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Historical Institutionalism
Abstract
This article studies the context where a new attention to institutional analysis emerged in the social sciences during the 1970s. It also examines the distinctions between historical institutionalism and its closest competitors - rational choice and quantitative cross-sectional analysis - as well as the search for agents of institutional maintenance and change. The last section of the article contains comments on the aspects of institutional development that have received too little attention.
... Historical institutionalism participates in the dominant theoretical matrix regarding the systematics of government and political thought, seeking to emphasize the role of institutions in social and political outcomes (Hall and Taylor 2003). Thus, among the schools that compose the institutional theoretical matrix and which are committed to elucidating the construction between an institution and the behavior, adaptation, and emergence of institutions as a whole, historical institutionalism presents itself as a theoretical lens by which to observe innovation in the judiciary, as it highlights the complex and dynamic character-observed in the judiciary (Sousa and Guimarães 2014)-with which results and social choices are taken, analyzed as fluid and unpredictable, and are contemplated in terms of the actions between an institution's internal and external agents, each of which have several, and potentially conflicting, objectives (Sanders 2008). Therefore, historical institutionalism is also concerned with the construction, maintenance and adaptation of institutions (Sanders 2008). ...
... Thus, among the schools that compose the institutional theoretical matrix and which are committed to elucidating the construction between an institution and the behavior, adaptation, and emergence of institutions as a whole, historical institutionalism presents itself as a theoretical lens by which to observe innovation in the judiciary, as it highlights the complex and dynamic character-observed in the judiciary (Sousa and Guimarães 2014)-with which results and social choices are taken, analyzed as fluid and unpredictable, and are contemplated in terms of the actions between an institution's internal and external agents, each of which have several, and potentially conflicting, objectives (Sanders 2008). Therefore, historical institutionalism is also concerned with the construction, maintenance and adaptation of institutions (Sanders 2008). ...
The judiciary is a field lacking research in relation to its administration and innovation; however, different theoretical perspectives can be followed. This work reviews this trend while adding to it. An institutional perspective is presented, as is its explanatory potential. This perspective captures the context of the public sector; however, when analyzing its interpretation in terms of innovation, it is revealed to be doubly paradoxical. From the theoretical point of view, institutionalization focuses on the maintenance of processes, while innovation, gradually or abruptly, investigates their disruptions. Nevertheless, institutionalization can be observed as part of the sedimentation of innovation. Institutionalization is presented, in the context of innovation, as a selection mechanism that shapes such innovation. This paradox is presented under the review of organizational institutionalism vis-à-vis innovation and, for its unfolding, considers the adoption of innovation as an adaptation to the prevalent rationalized elements. This presentation is paralleled with the interpretation that innovation is limited by a structure that, sometimes rationalized, forms its trajectory. Considering the social function of the judiciary that is anchored in institutionalism, historical institutionalism is thus added, centrally placing the judiciary in the current institutional matrix and associating its path dependence with the dimensions of its innovation. Based on these outlines, propositions and a suggested agenda for future research are presented.
... As such, it might be applied to other settings. One potentially productive fit between the Bayesian learning model and the study of institutional development lies within the strand of historical institutionalism, which often focuses on long-run developments that incorporate the interaction and adaptive but potentially uncertain expectations of actors (Sanders 2008;Thelen 1999). ...
The description of the long-run historical development of parliamentarism has presented an empirical and methodological challenge because it is only loosely related to constitutional writings. This article offers a solution. Using a wide variety of historiography, I collect data on government terminations in eleven West European states from the establishment of national parliaments until today. To describe the evolution of parliamentarism, I apply a Bayesian learning model that estimates institutional development as the change in current expectations about interactions grounded in past experience. The result is the first long-run continuous description of parliamentarism at the country level, which suggests that parliamentarism in many cases was established later than hitherto believed. In general, it is an institution of the Postwar period. The finding that unelected heads of state in several countries influenced government terminations well into the twentieth century also has implications for ideas about democratization.
... The central assumption of institutionalism is that political actors are subjected to the context of rules arranged by a coalition of policymakers, which gradually structures individual behaviours because once rules, norms and values are institutionalised, institutions generally remain stable and 'sticky' over a period of time (Hall and Taylor 1996;Steinmo 2008). Institutions are also important in how social actors behave in that they provide incentives or disincentives to decision-making within the society's logic as institutions arise to help capture gains from cooperation (Sanders 2006). Political and economic actors adapt these strategies in a way that reinforces their logic as the latter is embedded in the institutional system over time (Thelen 1999). ...
This chapter uses an institutionalist approach to present an assessment of the key issues Brunei Darussalam currently faces in relation to its pressing need for economic diversification. Given that institutional arrangements can hinder or enhance economic growth, the institutional approach has been central in explaining policies associated with economic growth and development in various countries. The approach also offers a wealth of literature that can be used to explain Brunei’s difficulties in reducing its long-standing dependency on hydrocarbons, the extent to which institutions play a role in its economic development and in understanding the complexity of Brunei’s political economy. The discussion does not claim to provide a solution to Brunei’s economic diversification problem but rather offers some contextualisation that can be of benefit to scholars and policymakers in understanding its symptoms. The chapter also addresses current geopolitical issues and the increasing interconnectivity between Brunei’s international relations and economic diversification as it attempts to attract more foreign direct investment.
... Esta propuesta teórica se basa principalmente, en la idea de que las instituciones incluyen un conjunto de pautas, de normas y/o reglas del juego de la sociedad que tienen un efecto directo o indirecto en el comportamiento de los individuos. El análisis institucional contemporáneo, a través de sus distintas corrientes, económica (North 1993;Ostrom, 1990), sociológica (March y Olsen, 1984), organizacional (Powell y DiMaggio, 1991;Ansell, 2008), histórica (Sanders, 2008;Piersons y Skocpol, 2002), etc.), trata de entender las relaciones entre los individuos, la sociedad y el Estado desde una perspectiva compleja que dé cuenta de la interdependencia y de la interinfluencia mutua que existe entre ellos. ...
Since the return of democracy, Latin America has experienced a series of important
transformations. The first, were economic and were mainly characterized by a big wave of economic liberalization that meant, among other things, a fluctuating exchange rate, curs in public spending, the privatization of public organizations and services that ended up considerably reducing the role of the State. The second, were politics and were marked by the arrival of left-wing parties to power and the implementation of a series of social policies aimed at reducing poverty and inequality that allowed to significantly improved millions of Latin Americans’ life conditions.
All those experiences, plus the frequent alternance between authoritarianism and
democracy in recent years, have inevitably had an effect on the trust that individuals have in institutions. Therefore, how has the level of institutional trust evolved in Latin America in recent years? Specifically,
how has the alternance in power of left and right parties that have governed in Latin
America during the last thirty years, had an impact on the levels of trust that Latin
Americans have in their institutions?
Through a longitudinal multilevel statistical model of repeated measures, this research aims, first, at understanding the historical evolution of the level of institutional trust in Latin America between 1995 and 2021, from the combination of data included in the surveys carried out by Latinobarómetro, LAPOP and the World Values Survey (WVS), and secondly, to estimate the impact of the ideological orientation of individuals and of the ruling parties on the level of institutional trust.
The results show that when the ruling party is from the left, the average level of trust towards the institutions is significantly higher. They also show that trust in institutions is positively reinforced in those people who declare that they have the same orientation as the ruling party. Therefore, the evolution of institutional trust in Latin America is explained in part by the ideological orientation of individuals and the party in power.
... Scholars working in the historical institutionalist tradition argue that sudden changes of this kind can happen even after long periods of structural continuity. During these periods, no party has sufficient freedom or interest in the revision of their previous decisions (Capoccia, 2016;Hall & Taylor, 1996;Pierson, 2004;Sanders, 2008;Steinmo, 2008). Every now and then, however, an event or a series of events -most often exogenous -change the options of one or more of the relevant actors (Capoccia & Keleman, 2007). ...
... This is a relatively new approach that uses institutions to find sequences of social, political and economic behaviour and change across time. It is a comparative approach to the study of organizations, and does this by relying on case studies (Sanders, 2008;Steinmo, 2008). ...
Although the COVID-19 pandemic was not Nigeria’s first encounter with a global health crisis, it profoundly disrupted nearly every sector of society. This study focuses on Akwa Ibom State in Nigeria’s Niger Delta, offering insights into how the pandemic unfolded within the state. Utilising a qualitative methodology that combines content analysis of newspapers with anonymised interviews, framed by New Institutionalism Theory (NIT), this research reveals how the pandemic’s peak intensified tensions between state administration and health officials, alongside public controversies regarding the distribution and use of palliative measures. Our findings highlight the importance of prioritising public needs and ensuring that government actions align with this priority for effective crisis management during large-scale public health emergencies.
Many scholars have used neoliberalism as an analytical framework to examine the Philippines' labour export policy. While neoliberalism entails a retreat of the state in favour of market reforms, evidence shows that state intervention of the market becomes larger and stronger over time. This paper utilises liberal neo‐statism as an alternative framework to understand the Philippines' nurse labour export by explaining that the state's role is larger than and goes beyond labour brokerage. Following the historical institutionalism approach, we show the significant timing, sequence, and path dependence that affect the emergence of institutions that govern the Philippines' nurse labour export. Our paper reveals how specific policies and regulations in labour export are tucked within the disguise of market reforms, but which are manifest within a larger state's control. These policies serve as the state's apparatus for remittance generation and protection of migrant labour rights and welfare.
This chapter describes the general theoretical background of the study “Narrating the Rule of Law”, which builds on approaches and findings from political science, history, sociology and cultural studies. The point of departure is the neo-institutionalist assumption that existing orders influence actors’ behaviour, but that actors can also use or try to modify these orders according to their interests or normative ideas. They do so by using, constructing and circulating ideas and beliefs through discourse. We further assume that the specific context matters for how politicians refer to the rule of law. In this chapter, we apply the general analytical framework to trace the history of the liberal rule of law and illustrate some ‘classical’ conflicts surrounding its meaning and development, including the essential role of politicians (and judges) in this process. We develop these considerations and discuss why national and temporal differences in the rule of law narratives are conceivable. Finally, we discuss potential conflicts and narratives that may arise from party competition, the government–opposition divide and differing rationale of politicians’ and judges’ views of the rule of law.
City information modeling (CIM) is an innovation in information and communication technologies (ICTs) applied to urban management and planning. However, there are still few studies that evaluate the process of diffusion, implementation, and adoption from a sociotechnical perspective. Our objective is to develop an analytical model to assess the levels of multiscale institutional maturity to support the technological diffusion. The model was tested in the context of the BIM/CIM/GIS ecosystem of Curitiba, a city with long trajectory of technology diffusion, and where the municipality has already structured actions and a well-established trajectory to apply GIS, BIM, and CIM technologies and tools. The results show that (i) the institutional maturity of the BIM/CIM/GIS ecosystem is expressed by the constructs practices and processes, previous experiences, diffusion strategies, and awareness; (ii) it is possible to build an institutional maturity assessment tool to guide the dissemination, adoption and implementation processes of the CIM. The analysis allowed the identification and quantitative explanation of an institutional maturity model in line with previous theoretical debates. Theoretical implications are (i) the explanation of an institutional maturity model capable of reading reality qualitatively and quantitatively; (ii) the approximation of theory and practice via testing of the proposed model. Empirical implications are in the constitution of a theoretically grounded diagnostic tool capable of addressing challenges in technology diffusion practices to reduce the current gap between technological evolution and the pace of change of organizations.
The National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) of 1935 represented a turning point in modern labor relations policy in the United States. In the December 1989 issue of this Review, Michael Goldfield examined the effects of worker insurgency and radical organization on the enactment of the new labor law and rejected theories that emphasized the autonomy of the state from societal forces. In this Controversy, Theda Skocpol and Kenneth Finegold argue that the growing strength of liberal Democrats in Congress following the 1934 election and the failure of the National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA) as an economic recovery measure provided the most important causes for the passage of the NLRA in mid-1935. In response Goldfield argues that the results of the 1934 election were themselves influenced by the protest environment and that the passage of the NLRA was a foregone conclusion before the NIRA was struck down. © 1990, American Political Science Association. All rights reserved.
International Security 29.4 (2005) 78-111
In January 2000, al-Qaida operatives gathered secretly in Malaysia for a planning meeting. The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) was watching. Among the participants was Khalid al-Mihdhar, one of the hijackers who would later help to crash American Airlines flight 77 into the Pentagon. By the time the meeting disbanded, the CIA had taken a photograph of al-Mihdhar, learned his full name, obtained his passport number, and uncovered one other critical piece of information: al-Mihdhar held a multiple-entry visa to the United States. It was twenty months before the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. George Tenet, the director of central intelligence (DCI), later admitted that the CIA should have placed al-Mihdhar on the State Department's watch list denying him entry into the United States. It did not until August 23, 2001, just nineteen days before the terrorist attacks and months after al-Mihdhar had entered the country, obtained a California motor vehicle photo identification card (using his real name), and started taking flying lessons.
The case of Khalid al-Mihdhar provides a chilling example of the subtle yet powerful effects of organization—that is, the routines, structures, and cultures that critically influence what government agencies do and how well they do it. Why did the CIA take so long to put this suspected al-Qaida operative on the State Department's watch list, especially given Director Tenet's earlier declaration that the United States was "at war" with al-Qaida, and when U.S. intelligence reporting throughout the spring and summer of 2001 revealed a dramatic spike in "chatter" about an upcoming terrorist attack? The simplest answer is that keeping track of the whereabouts of foreign terrorists had never been standard practice or a high priority. For more than forty years, the Cold War had dominated both the thinking and operation of the CIA and the thirteen other agencies of the U.S. intelligence community. When the Soviet Union fell in 1991 and the principal threat to U.S. national security changed, U.S. intelligence agencies were slow to change with it. Before September 11, none of these agencies had formal training programs or well-honed procedures to assist their intelligence officers in identifying dangerous terrorists and warning other U.S. government agencies about them before they reached the United States. As one CIA employee told congressional investigators a year after the September 11 attacks, he believed it was "not incumbent" even on the CIA's Osama bin Laden unit to place individuals such as al-Mihdhar on the State Department's watch list.
No organization is failure-proof, and no one will ever know whether the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks could have been prevented. Evidence suggests, however, that the U.S. intelligence community showed a stunning inability to adapt to the rise of terrorism after the Cold War ended.
This article attributes the adaptation failure of U.S. intelligence agencies to three factors: the nature of bureaucratic organizations, which makes internal reform exceedingly difficult; the self-interest of presidents, legislators, and government bureaucrats, which works against executive branch reform; and the fragmented structure of the federal government, which erects high barriers to legislative reform.
The first section of the article considers whether the U.S. intelligence community adapted as well as could be expected during the 1990s, given the challenges and constraints that it faced. The second section examines the literature on organizational change and develops a framework for understanding why organizations fail to adapt. The third section, a case study of the CIA, describes how and why the agency adapted poorly to the growing terrorist threat between 1991 and 2001. The fourth section offers three conclusions from the preceding analysis. First, major reform of the U.S. intelligence community is difficult even after catastrophic failure. Second, reform is likely to continue lagging behind external environmental demands. And third, dramatic improvements in U.S. intelligence capabilities require changing organizational routines and cultures as well as structures.
The failure of U.S. intelligence agencies to meet the terrorist...