Institutional Change

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kathleen Thelen ◽  
James Conran
Keyword(s):  
Institutional Change ◽  
Rational Choice ◽  
Comparative Statics ◽  
Institutional Evolution ◽  
Sociological Institutionalism ◽  
Independent Variables ◽  
Critical Junctures ◽  
Contextual Change ◽  
Endogenous Institutional Change

This chapter traces developments in historical institutionalist approaches to institutional change. Originally, historical (like rational choice and sociological) institutionalism focused on institutions as “independent” variables, favoring a “comparative statics” mode of analysis. Institutions were relatively fixed and unproblematically enforced rules, while change came through periodic “critical junctures.” A dualistic institutional imagery treated institutions as exogenous for some analytical purposes, highly plastic for others. More recently, historical institutionalists have turned their attention to the dynamics of institutional evolution through political contestation and contextual change. This has allowed the identification of previously neglected processes of incremental and endogenous institutional change.

Do We Really Need a New ‘Constructivist Institutionalism’ to Explain Institutional Change?

2011 ◽  
Vol 41 (4) ◽  
pp. 883-906 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen Bell
Keyword(s):  
Institutional Change ◽  
Rational Choice ◽  
Historical Institutionalism ◽  
Change Processes ◽  
Institutional Environments ◽  
Sociological Institutionalism ◽  
Institutional Settings ◽  
Alternative Approach ◽  
Core Elements

Rational choice, historical institutionalism and sociological institutionalism are under criticism from a new ‘constructivist institutionalism’ – with critics claiming that established positions cannot explain institutional change effectively, because agents are highly constrained by their institutional environments. These alleged problems in explaining institutional change are exaggerated and can be dealt with by using a suitably tailored historical institutionalism. This places active, interpretive agents at the centre of analysis, in institutional settings modelled as more flexible than those found in ‘sticky’ versions of historical institutionalism. This alternative approach also absorbs core elements of constructivism in explaining institutional change. The article concludes with empirical illustrations, mainly from Australian politics, of the key claims about how agents operate within institutions with ‘bounded discretion’, and how institutional environments can shape and even empower agency in change processes.

Sociological Institutionalism and European Integration

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sabine Saurugger
Keyword(s):  
Institutional Change ◽  
European Integration ◽  
Rational Choice ◽  
Power Relations ◽  
Social Processes ◽  
Rational Behavior ◽  
Sociological Institutionalism ◽  
Institutional Frameworks ◽  
Sociology Of Organizations ◽  
Basic Understanding

Sociological institutionalism is part of the larger group of new institutionalisms that share the basic understanding that institutions matter in social processes. Opposing a more descriptive, “old” institutionalism and a rational-choice version of institutionalism, which defends the idea that actors have the option to choose independently from a large number of attitudes, sociological institutionalists introduced the notion of logic of appropriateness, influenced by a specific strand of the sociology of organizations. This understanding, however, led to limits in the explicatory force of the approach: institutional change, as well as continued conflict and differentiated power relations among actors, could not be explained well. More recent approaches that took sociological institutionalist assumptions very seriously offered a series of possible solutions to those difficulties. While elements of rationality and power exist implicitly in different conceptualizations of sociological institutionalism, these authors explicitly brought together both actors’ rational behavior and their embeddedness in broad institutional frameworks through concentrating on the power relations that exist among agents.

scholarly journals I Do It My Way: Analysis of the Permanent Representation of the Czech Republic to the European Union

2015 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 23-48
Author(s):  
Johana Galušková ◽  
Petr Kaniok
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Czech Republic ◽  
Explanatory Power ◽  
Principal Agent ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Sociological Institutionalism ◽  
The Czech Republic ◽  
Critical Junctures ◽  
Variable Character ◽  
Council Presidency

Abstract This article analyses development of the Permanent Representation of the Czech Republic to the European Union (PermRep) from 2004, when the Czech Republic joined the European Union, until 2013. Its main aim is to test four concepts related to the three neoinstitutionalist theories – firstly, the path dependency and critical junctures models related to the historical neo-institutionalism, secondly principal-agent relation typical for the rational neo-institutionalism and the concept of the logic of appropriateness related to the sociological institutionalism. The authors try to determine which of these four models have the best explanatory potential when it comes to the development of the Czech PermRep. After analysing three independent variables (changes in executive, EU Council Presidency, EU strategies), and their impact on the dependent variable (character of the Czech PermRep), the authors conclude that particularly historical institutionalism and sociological institutionalism models have the greatest explanatory power while the contribution of rational institutionalism model of principal-agent is relatively weak.

scholarly journals Explanations of Institutional Change: Reflecting on a “Missing Diagonal”

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-16 ◽  
Author(s):  
JOHANNES GERSCHEWSKI
Keyword(s):  
Social Science ◽  
Institutional Change ◽  
Research Agenda ◽  
Time Horizon ◽  
Path Dependency ◽  
Two Dimensions ◽  
The Other ◽  
Gradual Change ◽  
Exogenous Shocks ◽  
Critical Junctures

Previous research on institutional change has concentrated on two types of explanations. On one hand, the dualism of path dependency and critical junctures has advanced our understanding of how institutional change occurs due to sudden exogenous shocks. On the other hand, more recent critiques have established a better understanding of endogenous, gradual change. This article is motivated by observations that current research tends to overlook what I call the “missing diagonal.” I argue that we need to disentangle the sources of a cause (exogenous vs. endogenous) from its time horizon (sudden vs. gradual). By cross-tabulating these two dimensions, the proposed typology of institutional change explanations is able to capture complex multilayered as well as sequential arguments of institutional change. The typology urges scholars to be more precise with their social science language of erosion and decay, while serving as a generator for an innovative research agenda on endogenous ruptures.

Channeling the “Restless Spirit of Innovation”: Elite Concessions and Institutional Change in the British Reform Act of 1832

2011 ◽  
Vol 63 (4) ◽  
pp. 678-710 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bruce Morrison
Keyword(s):  
Institutional Change ◽  
Resistance To Change ◽  
The Political ◽  
Mass Mobilization ◽  
Sources Of Resistance ◽  
State Reform ◽  
Critical Junctures ◽  
Parliamentary Reform ◽  
Over Time

The long-standing understanding of the British 1832 Reform Act as an elite response to a revolutionary threat has been given renewed prominence in recent work on the political economy of democratization. But earlier episodes of popular revolt in Britain led to elite unity rather than elite concessions. This article argues that the absence of effective elite closure against parliamentary reform in the early 1830s was the result of an extended process of state reform that had the effect of gradually reducing the capacity of the monarchy. This deprived the crown of patronage required for the construction of an antireform coalition, while also mollifying the reformers' fears that mass mobilization would invite repression and with it the recalibration of the constitution in favor of the monarchy. Therefore, while pressure from below was indeed critical to the passage of parliamentary reform, its contribution was mediated by institutional changes that, over time, weakened the sources of resistance to change and rendered reformist elites more amenable to the necessary reliance on the threat of force. This case study thus establishes that change at critical junctures can be subject to the influence of incremental institutional change occurring in relatively settled periods.

The Evolution of International Law and Courts

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karen J. Alter
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Institutional Evolution ◽  
World War ◽  
International Courts ◽  
Critical Junctures ◽  
Law And Courts ◽  
The Hague ◽  
The Creation ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
State Relations

The creation and increased usage of permanent international courts to deal with a broad range of issues is a relatively new phenomenon. The founding dates of international courts suggests that three critical junctures were important in the creation of the contemporary international courts: the Hague Peace conferences and with it the larger movement to regulate inter-state relations through international legal conventions (1899-1927), the post-World War II explosion of international institutions (1945–1952), and the end of the Cold War (1990–2005). Examining the effects of these junctures and gradual changes in the practice of international jurisprudence, this chapter argues that the best way to understand the creation, spread and increased use of ‘new style’ international courts is by paying close attention to the major changes brought about through long-lasting slow processes of international institutional evolution.

Political Survival and Endogenous Institutional Change

2008 ◽  
Vol 42 (2) ◽  
pp. 167-197 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bruce Bueno de Mesquita ◽  
Alastair Smith
Keyword(s):  
Institutional Change ◽  
Political Survival ◽  
Endogenous Institutional Change
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