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Abstract This paper presents a comparative examination of different philosophies that explore the concept of institutional performance (the effectiveness of a government) and its relationship to the underpinning factors of social context and history. In today’s academia, the success of a government is widely associated with social context and history. Many research studies have examined the relationship between institutional performance and social context and history. However, the debate of the effective government and its underpinning factors is ancient. It consists of a series of different philosophies presented by different schools of thought and philosophers at different times. These philosophies evolved over the ages, explaining diverse factors that affect institutional performance, including social context, history, legal and constitutional frameworks, institutional design, and socio-economic factors. These philosophies are divided into two categories of traditional and modern approaches, which explain the descriptive, normative, and methodological aspects of the relationship of institutional performance with these factors. Throughout this paper, the historicity of these approaches is delved into and traced to explore the intricate and intertwined relationship between institutional performance, social context and history, and to analyze their underlying assumptions. A comparative analysis of social context and history with other factors e.g. legal, institutional design and socio-economic factors is also presented. The core contribution or basic argument presented in this paper is that historical survey of different philosophies that explain the relationship of social context, history and institutional performance helps in strengthening the modern studies relating to institutional performance and its underlying assumptions. Keywords: Institutional Performance, Social Context, History, Effective Government, Comparative Philosophies, Traditional Approaches, Modern Approaches