One version of the institutional argument goes like this: if we create sufficient checks and balances around the Presidency, say, then the costs of doing harm are very significantly raised. So significantly raised, in fact, that it will be very hard or impossible for the President to act in a way that contravenes the general will.

The general argument , I think, is that there's a possible configuration of an institution - expressed in formal rules - that raises the costs of action enough to guarantee that even a malevolent agent won't be able to act badly (maybe that's stating it too strongly.) Let's agree to pass over some interesting questions (would a malevolent agent really agree in advance to this set up unless compelled to do so?) The difficulty is that the rise in the costs of action is supposed to be captured by the formal rules of the institution (at least initially). But in order for the costs to bite, the malevolent agent has to be willing to obey the rules, or it must to be possible to compel him to obey them. The President has few superiors, and a sufficiently ruthless or unscrupulous agent will either bend the rules, refer them to outside adjudication over which he has influence, or simply refuse to follow them.

We have examples of all three. Odinga Sr. destroyed the post-independence majimbo constitution by denying the regions money or control of the tribal police as was. (See pp. 21-22 of Branch and Cheeseman (2006) "The politics of control in Kenya: Understanding the bureaucratic-executive state, 1952-78").  Kibaki was very good at referring difficulties to outside adjudication where he would be sure to find a sympathetic hearing (name your scandal). Moi scorned formal rules: see his unconstitutional appointment of Musalia as VP.

Institutionalism, this form anyway, is not enough.

___________________