On the basis of a view of institutions as mediating between structures and individual behavior it is argued that the same basic development of institutionalism can be found in Political Science as well as in Economics or Sociology, according to three analytical currents, each with its own genealogy. In French economic theory these three currents correspond to the regulation theory, to the new institutional theory, and to the convention theory. Basically the new institutionalisms differ according to two great oppositions: 1) the weight given, in the genesis of institutions, either to conflicts of power and interests or to the coordination between individuals; 2) the role attributed either to a strictly instrumental rationality or to representations and culture.
Institutions; institutional analysis; neo-institutionalism