Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-q99xh Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-24T12:56:27.908Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

From metaphors to measures: observable indicators of gradual institutional change

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 December 2013

Philip Rocco  and
Chloe Thurston
Philip Rocco
Affiliation:
Travers Department of Political Science, University of California, Berkeley, USA E-mail: [email protected]
Chloe Thurston
Affiliation:
Department of Political Science, Johns Hopkins University, USA E-mail: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Scholarship on social policy has recently emphasised the importance of gradual processes of institutional change. However, conceptual work on the identification of processes such as drift, conversion and layering has not produced clear empirical indicators that distinguish these processes from one another, posing major problems for empirical research. We argue that, in order to improve the validity of its empirical findings, scholarship on gradual change should – and can – pay more attention to issues of measurement and detection. We then contribute to this goal by clearly articulating observable indicators for several mechanisms of gradual institutional change and validating them against extant empirical work on political economy.

Keywords

gradual changehistorical institutionalismprocess tracingsocial policy
Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Public Policy , Volume 34 , Issue 1 , April 2014 , pp. 35 - 62
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2013 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Adcock, R. Collier, D. (2001) Measurement Validity: A Shared Standard for Qualitative and Quantitative Research. American Political Science Review 95(3): 529–546.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Baumgartner, F. R. (2013) Ideas and Policy Change. Governance 26 (April): 239–258.Google Scholar
Béland, D. (2007) Ideas and Institutional Change in Social Security: Conversion, Layering, and Policy Drift. Social Science Quarterly 88(1): 20–38.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bensel, R. (2004) The American Ballot-Box in the Nineteenth Century. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Blyth, M. (2002) Great Transformations: Economic Ideas and Institutional Change. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Butler, S. Germanis, P. (1983) Achieving Social Security Reform: A “Leninist” Strategy. Cato Journal 3(2): 547–556.Google Scholar
Campbell, J. (2004) Institutional Change and Globalization. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Canaday, M. (2009) The Straight State: Sexuality and Citizenship in Twentieth-Century America. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Carpenter, D. (2010) Institutional Strangulation: Bureaucratic Politics and Financial Reform in the Obama Administration. Perspectives on Politics 8 (September): 825–846.Google Scholar
Chou, M. (2012) Constructing an Internal Market for Research Through Sectoral and Lateral Strategies: Layering, the European Commission, and the Fifth Freedom. Journal of European Public Policy 19(7): 1052–1070.Google Scholar
Collier, D., Brady, H. Seawright, J. (2011) Outdated Views on Qualitative Methods: Time to Move On. Political Analysis 18: 506–513.Google Scholar
Cox, G. McCubbins, M. (2001) The Institutional Determinants of Policy Outcomes. In Haggard S. and McCubbins M. (eds.), Presidents, Parliaments, and Policy. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 21–63.Google Scholar
Dodds, A. Kodate, N. (2012) Understanding Institutional Conversion: The Case of the National Reporting and Learning System. Journal of Public Policy 32(2): 117–139.Google Scholar
Elster, J. (1989) Nuts and Bolts for the Social Sciences. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Espeland, W. (1998) The Struggle for Water: Politics, Rationality, and Identity in the American Southwest. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Esping-Andersen, G. (1990) The Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Falleti, T. Lynch, J. (2009) Context and Causal Mechanisms in Political Analysis. Comparative Political Studies 42(9): 1143–1166.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
George, A. Bennett, A. (2005) Case Studies and Theory Development in the Social Sciences. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Goldin, I. Vogel, T. (2010) Global Governance and Systemic Risk in the 21st Century: Lessons from the Financial Crisis. Global Policy 1(1): 4–15.Google Scholar
Gross, J. (2010) Broken Promises: The Subversion of U.S. Labor Relations, 1947–1994. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press.Google Scholar
Hacker, J. (2002) The Divided Welfare State: The Battle Over Public and Private Social Benefits in the United States. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Hacker, J. (2004) Privatizing Risk Without Privatizing the Welfare State: The Hidden Politics of Social Policy Retrenchment in the United States. American Political Science Review 98(2): 243–260.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hacker, J. (2005) Policy Drift: The Hidden Politics of US Welfare State Retrenchment. In Streeck W. and Thelen K. (eds.), Beyond Continuity: Institutional Change in Advanced Political Economies. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 40–82.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hacker, J. Pierson, P. (2010a) Winner-Take-All Politics: How Washington Made the Rich Richer—And Turned its Back on the Middle Class. New York, NY: Simon & Schuster.Google Scholar
Hacker, J. Pierson, P. (2010b). Drift and Democracy. Paper presented at the 2010 Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, Washington, D.C., September 2–5, 2013.Google Scholar
Henig, J. (2008) Education Policy from 1980 to the Present: The Politics of Privatization. In Glenn B. and Teles S. (eds.), Conservatism and American Political Development. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 291–323.Google Scholar
Howell, C. (1992) The Contradictions of French Industrial Relations Reform. Comparative Politics 24 (January): 181–197.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Immergut, E. (1992) Health Politics: Interests and Institutions in Western Europe. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Immergut, E. Anderson, K. (2008) Historical Institutionalism and West European Politics. West European Politics 31(1–2): 345–369.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jacobs, A. (2010) Policymaking as Political Constraint: Institutional Development in the U.S. Social Security Program. In Mahoney J. and Thelen K. (eds.), Explaining Institutional Change: Ambiguity, Agency and Power. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 94–131.Google Scholar
King, G., Keohane, R. Verba, S. (1994) Designing Social Inquiry: Scientific Inference in Qualitative Research. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Levy, J. (2005) Redeploying the State: Liberalization and Social Policy in France. In Streeck W. and Thelen K. (eds.), Beyond Continuity: Institutional Change in Advanced Political Economies. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 103–126.Google Scholar
Mahoney, J. Thelen, K. (2010) A Theory of Gradual Institutional Change. In Mahoney J. and Thelen K. (eds.), Explaining Institutional Change: Ambiguity, Agency and Power. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 1–37.Google Scholar
Marmor, T. (2000) The Politics of Medicare, 2nd ed. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers.Google ScholarPubMed
Mayhew, D. (2002) America's Congress: Actions in the Public Sphere, James Madison Through Newt Gingrich. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
North, D. (1990) Institutions, Institutional Change and Economic Performance. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Palier, B. (2005) Ambiguous Agreement, Cumulative Change: French Social Policy in the 1990s. In Thelen K. and Streeck W. (eds.), Beyond Continuity, Institutional Change in Advanced Political Economies. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 127–144.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Patashnik, E. (2008) Reforms at Risk: What Happens After Major Policy Changes are Enacted. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Pierson, P. (2004) Politics in Time: History, Institutions, and Social Analysis. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Pierson, P. (2005) Public Policies as Institutions. In Shapiro I., Skowronek S. and Galvin D. (eds.), Rethinking Political Institutions: The Art of the State. New York, NY: New York University Press, 114–134.Google Scholar
Pressman, J. Wildavsky, A. (1973) Implementation: How Great Expectations in Washington are Dashed in Oakland; OR, Why It's Amazing that Federal Programs Work at All. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Rothstein, B. (1998) Just Institutions Matter: The Moral and Political Logic of the Universal Welfare State. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Salines, M., Glöckler, G. Truchlewski, Z. (2012) Existential Crisis, Incremental Response: The Eurozone's Dual Institutional Evolution 2007–2011. Journal of European Public Policy 19(5): 665–681.Google Scholar
Selznick, P. (1949) TVA and the Grass Roots. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Schickler, E. (2001) Disjointed Pluralism: Institutional Innovation and the Development of the U.S. Congress. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Sheingate, A. (2010) Rethinking Rules: Creativity and Constraint in the House of Representatives. In Mahoney J. and Thelen K. (eds.), Explaining Institutional Change: Ambiguity, Agency and Power. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 168–203.Google Scholar
Soss, J., Fording, R. Schram, S. (2011) Disciplining the Poor: Neoliberal Paternalism and the Persistent Power of Race. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Streeck, W. Thelen, K. (eds.) (2005) Beyond Continuity: Institutional Change in Advanced Political Economies. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Teles, S. (2008) The Rise of the Conservative Legal Movement: The Battle for Control of the Law. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Thelen, K. (2004) How Institutions Evolve: The Political Economy of Skills in Germany, Britain, the United States and Japan. Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Tilly, C. (2004) Observations of Social Processes and their Formal Representations. Sociological Theory 22(4): 595–602.Google Scholar
Tsebelis, G. (2002) Veto Players: How Political Institutions Work. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Weaver, K. (2000) Ending Welfare as we Know it. Washington, DC: The Brookings Institution.Google Scholar