Festschrift für Fritz W. Scharpf - MPIfG

The Boundaries of “Bounded Generalizations”:
Discourse as the Missing Factor in Actor-Centered
Institutionalism
Vivien A. Schmidt
Fritz W. Scharpf’s approach to social scientific explanation, which combines
“actor-centered institutionalism” with a rational choice methodology
in an effort to uncover causal generalizations about policy and polity, is one
of the most methodologically fruitful approaches found in rational choice
institutionalism today. 1 This is because, in his efforts to shed light on real
world problems, Scharpf is almost alone in his refusal to over-generalize.
Despite a methodology that most political scientists see as an invitation to
universal generalization, Scharpf seeks to move toward “bounded generalizations”
through the identification of subsets of cases in which variance in
policy outcomes can be explained by variances in the same set of factor
constellations. Thus, he seeks to lend insight into the complexity of “real
actors’” institutionally-embedded policy choices without giving up his quest
for theory-based, parsimonious explanation in social science.
In this quest, Scharpf, unlike many of those whose primary methodology
is also rational choice institutionalism, accepts that where his own variant of
such institutionalism, however bounded in its generalizations, cannot offer
an explanation, other kinds of non-rationalist explanations may do so. As a
result, his methodology proves useful not only as an analytic tool showing
where actors’ rationally reconstructed, institutionally-constituted strategies
are sufficient to explaining policy choices, but also where they are not. It is
on this particular boundary that I focus, that is, where bounded generalizations
founded on actors’ strategic institutional interactions are not enough,
and where explanations based on ideas, values, and deliberation, which I
bundle together under the rubric of discourse, are necessary to a full understanding
of policy change.
1 For a full discussion of actor-centered institutionalism, which Scharpf developed in tandem
with Renate Mayntz, see Mayntz/Scharpf (1995), Scharpf (1997).