Can Path Dependence Explain Institutional Change? Two Approaches Applied to Welfare State Reform

Path dependence as a concept in institutional theories has become increasingly popular in economics and other social sciences. The key idea is that in a sequence of events, the latter events are not (completely) independent from those that occurred in the past. Yet, common usage of the concept often subsumes two markedly different models and approaches to understand historical sequencing. The two main processes of the past shaping the future – diffusion and developmental pathways – must be distinguished analytically. This paper juxtaposes (1) the unplanned 'trodden path' that takes shape through the subsequent repeated use by other individuals of that spontaneously chosen path, and (2) the ?branching pathways? or juncture at which one of the available alternative pathways must be chosen in order to continue a journey. Furthermore, the typical approaches and their explanatory purchase are discussed in reference to explanations of institutional change. The paper shows that the first path dependence theorem is too deterministic and inflexible, whereas the second approach is sufficiently supple to analyze various forms of institutional change.

[1]  Stan J. Liebowitz,et al.  The Fable of the Keys , 1990, The Journal of Law and Economics.

[2]  J. Goldstone.  Initial Conditions, General Laws, Path Dependence, and Explanation in Historical Sociology1 , 1998, American Journal of Sociology.

[3]  Jens Beckert.  Agency, Entrepreneurs, and Institutional Change. The Role of Strategic Choice and Institutionalized Practices in Organizations , 1999 .

[4]  F. Scharpf.  Employment and the welfare state : A continental dilemma , 2022 .

[5]  Colin Crouch,et al.  Breaking the Path of Institutional Development? Alternatives to the New Determinism , 2004 .

[6]  D. North,et al.  Structure and Change in Economic History , 1983 .

[7]  Douglass C. North,et al.  A note on the economics of institutions , 1996 .

[8]  J. Knight.  Institutions and Social Conflict , 1992 .

[9]  Barrington. Moore,et al.  Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy: Lord and Peasant in the Making of the Modern World , 1967 .

[10]  I. Wallerstein,et al.  The Capitalist World-Economy , 1979 .

[11]  Satoshi Kanazawa,et al.  SOCIOLOGICAL RATIONAL CHOICE THEORY , 1997, Rational Choice Sociology.

[12]  S. Kuhnle,et al.  State Formation, Nation-Building, and Mass Politics in Europe: The Theory of Stein Rokkan , 1999 .

[13]  Louis C. Midgley,et al.  The Logic of Collective Action: Public Goods and the Theory of Groups , 1969 .

[14]  B. Weingast.  Political Institutions: Rational Choice Perspectives , 1998 .

[15]  P. Hedström,et al.  Social mechanisms : an analytical approach to social theory , 1999 .

[16]  A. Hemerijck,et al.  The 'Dutch Miracle', Job growth, welfare reform and corporatism in the Netherlands , 1997 .

[17]  P. Hall,et al.  Political Science and the Three New Institutionalisms , 1996 .

[18]  R. Merton.  The unanticipated consequences of purposive social action , 1936 .

[19]  Herbert Kitschelt,et al.  Continuity and Change in Contemporary Capitalism , 1999 .

[20]  青木 昌彦,et al.  比較制度分析 = Towards a comparative institutional analysis , 2001 .

[21]  P. David.  Clio and the Economics of QWERTY , 1985 .

[22]  Robert C. Lieberman,et al.  Ideas, Institutions, and Political Order: Explaining Political Change , 2002, American Political Science Review.

[23]  L. Moreno.  State Formation, Nation-Building, and Mass Politics in Europe. The Theory of Stein Rokkan , 2000 .

[24]  P. Hall,et al.  Varieties of Capitalism , 2001 .

[25]  W. Streeck,et al.  Political Economy of Modern Capitalism: Mapping Convergence and Diversity , 1997 .

[26]  M. Kohli.  Time for Retirement: Comparative Studies of Early Exit from the Labor Force , 1991 .

[27]  R. Schmidt,et al.  Path Dependence, Corporate Governance and Complementarity , 2002 .

[28]  K. Hagen.  state formation, nation-building and mass politics in europe: the theory of stein rokkan , 2002 .

[29]  Paul Milgrom,et al.  Complementarities and systems : understanding japanese economic organization , 1994 .

[30]  Jon Elster,et al.  Rational Choice History: A Case of Excessive Ambition , 2000, American Political Science Review.

[31]  M. Lepsius.  Interessen, Ideen und Institutionen , 1990 .

[32]  B. Ebbinghaus,et al.  Striking deals: concertation in the reform of continental European welfare states , 2000 .

[33]  Arthur L. Stinchcombe,et al.  On the Virtues of the Old Institutionalism , 1997 .

[34]  L. Zucker.  The role of institutionalization in cultural persistence. , 1977 .

[35]  Susanne Lütz.  Governance in der politischen Ökonomie , 2006 .

[36]  J. Alber,et al.  Modernization, Democratization, and the Development of Welfare States in Western Europe and America , 2017 .

[37]  E. G. Furubotn,et al.  Institutions and Economic Theory: The Contribution of the New Institutional Economics , 2005 .

[38]  Oona A. Hathaway.  Path Dependence in the Law: The Course and Pattern of Legal Change in a Common Law System , 2003 .

[39]  W. Powell,et al.  The New Institutionalism in Organizational Analysis , 1993 .

[40]  M. Haverland.  Another Dutch Miracle? Explaining Dutch and German Pension Trajectories , 2001 .

[41]  Gøsta Esping Andersen.  Welfare states without work: the impasse of labor shedding and familialism in continental European social policy , 1995 .

[42]  David Soskice,et al.  Continuity and Change in Contemporary Capitalism: Divergent Production Regimes: Coordinated and Uncoordinated Market Economies in the 1980s and 1990s , 1999 .

[43]  J. Mahoney.  Path dependence in historical sociology , 2000 .

[44]  W. Powell,et al.  The iron cage revisited institutional isomorphism and collective rationality in organizational fields , 1983 .

[45]  Sven Steinmo,et al.  Structuring politics : historical institutionalism in comparative analysis , 1992 .

[46]  R. Boudon.  La place du désordre : critique des théories du changement social , 1985 .

[47]  Mark S. Granovetter.  Economic Action and Social Structure: The Problem of Embeddedness , 1985, American Journal of Sociology.

[48]  H. Plessner,et al.  Die gesellschaftliche Konstruktion der Wirklichkeit : eine Theorie der Wissenssoziologie , 1966 .

[49]  Douglass C. North,et al.  Empirical studies in institutional change , 1996 .

[50]  Paul Pierson,et al.  When Effect Becomes Cause: Policy Feedback and Political Change , 1993, World Politics.

[51]  K. Thelen.  Historical Institutionalism in comparative politics , 1997 .

[52]  J. Goldstone.  Comparative Historical Analysis in the Social Sciences: COMPARATIVE HISTORICAL ANALYSIS AND KNOWLEDGE ACCUMULATION IN THE STUDY OF REVOLUTIONS , 2003 .

[53]  Douglass C. North,et al.  The Rise of the Western World: A New Economic History , 1973 .

[54]  P. Hall.  Policy paradigms, social learning, and the state: the case of economic policymaking in Britain , 1993 .

[55]  W. Arthur,et al.  Increasing Returns and Path Dependence in the Economy , 1996 .

[56]  B. Palier.  ‘Defrosting’ the French welfare state , 2000 .

[57]  Charles Tilly,et al.  Big Structures, Large Processes, Huge Comparisons , 1986 .

[58]  E. Immergut.  Institutions, Veto Points, and Policy Results: A Comparative Analysis of Health Care , 1990, Journal of Public Policy.

[59]  T. Skocpol,et al.  Vision and method in historical sociology , 1984 .

[60]  Rolf Ackermann.  Pfadabhängigkeit, Institutionen und Regelreform , 2001 .

[61]  P. Manow,et al.  Comparing Welfare Capitalism: Social Policy and Political Economy in Europe, Japan and the USA , 2001 .

[62]  Tony Fu-Lai Yu,et al.  An Entrepreneurial Perspective of Institutional Change , 2001 .

[63]  P. Pierson,et al.  The Comparative Political Economy of Pension Reform , 2001 .

[64]  A. Stinchcombe.  Social Structure and Organizations , 2000, Political Organizations.

[65]  P. Taylor-Gooby.  Policy Change at a Time of Retrenchment: Recent Pension Reform in France, Germany, Italy and the UK , 1999 .

[66]  Karl Hinrichs,et al.  Elephants on the move. Patterns of public pension reform in OECD countries , 2000, European Review.

[67]  N. Smelser,et al.  Economy and Society: A Study in the Integration of Economic and Social Theory , 1964 .