen do not always keep two classical issues apart: consequentialism versus deontology, and self-interest versus the common good. They follow others in conating rationality and self-interest. As a result it will sometimes be difcult to determine whether particular authors are committed to one of March and Olsens logics or the other, and whether particular actors follow one logic or the other. Specifying the Objects of Analysis Individuals or collectivities? March and Olsen do little to distinguish between the [a]ctions of individuals and collectivities (1996, 249). It is not obvious whether they expect us to study individuals or organizations

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in search of the logic of political action. This is important, because one logic may predominate at the level of individuals within an organization and another logic at the level of the organization itself. One . . . expects of groups that they will sometimes behave in a way that would be immoral if it were indulged in by individuals, as Stanley Hoffmann (16) puts it. If it is a matter of organizational action, furthermore, there is the problem of how to aggregate the logics of individuals to a single logic ascribed to the organization. When the John F. Kennedy White House debated how to respond to the deployment of Soviet missiles in Cuba in 1962, the crucial choice was between a blockade and an air strike. The case for each was made in consequentialist terms (Sorensen, 693). However, an intervention by Robert Kennedy is also reported to have been inuential: the president could not order an air strike, because [f]or 175 years we had not been that kind of a country and Sunday morning surprise blows on small nations were not in our tradition (Schlesinger, 689). How are we to determine whether an organization acts on the basis of the logic of expected consequences or the logic of appropriateness in a case such as this? Motives or justications? A further source of confusion is whether the logics are meant to apply to internal motives or to external justications. The logic of an action may be one in the minds of decision makers and another in the way they justify it to the public. European political leaders, committed to European integration on principled grounds, may prefer to justify their policies in terms of national interests. Conversely, a country may pursue a particular security policy for the sake of its own narrow self-interest and yet choose to justify it in terms of world peace or universal human rights. It is not self-evident that internal motives should be given priority in the search for the logic of an action, even if this is what March and Olsen seem to imply. It may be just as relevant to be concerned with justications, because they may tell us something about the logic of the constituencies of decision makers. However, taking both into account increases the difculty of separating one logic from the other in the study of specic actions. Exploring Interconnections When March and Olsen worry about keeping the logics apart from each other, they primarily refer to the possibility that the logics are interconnected (their term). They point out, for example, that the importance of one logic or the other may depend on the relative clarity of preferences and consequences, on the one hand, and of identities and rules, on the other: if utility calculations are inconclusive, rules may resolve the issue; if rules are ambiguous or contradictory, expected consequences may prove decisive. Or one logic may apply to major decisions and another to minor actions. Or the balance between the logics may be developmental:

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action in a given type of situation may initially be based on expected consequences only to become increasingly rule based over time (1998, 953). Interconnections such as these may be problematic, if the task is to ascribe one perspective or the other to individual scholars: authors may not be as simple-minded as dichotomies such as March and Olsens suggest and may be difcult to place on one side or on the other side in the way March and Olsen assume. If the logics are seen as theories of action, in contrast, interconnections such as those outlined by March and Olsen are not problematic but suggestive. Instead of remaining wedded to one logic to the exclusion of the other (March and Olsens expression [1998, 953]) we have reason to examine how the relative signicance of the logics varies with situation and issue as well as over timeprovided, of course, that the concepts are rened so that it is possible to separate the logics from each other in the empirical study of action. The suggestion that there may be a difference between big and small issues is reminiscent of an assumption in the literature on European integration to the effect that key decisions about integration are taken by member state governments on the basis of national interests, whereas the day-to-day operation of the European Union is characterized by multilevel governance (Marks, Hooghe, and Blank).10 The time sequence argument is also familiar from the literature about European integration: rst intergovernmental commitment on the basis of interests, then the institutionalization of rules (Rosamond, 117). What is more, whereas March and Olsen are primarily concerned with the logics of single actors, the relation between the logic of appropriateness and strategic interaction, a paradigmatic instance of the logic of expected consequences, is of particular interest. The game theoretical analysis of cooperation, as shown by Robert Axelrod, is, in essence, that rules for appropriateness emerge from the interaction between actors anticipating consequences and pursuing their interest. Thomas Schellings famous theory of focal points suggests how rules may help rational actors to coordinate expectations. Hence, even when interaction is pursued according to the logic of expected consequences, criteria for appropriateness may be a result as well as a precondition. This further illustrates the promises and not the problems of March and Olsens dichotomization, an assertion with which they would certainly agree.
THE UTILITY OF THE LOGICS

Assume now that it is not a matter of theories to be tested but of perspectives between which we must choose. We must choose whether to side with those who are wedded to the assumption of expected consequences assessed in terms of interests or with those wedded to the assumption of rules embedded in identities. We are offered a menu for choice, to cite the subtitle of a text widely used for 20 years (Russett,

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Starr, and Kinsella). How do we choose between March and Olsens ways of telling stories about politics? One point of departure is ones analytical purpose. The old distinction between Erklren (explanation) and Verstehen (understanding) has reappeared in political science (see Hollis and Smith for a recent account). In short, seeking to explain politics is to search for external causes; the objective is data-based causal theory; one purpose of seeking such theory is to inform future decisions. Seeking understanding, on the other hand, means to endeavor to gain an insight into the meaning actors have given to their environment; knowledge results from the interpretation of texts rather than from systematic data; insight and interpretation are meant to help us understand the world we live in but not to decide about it. Explanation is part of the Enlightenment project; understanding epitomizes skepticism toward this project. To seek understanding in this sense arguably entails two tasks: to give as full an account as possible of the reasoning of actors, and to give as full an account as possible of the sources of their reasoning. It is commonplace to point out that the logic of expected consequences is based on a simplied account of human thinking. Another standard criticism of such an approach is that it sees preferences as exogenous and does not address the main issue, namely, how preferences are formed and changed (e.g., Jervis, 322329). Is the logic of appropriateness a better guide in these respects? The answer arguably is yes, insofar as the logic of appropriateness provides for a more complex view of human motivation, because it does not exclude the consideration of consequences whereas the logic of expected consequences is taken to ignore rules and identities. Whether the logic of appropriateness is superior on the second account is debatable: just as the logic of expected consequences assumes preferences instead of accounting for them, the logic of appropriateness assumes identities. The omission is not complete in either case: reasoning along the lines of the logic of expected consequences is often based on a structural theory of interests, just as March and Olsen emphasize the social formation of identities. The parallel is clear, however: while the logic of expected consequences essentially leads us to derive actions from given preferences, the logic of appropriateness essentially leads us to derive actions from given identities. However, a traditional objective of the social sciences is less to understand the past than to generate explanatory and hence potentially predictive theory. The assumption of self-interested rationality, the basis of much economic theory, is also common in political science, where it can be found in elds such as democracy (e.g., Downs), international politics (e.g., Waltz), coalitions (e.g., Riker), bargaining (e.g., Snyder and Diesing), war (e.g., Bueno de Mesquita), and deterrence (e.g., Zagare). Critics are apt to intimate that authors such as these are committedMarch and Olsens termto simplistic theory. It is worth calling to mind, therefore,

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that simplifying assumptions may perform useful functions, if the objective is to develop explanatory theory that can be used for future-oriented purposes. One function is to serve as a premise from which behavioral implications can be deduced. If the implications are put to empirical test, the result will be an indication of the degree to which the theory succeeds in explaining what it is intended to explain. The theory may provide a poor account of the thoughts and feelings that go into individual decisions but may offer a well-reasoned account of specic aspects, an account that is applicable to more than single cases, has known explanatory power, and can be improved by further research. Another function of rationalist theory is to serve as a well-dened ideal type to which actually existing conditions can be compared. The emphasis in this case is less on the similarity between ideal and reality than on the difference. The theory of games has been used in several disciplines to generate propositions about strategic interaction. This has not always been because social life has been presumed to consist of two-by-two games with deterministic outcomes. Often the function of the model has been to guide the explanation of deviations. Is the logic of appropriateness equally useful for the purpose of generating explanatory theory? It has been argued that the logic of appropriateness is inherently deterministic and that it paints a picture of actors as being institutionally programmed to act in appropriate ways, as expressed through their identities (Sending, 455). March and Olsen, while offering thoughts about a possible future (1998, 943), go to the other extreme in emphasizing the lack of predictability, which they think is inherent in their approach. The rules, norms, institutions, and identities that drive human action they see as developing in a way that cannot be predicted from prior environmental conditions (1998, 958). They further write:
History is created by a complicated ecology of local events and locally adaptive actions. . . . The locally adaptive actions that constitute that ecology are themselves based on subtle intertwinings of rational action based on expectations of consequences and rule-based action seeking to full identities within environments that inuence but do not uniquely dictate actions. Expectations, preferences, identities, and meanings . . . coevolve with the actions they produce. (March and Olsen 1998, 968969)

March and Olsen appear to emphasize the unpredictability not only of identities but also of the impact of identities on actions. The interactive features of their view of politics are striking. They nd it inevitable to confront the issue of the usefulness of such theory. Theory of this kind, they write, can be used to interpret careful historical observations and descriptions of behavior and events and hence to provide a basis for intelligent compromises between simple renderings of history that are inconsistent with reality and complex renderings that are inconsistent with human capacities for comprehension (1998, 969).

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The Enlightenment idea of using research to facilitate the intelligent solution of political problems was abandoned by many in the 1990s. It should be possible to use the logic of appropriateness in the same way as the logic of expected consequences, however: as a source of theory whose explanatory power is to be explored, and as an ideal type with which actually existing institutions and processes can be compared in search of deviations in need of explanationboth in the hope of getting beyond the mere interpretation of historical observations and descriptions of behavior and events.
APPROPRIATENESS AS PRESCRIPTION

March and Olsen consider the logic of appropriateness normatively superior to the logic of expected consequences. Their Democratic Governance ends with the conclusion that the justication for democratic governance and democratic change does not lie in the logic of consequence. On the contrary, to act within the democratic spirit is to accept responsibility for crafting the practices, rules, forms, capabilities, structures, procedures, accounts and identities that construct democratic political life. The essence of the democratic spirit, they add, is to try to do good, even while knowing that the efforts may be fruitless or misguided (1995, 251252). This, they evidently think, is the opposite of discussing democratic governance by the use of a language emphasizing exchanges among rational self-interested individuals (1995, 56). It is not possible to do justice to March and Olsens analysis of democratic governance here, but I want to comment on a particular implication of their argument. The normative superiority of the logic of appropriateness may seem too obvious to need laboring: communitarian commitment instead of self-seeking individualism, the building of common institutions and identities instead of the pursuit of self-interest. There is reason for caution when applying the logic of appropriateness to the prescriptive analysis of democracy, however. The logics imply different conceptions of democratic citizenship. One ideal is for each citizen to take a stand on the issues in a rational way on the basis of his or her interests and ideas. This is the basis of liberal democracy. It is akin to Robert Dahls (112) notion of enlightened understanding: procedures for making decisions should be evaluated according to the opportunities they furnish citizens for acquiring an understanding of means and ends, of ones interests and the expected consequences of policies for interests, not only for oneself but for all other relevant persons as well. Such a view of democracy is rooted in the logic of expected consequences.11 This is not March and Olsens vision. A conception of democracy based on interaction between individual or group interests, in their opinion, downplay[s] the signicance or meaning of virtue in the values of the citizenry and doubt[s] the relevance of social investment in citizenship.

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A contrary ideal, which they call the civic identity ideal, presumes that action is rule based, that it involves matching the obligations of an identity to a situation. In this perspective, they think, [s]trategies for achieving democracy emphasize molding rules and identities and socializing individuals into them (1996, 253254). If the logic of appropriateness puts a presumption of liberal democracy into question, this would also seem to be the case in recent literature with regard to what is called deliberative democracy. Deliberative democracy may be dened as collective decision making by means of arguments offered by and to participants who are committed to the values of rationality and impartiality (Elster, 8, emphasis in original). Legitimacy is derived from a process of generalized deliberation (Thompson, 255). Agreed judgement about policy and law should ideally follow from public debate and the force of the better argumentnot from the intrusive outcome of non-discursive elements and forces; a legitimate decision . . . is not one that results necessarily from the will of all, but rather one that results from the deliberation of all (Held, 155). The ideal is a political community in which decisions are reached through an open and uncoerced discussion of the issue at stake where the aim of all participants is to arrive at an agreed judgement (Miller, 9697). The ideal, in other words, is consensus seeking by rational debate. There is little question that theorists of deliberative democracy have assumed rational debate to go beyond matching the obligations of an identity to a situation. From a liberaldemocratic perspective, the function of political debate is largely to help citizens assess the consequences of policy choices. From a deliberativedemocratic perspective, its function is to bring about a rational solution to common problems. From a perspective such as March and Olsens, in contrast, the function of debate is largely to ensure compliance with identity-related obligations. Opinion formation in the rst case is ideally a matter of public information and in the second case, of rational argument. In the third case it is ideally a matter of moral persuasion. Whereas liberal and deliberative perspectives on democracy prioritize education, a perspective such as March and Olsens puts a premium on socialization. In the rst case, the task of the politician is to help individual citizens decide what is best from the point of view of their ideas and interests, and in the second case to contribute to joint problem solving. The politicians task in the third case is to make citizens realize what sort of people they are and what is right to do because they are what they are. The argument of this article is not that the logic of expected consequences provides a better account than the logic of appropriateness of the way in which democracies actually function, nor that March and Olsen err in preferring complying with rules to consideration of consequences. The argument is that March and Olsen could have done more to problematize the democratic virtue of the logic of appropriateness

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and, moreover, that they confuse the issue by equating consequentialism with the pursuit of individual ends. It is worth discussing what is more virtuous: to follow rules to which one has been socialized, or to assess in each case the consequences of alternative actions in terms of ones ideals. March and Olsen might object that consequentialism is based on an unrealistic view of human foresight: because of complex interactivity, consequences cannot be predicted with any degree of certainty, and therefore it is better if people act on the basis of their identity. It may be argued in return that sticking to inherited rules need not be less arbitrary than attempting to anticipate consequences. Again, the point is not that March and Olsen are wrong but that they write as if it were inherently and obviously more virtuous to do what is appropriate than to be guided by expected consequences.
CONCLUSION

It is difcult to resist the temptation of suggesting at the end that March and Olsens approach has proven compelling because of its consequences rather than in terms of its appropriateness. Its inuence has been strong and positive in the research community. The distinction between logics has made scholars think in new, important ways. Many have seen March and Olsens indeterminateness and their emphasis on rules and identities as an alternative to what they have found intellectually constraining and morally repellent. However, if March and Olsens distinction is examined from the point of view of what is often considered appropriate for scholarship, skeptical questions can be raised about its meaning, method, and morals. This would seem to be a common feature of debates in political science. When so-called approaches are set against each other, it happens that one is a caricaturea simplistic construction advocated by nobody; March and Olsens account of the logic of expected consequences may be a case in point. It happens, furthermore, that the theoretical status of constructs presumed to contend with each other is obscure, and that approaches set forth as opposed do in fact overlap. What is more, scholars do not always abstain from using persuasive language to intimate that their own approach is normatively superior. Scholarship, as Karl Popper said, is a matter of conjectures and refutations. Well-founded conjectures are to be put forward for skeptical scrutiny; this is the way in which scholarship is taken to advance. Paradoxically, debates about perspectives that are not meant to be refuted seem good at inspiring scholars to think in new ways. Such debates must not be taken for advances in knowledge: it is important that scholars produce well-founded conjectures rather than argue about perspectives. Debates about perspectives may inspire scholars to develop signicant conjectures, however. What is inappropriate, it appears, also may have good consequences.

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Inappropriateness, however, raises the issue of the difference between scholarship and politics and hence of the autonomy of the former in relation to the latter. When scholars set perspectives against each other, ideological overtones are not always absent. It is difcult to avoid associating March and Olsens logics with the opposition between liberalism and conservatismbetween the view of a John Stuart Mill (213, 216) to the effect that the task of government is to favor the attempt to exercise . . . a rational choice and that designing political institutions to this effect is one of the most rational objects to which practical effort can address itself, and the view of an Edmund Burke (31, 87) to the effect that the very idea of the fabrication of a new government, is enough to ll us with disgust and horror and that it is more wise to continue the prejudice . . . than . . . to leave nothing but the naked reason . . . because prejudice, with its reason, has a motive to give action to that reason, and an affection which will give it permanence. This should sufce as a reminder that the step between scholarly dichotomization and political debate may be short. The persuasiveness of the logic of appropriateness, as outlined by March and Olsen, derives in part from its inclusiveness, which can also be characterized as imprecision, its emphasis on complexity and variation, which can also be seen as theory avoidance, the difculty of determining how to refute it, and the limited extent to which its normatively attractive features are problematized. The point is not that March and Olsen pursue politics in academic disguise but that some features of their approach tend to blur the distinction between scholarship and politics. This may make it useful for those wishing to pursue the latter while appearing to pursue the former.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I am indebted to participants in a seminar at the Department of Government, Uppsala University, and especially to Thomas Persson, whose thesis is as good an illustration as any of the utility of taking March and Olsens approach as a point of departure for empirical research. I am also indebted for important suggestions to two reviewers for Governance.
NOTES 1. The inclination to view scholarship as a matter of debate between opposing schools is especially prominent in the eld of international relations. See Schmidt, and Fearon and Wendt for skeptical considerations with an orientation similar to this article. 2. An Internet search in November 2003 identied more than 800 instances of the use of the expression logic of appropriateness, ranging from scholarly papers and presentations to lecture notes, course outlines, and term papers. There were 28 instances of logic of expected consequences and about 220 instances of logic of consequences, which is what the alternative to the logic of appropriateness is often called in March and Olsens texts.

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3. By November 2003, the number of records in the Library of Congress catalogue was 28 for March and 18 for Olsen. The Karlsruher Virtueller Katalog of German libraries gave 51 hits for March and 33 for Olsen (some works were recorded more than once). The number of hits in BIBSYS, the Norwegian Library data base, was 36 for March and 133 for Olsen. 4. The 1996 paper is in part a survey of the literature about institutional perspectives rather than a presentation of the authors own approach; it is difcult at times to determine whether March and Olson agree with assertions they cite from others and what precisely they see as part of the logics as they dene them. The 1998 paper is about a few stylized ways of thinking about the history and possible future of international political organization; the focus of the present paper is on the stylized ways and not on international organization. 5. I have beneted from Kjell Engelbrekts (5361) careful account of the perspectivist argument, which he traces back to Friedrich Nietzsche. 6. The fact that an organization does not behave rationally in the sense of the logic of expected consequences need not imply that it acts in accordance with the logic of appropriateness, nor that its constituent units fail to act in accordance with the logic of expected consequences. Regarding the former: March and Olsens dichotomization suggests that there are only two alternatives, but this may be premature. Regarding the latter: see the consideration of levels of analysis below. 7. It is debatable whether all those on the consequentialist side do in fact ignore rules and institutions. The present article is limited to the conceptual issue, however, and does not aim at considering whether March and Olsens characterizations of scholars are justiable. 8. For a recent analysis of the use of the concept of self-interest in rationalist theory, see Sen (2237). 9. It has been suggested that the rules with which March and Olsen are preoccupied are constitutive of shared meanings and practices and hence of identities, in contrast to rules that merely regulate activities within the framework of meanings and practices, and hence identities, that have already been constituted (Sending, 446). March and Olsen do not distinguish between the logics in such terms, however. 10. See Goldmann (286290) for a discussion of this matter within the framework of a consideration of the implications of internationalization for the nation-state. 11. March and Olsens outline of the logic of expected consequences is ambiguous with regard to Dahls reference to the interests of all other persons, as pointed out previously. Dahls wording is not far from March and Olsens personal and collective objectives, but the collective aspect is sometimes omitted from their argument. REFERENCES Axelrod, Robert M. 1984. The Evolution of Cooperation. New York: Basic Books. Bueno de Mesquirta, Bruce. 1981. The War Trap. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Burke, Edmund. 1993 [1790]. Reections on the Revolution in France. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Dahl, Robert A. 1989. Democracy and Its Critics. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Downs, Anthony. 1957. An Economic Theory of Democracy. New York: Harper and Row.

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