Why did James G. March and Johan P. Olsen argue that institutions should be rediscovered in political science?

James G. March and Johan P. Olsen argued that political scientists needed to "rediscover" institutions to gain a more accurate understanding of political reality.1

They contended that the behavioralist movement, which dominated the field from the 1960s, focused too exclusively on the actions of individual political actors while ignoring the broader context. March and Olsen maintained that studying individual behavior without accounting for the institutional constraints—such as rules, norms, and structures—within which those actors operate provides a skewed and incomplete picture of politics.1

By integrating institutional analysis back into the discipline, they sought to bridge the gap between the traditionalist focus on formal structures and the behavioralist emphasis on individual choices, ultimately allowing for a more comprehensive analysis of how political life is organized.1