Why Institutions Endure: Norms, Leadership, and What Enables Reform

Why do trapped countries remain locked in bad institutions while a few escape? This paper introduces a novel framework in which societal norms and leadership traits drive institutional persistence and change. It offers four insights. First, leadership traits correlate with societal norms through contagion, incentives, selection pool effects, and normative alignment—cross-country tests are consistent with this framework. Second, it explains why sustainable reforms are rare. Third, it shows reforms endure only when norms shift and explains the mechanism. Fourth, in notable transformations—Singapore, South Korea, Botswana, and Turkey—it shows enduring reforms require both duration and intensity