Mature institutions survive their founding purpose because members prefer sunk costs over new formation

Evidence

Institutionalist theory would lead us to expect that rather than folding NATO’s tent, declaring victory, and moving to create new institutions, NATO members will take the alliance in new directions, making use of existing procedures and mechanisms to build on past successes to deal with new problems. They spent forty-five years learning how to work as a long-term coalition through a sophisticated political and military structure. NATO members can thus be expected to turn first to existing mechanisms and procedures when confronted with new problems rather than creating new non-NATO institutions. The presumption is that actors will be disinclined to abandon sunk costs (political and economic) of existing institutional arrangements, turning instead to a mechanism (NATO) that already works. — Robert B. McCalla, NATO’s persistence after the cold war, 119

Categorization

• XREF: Directly serves the reader’s stated purpose: NATO persisting after the Soviet Union’s collapse, explained via sunk-cost institutional dynamics that parallel path-dependence arguments in organizational sociology. — connects to: Institutions persist past their founding purpose because maintaining them costs less than replacing them.; Institutions begin as means to satisfy needs, then become ends in themselves. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 623; Past mass membership was more institutional inertia than free choice. — Anton Jäger, Hyperpolitics: Extreme Politicization…, 244 (+4 more)
• APHORISMS: The deeper principle — actors prefer paying to maintain an imperfect existing arrangement over the startup cost of a new one — reads as durable institutional wisdom.

Broader Connections

• Institutions persist past their founding purpose because maintaining them costs less than replacing them. #corroborates (0.95)
• Existing institutions get redirected toward new problems because sunk costs make replacement costly. #expands (0.88) — Robert B. McCalla, NATO’s persistence after the cold war, 119
• High setup costs and sunk investment make institutional arrangements self-stabilizing. #expands (0.85) — Daryl Levinson and Benjamin I. Sachs, Political Entrenchment and Public Law, 197
• Institutions begin as means to satisfy needs, then become ends in themselves. #expands (0.82) — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 623
• Alliances can persist and expand purposes after their founding enemy disappears #exemplifies (0.78) — Robert B. McCalla, NATO’s persistence after the cold war, 60
• Organizations outlast their original purpose and remain usable as social capital #corroborates (0.76) — Coleman, SocialCapitalCreation-1988, 129
• Past mass membership was more institutional inertia than free choice. #exemplifies (0.72) — Anton Jäger, Hyperpolitics, 244