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Studying institutions in the context of natural selection: limits or opportunities?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 January 2013

PASCAL BOYER  and
MICHAEL BANG PETERSEN
PASCAL BOYER*
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, Washington University, Saint Louis, MO 63130, USA
MICHAEL BANG PETERSEN*
Affiliation:
Department of Political Science, Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark
*
*Email: pboyer@artsci.wustl.edu
**Email: michael@ps.au.dk
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Abstract:

In this comment, we respond to comments raised by Eastwood (2012) in response to our article on the role of evolutionary psychology in understanding institutions (Boyer and Petersen, 2012). We discuss how evolutionary psychological models account for cultural variation and change in institutions, how sociological institutionalism and evolutionary models can inform each other, how evolutionary psychological models illuminate the role of power in institutional design and the possibility of a ‘general theory’ of institutions.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Institutional Economics , Volume 9 , Issue 2 , June 2013 , pp. 187 - 198
Copyright
Copyright © Millennium Economics Ltd 2013

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