What is new in the contemporary analysis of institutions and what does it offer to the study of social order? Karol Soltan, Eric Uslaner, and Virginia Haufler bring together in this book some of the leading scholars in political science, economics, and sociology to explore the different approaches to the study of institutions and their contributions to understanding the organization of modern society. The essays collected in this volume address the merging of rational choice and historical-sociological institutionalism in the "new institutionalism." Institutions and Social Order offers a conversation that enables us to explore the commonalities - and divisions - between the disciplines and the ways these disciplines define and use institutions in their analysis.