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Comrad Don Quixote / Nina Witoszek -- Explaining action and explaining social phenomena / Andreas Balog -- Socio-economics and a new scientific paradign / Roger hollingsworth, Karl H. Müller, Ellen Jane Hollingsworth, David M. Bear -- Rule system theory : an overview / Tom R. Burns -- Negotiation int the context of generalized game theory / Ewa Roszkowska -- Rough rule-following by social agents / Anna Gomolińska -- On the art of being usefully wrong : lessons from voting paradoxes / Hannu Nurmi -- The stabliization of social order : social cognitive dissonance theory applied to hospitals and clinics / Nora Machado -- Dare we dream of a future without AIDS? : challenges and opportunities for responsive social science research / Beth Maina Ahlberg -- Of mind and matter : policy paradigms and institutional design / Marcus Carson -- Corporate (social) responsibility as an arena for partnered governance : from the business to the public policy case / Atlte Midttun -- The institutionalization of a meta-order : negotiating the energy charter theory / Svein S. Anderson -- Opinion polling on international political accords / Hans L. Zetterburg -- The political systems of the United States and the European Union / Alberto Martinelli -- Germany and migration : a European case / Helena Flam -- Social rule systems theory and the disintegration of Yugoslavia / Dusko Sekulic -- Could Home oeconomicus become a revolutionary? : probing the irrevelance of standard economics / Christian Arnsperger, Philippe VeVillé

In this paper we outline a general evolutionary theory, which we suggest can provide a useful point of departure for the description and analysis of cultural and institutional dynamics. The paper defines culture and institutions as systems of social rules, produced and reproduced by human groups, and formulates the evolutionary dynamics of such rule systems. In the context of the resurgence of evolutionary thinking in the social sciences in the last decade, we distinguish between contemporary evolutionary approaches and earlier developmental approaches. By evolutionary we mean models of the generation of variety, transmission of information and the operation of selection and other processes (migration, distorted or incorrect knowledge transmission etc.) on the distribution of information within and between populations over time. The key units of information consists of social rules, the production, reproduction and transformation of which is the focus of the theory. In this scheme macro or population-level phenomena and structures are shaped by micro-level processes and in turn are the selective environment for the micro-level processes. Historical developments are seen as the result of complex contingencies rather than representing a tendency for key variables to move towards a static or dynamic Aristotelean `natural state'. In historical developments, human agents play a major role but often not in the ways they intend or anticipate.

In this article, we analyse organizational learning that is based on formal organizational rules. Organizational rules provide procedures for problem solving. However, whether rules are useful as media of organizational learning is dependent on properties of the rule system and on the organizational members' experience in dealing with rules and the rule system. For example, a voluminous rule system is usually assumed to impede rule changes that contribute to organizational learning. With regard to experience one can assume that organizational members who have learned how to deal effectively with a rule system should be able to design rules in such a way that, for some time, they do not require further changes. In an empirical analysis of all changes in the rules for personnel policy in a German bank from 1970 to 1989, we show that experience increases the stability of individual rules and the rule system. However, we cannot support the assumption that the volume of the rule system impedes organizational learning. Moreover, we found that the volume of individual rules increases the probability of rule change.

The inequities of the present system of rules in jai alai are documented on the basis of empirical information and theoretical results from a Monte Carlo simulation model. Some suggestions are made for changing the rules in order to make the game more equitable for both players and bettors. The simulation model is used to compare the effectiveness of the suggested rules with that of the present rules.

Women's parliamentary representation in the 27 long-established but "unfinished democracies" (Haavio-Mannila et al. 1985) of the world varies between 2.3% in Japan's lower house to 39.0% in unicameral Finland. Women state legislators in the United States range from 4% in Kentucky to 39% in Washington in the lower house. Women are 11% of the members of the U.S. House of Representatives. The causes of this variation are primarily the electoral arrangements by which legislators are chosen and, secondarily, the political, economic, and social context.Favorable societal conditions will not substitute for unfavorable electoral systems for women to reach their optimal representation in parliament and local legislatures. But unfavorable contextual conditions—including cultural biases and discriminatory practices—can be overcome to a great extent by alternate electoral systems. Electoral arrangements are not neutral; they are the means used to exclude or include groups. The arrangements are amenable to change faster than social biases and other barriers to women's election opportunity and fair representation.Democracy falls short when women of whatever color or ethnic group cannot cast an effective vote to elect representatives of their choice or to enact laws they believe are critically needed. When there are higher proportions of women in parliament, for example, more laws are enacted that benefit children (Lijphart 1991).