Neo-institutionalism is not a unified current of thought. On the contrary, at least three different methods of analysis emerged in this area in the last 25 years: historical institutionalism, rational choice institutionalism, and sociological institutionalism. All of them deal, from different angles, with the role performed by institutions in the determination of social and political results. The genesis as well as the peculiarities of these variants of "neo-institutionalism" are exposed and examined.
Institutions; institutional analysis; neo-institutionalism