Historical institutionalism


Historical institutionalism is a new institutionalist social science approach that emphasizes how timing, sequences and path dependence affect institutions, and shape social, political, economic behavior and change. Unlike functionalist theories and some rational choice approaches, historical institutionalism tends to emphasize that many outcomes are possible, small events and flukes can have large consequences, actions are hard to reverse once they take place, and that outcomes may be inefficient. So-called "critical junctures" may set in motion events that are hard to reverse, because of issues related to path dependency. Historical institutionalists tend to focus on history to understand why specific events happen.
The term "Historical Institutionalism" was coined in the early 1990s. The most widely cited historical institutionalist scholars are Peter Hall, Paul Pierson, Theda Skocpol, Douglass North and Kathleen Thelen. Prominent works of historical institutionalist scholarship have used both sociological and rationalist methods. Historical institutionalist works tend to employ detailed comparative case studies.
Works, such as Karl Polanyi's The Great Transformation, Theda Skocpol's States and Social Revolutions, Philippe Schmitter's Still a Century of Corporatism?, Barrington Moore's Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy, and Evans, Ruschemeyer and Skocpol's Bringing the State Back In have been characterized as precursors to Historical Institutionalism.

Old and new institutionalism

Kathleen Thelen and Sven Steinmo contrast New Institutionalism with "Old Institutionalism", which was overwhelmingly focused on detailed narratives of institutions, with little focus on comparative analyses. Thus, the Old Institutionalism was unhelpful for comparative research and explanatory theory. This "Old Institutionalism" began to be undermined when scholars increasingly highlighted how the formal rules and administrative structures of institutions were not accurately describing the behavior of actors and policy outcomes.
Works, such as Karl Polanyi's The Great Transformation, Theda Skocpol's States and Social Revolutions, Philippe Schmitter's Still a Century of Corporatism?, Barrington Moore's Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy, and Evans, Ruschemeyer and Skocpol's Bringing the State Back In have been characterized as precursors to Historical Institutionalism, spawning a new research program.
Historical institutionalism is a predominant approach in research on the welfare state. In the field of International Relations, John Ikenberry’s After Victory and Abraham Newman’s Protectors of Privacy are prominent works of historical institutionalist scholarship.

The treatment of history

Unlike most western scholars who preceded them, including classical liberals, classical Marxists, empiricists, dialectical thinkers and positivists, historical institutionalists do not accept that history necessarily develops in a straightforward, linear fashion. Instead, they examine the conditions under which a particular trajectory was followed and not others, a phenomenon that Gabriel Almond refers to as the "historical cure". As a consequence, specifying why particular paths were not taken is as important as specifying the actual trajectory of history.
As opposed to the old institutionalists, they postulate that history will not necessarily lead to a "happy" outcome.
The most basic concept with which historical institutionalists work is the concept of path dependence. For Paul Pierson, path dependence entails that “outcomes at a ‘critical juncture’ trigger feedback mechanisms that reinforce the recurrence of a particular pattern into the future.” Thus, path dependence makes it harder to reverse once a certain path has been taken, because there are increased costs to switching from the path. These paths may lead to outcomes are inefficient, but nonetheless persist, because of the costs involved in making substantial overhauls. An example of this is the QWERTY keyboard layout, which was efficient for typewriters to prevent jams in the 19th century and was implemented in computer keyboards in the 20th century. However, the QWERTY keyboard is arguably not as efficient as a computer keyboard could be, but the keyboard layout has persisted over time due to the costs involved in overhauling computer keyboards. Jacob Hacker and Paul Pierson argue that other approaches to institutions may fall guilty of treating politics as if it were the film Groundhog Day where each day the participants just start over; in reality, past politics and policy legacies shape the interests, incentivizes, power and organizational abilities of political actors.
A related crux of historical institutionalism is that temporal sequences matter: outcomes depend upon the timing of exogenous factors in relation to particular institutional configurations. For example, Theda Skocpol suggests that the democratic outcome of the English Civil War was a result of the fact that the comparatively weak English Crown lacked the military capacity to fight the landed upper-class. In contrast, the rise of rapid industrialization and fascism in Prussia when faced with international security threats was because the Prussian state was a “highly bureaucratic and centralized agrarian state” composed by “men closely ties to landed notables”. Thomas Ertman, in his account of state building in medieval and early modern Europe, argues that variations in the type of regime built in Europe during this period can be traced to one macro-international factor and two historical institutional factors. At the macro-structural level, the “timing of the onset of sustained geopolitical competition” created an atmosphere of insecurity that appeared best addressed by consolidating state power. The timing of the onset of competition is critical for Ertman’s explanation. States that faced competitive pressures early had to consolidate through patrimonial structures, since the development of modern bureaucratic techniques had not yet arrived. States faced with competitive pressures later could on the other hand, could take advantage of advancements in training and knowledge to promote a more technical oriented civil service.
An important element to historical institutionalism is that it may cement certain distributions of power or increase asymmetries of power through policy feedbacks, "lock in" effects and stickiness. For example, France has a permanent seat on the UN Security Council because of its power and status at the end of World War II, yet it would likely not get a permanent seat if the UN Security Council were re-designed decades later.
Historical institutionalist works tend to reject functionalist accounts of institutions. Historical institutionalists tend to see origins behind the creation of institutions as the result of conflict and contestation, which then gets locked in and persists, even if the circumstances that resulted in the institution change.

Reception

Historical institutionalism is not a unified intellectual enterprise. Some scholars are oriented towards treating history as the outcome of rational and purposeful behavior based on the idea of equilibrium. They rely heavily on quantitative approaches. Others, more qualitative oriented scholars, reject the idea of rationality and instead emphasize the idea that randomness and accidents matter in political and social outcomes. There are unsolvable epistemological differences between both approaches. However given the historicity of both approaches, and given their focus on institutions, both can fall under "historical institutionalism".
Avner Greif and David Laitin have criticized the notion of increased returns.
Sociological institutionalists and ideational scholars have criticized versions of Historical Institutionalism that adopt materialist and rationalist ontologies. Scholars who use ideational approaches argue that institutional change occurs during episodes when institutions are perceived be failing or during episodes of uncertainty, as this creates room for an exchange of ideas and a receptivity for institutional change. Political scientists such as Henry Farrell, Martha Finnemore, Mark Blyth, Oddny Helgadóttir, and William Kring argue that Historical Institutionalism has over time tended to engage more rational choice institutionalism than with sociological instiutionalism.
In Paradigms and Sand Castles, an influential book on research design in comparative politics, Barbara Geddes argues that there are methodological limits to the kind of path-dependent arguments that is often found in Historical Institutionalist research. She argues that it is hard to rule out rival explanations for a proposed outcome and to precisely identify one purported critical juncture or another.

Major institutionalist scholars and books