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This paper addresses the critique regarding the apolitical nature of institutionalist theorizing by developing the concept of virtuous institutions. I start from the observation that current public discourses are often characterized by a destructive pitting of 'my values' against 'your values'. Values, in this usage, represent personal emotion-laden beliefs that are ultimately incompatible. In addition to fueling destructive public discourses, incompatible values (a feature that is central to institutional value theorizing) make system integration (a feature that is also central to institutional theorizing) very difficult. I therefore propose to reconceptualize values as virtues. Drawing on the communitarian ethics of Alasdair MacIntyre and the concept of institutional valuation of Roger Friedland, I suggest a reconceptualization of institutional values that introduces the notion of a common good, understands institutional practices as co-constitutive with such a good, and abolishes the assumption that values are fundamentally irrational and beyond reasoning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper contributes to the discussion about the marketisation of universities by providing a historical perspective. Going back to the time when the market for academic knowledge emerged, I argue that it was created through incorporating a number of inherent tensions that have been, and still are, shaping its development. I show how these tensions affect the self-definition of the producers and consumers in the market as well as their valuation of the products the market has to offer. They also influence the rules of exchange.

With this article I hope to contribute to a more adequate explanation of institutional endurance. I argue that current explanations in the neoinstitutional literature suffer from two problems. The first is a rational-cognitive bias coupled with an overemphasis on the role of actors. The second is the unexplained source of autonomy and externality in the definition of institutions. I propose to solve these problems by introducing an aisthetic perspective on institutional endurance. This perspective should not replace but, rather, supplement existing models and theories. The aisthetic perspective conceptualizes institutions as social processes with aisthetic qualities, such as harmony and rhythm. These aisthetic qualities can be felt and perceived, resulting in a positive or negative experience of the institution that, in turn, promotes its reproduction (or not). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]