AT | W3 - Institutions

Key political institutions in welfare state analysis (Immergut)

“The chapter reviews different approaches to the study of political institutions, including majoritarian vs consensus democracy, vet points, and veto players”

How has institutional analysis evolved?

Shifted from static structures to a much more dynamic and interactive analysis of the interplay amongst preferences, structures, ideas and institutions

Majoritarian vs Consensus democracy

In majoritarian democracies there is a single party majority, in consensus democracies minorities obtain political representation..resulting in more encompassing welfare states

Role of Veto Points in Welfare States

“Veto points…provide leverage to actors opposed to expansion of social rights”

“Associated with more restricted welfare states and lower government expenditures”

Partisan veto players effect

"Significant for welfare state retrenchment... not by blocking legislation but by generating societal consensus for policy change."

Veto points impacting non-Western welfare reform?

Veto points hampered efforts of transition regimes to transform health systems in Eastern Europe since 1989

Electoral systems' effect on welfare outcomes

Depends on societal preferences, institutional contexts, distribution of votes, and patterns of party competition

How does electoral vulnerability shape welfare policy innovation?

"Higher vulnerability leads to innovation targeting swing voters; left governments may retrench pensions but expand social investments; threat from right populists constrains innovation."

What are welfare state feedback effects?

"Welfare states affect individual attitudes, resources, and societal normative concepts like fairness and justice."

How do past policies shape welfare politics?

"Political decisions create watersheds that generate new actors and interests adjusting to institutional realities."

Examples of non-legislative welfare state change?

"Increasing deficits to preclude expansion, privatizing risk, and policy ‘drift’”

Difference between new institutionalism and state-centered approach?

"New institutionalism: dynamic institutions affecting interest mobilization, focusing on agency, identities, and interpretation."

Define Path Dependence (Pierson, 2000)

Path dependence refers to the phenomenon where earlier events or decisions causally shape the range of possible future outcomes, emphasising that timing, sequence, and contingent small events can produce enduring and often irreversible political trajectories

Define increasing returns and its relevance to path dependence theory

Increasing returns:

Processes where the costs of switching paths increase over time due to self reinforcing mechanisms or positive feedback loops, making initial choices cumulatively advantageous and amplifying the effects of timing and sequence

What are positive feedback mechanisms in political processes?

Positive feedback occurs when initial steps in a certain political direction make subsequent moves along that path more likely or beneficial.

This reinforces and stabilises political outcomes and producing social inertia.

Explain critical junctures in the context of increasing returns and path dependence.

Critical junctures are formative movements or “branching points” in political development where small or contingent events can decisively influence which trajectory or equilibrium a polity follows, with effects amplified and maintained by increasing returns mechanisms.

Multiple equilibria under increasing returns?

Multiple equilibria means that a variety of outcomes are possible from similar starting conditions, due to self reinforcing processes that stabilise different political or institutional arrangements rather than a single fixed endpoint

Describe the concept of contingency in path dependent politics

Contingency highlights that relatively small or chance events, when they occur at a critical moment, can have disproportionately large and lasting effects on political development

Inertia in political processes with increasing returns

Inertia describes the resistance to change once a political path is established via positive feedback, as vested interests, sunk costs, and coordination effect raise the costs of switching away from the established trajectory

Define institutional complementarity and its importance in political economy

Institutional complementarity refers to the idea that the benefits of one institution or organisation form increase if it operates in an environment with specific complementary institutions, leading to linked and resilient economic and political structures

Explain social interpretations being path dependent

Social understandings, ideologies, and mental frameworks are shaped by past information filtered through existing “mental maps”, making political beliefs and ideologies resistant to change and subject to positive feedback effects

What distinguishes historical institutionalism in explaining path dependence?

Historical institutionalism focuses on how temporal processes, timing and sequences of institutional developments matter for political outcomes, emphasising that history shapes equilibrium paths by enabling or containing future actionsC

Clarify the notion of temporal sequencing in increasing returns processes

Temporal sequencing refers to the crucial importance of the order and timing of events, where earlier occurrences have much greater influence than later ones, affecting which path or institutional arrangement becomes dominant

Why does increasing returns theory emphasize the importance of timing and sequence in political processes?

Because under increasing returns, "when an event occurs may be crucial," and earlier events in a sequence influence how later ones unfold, making timing a critical factor for political change or stability

How does path dependence challenge simplistic notions of political outcomes' inevitability?

It cautions against assuming outcomes are "inevitable," "natural," or "functional" by highlighting contingency, timing, and sequence effects that produce multiple possible equilibria or divergent paths

What are the four features of political life under increasing returns and path dependent processes identified by Pierson?

1) Multiple equilibria, 2) Contingency of small events, 3) Critical role of timing and sequencing, 4) Inertia or resistance to change once a path is se

Identify challenges in empirically testing path dependence in political science as noted by Pierson (2000).

Methodological difficulties arise due to the "many variables, few cases" problem, and the complexity in evaluating sequences over time, which demand careful research designs, possibly including counterfactual analysis

Provide an example from the article of classic studies employing path dependence ideas before they were conceptualized under this name.

Gerschenkron's (1962) study of industrialization and state-building and Lipset and Rokkan's (1967) analysis of party system formation are early exemplars that implicitly acknowledged timing and sequence effects in politic

According to Pierson, what key advantage does studying increasing returns and path dependence offer compared to mainstream quantitative methods?

It accounts for temporal processes and sequences that mainstream methods struggle with due to assumptions against path dependence, thus explaining complex causal dynamics in politics better

Define Institutions

Institutions are building blocks of social order: socially sanctioned, collectively enforced expectations about behaviour of specific actors or activities, defining rights, obligations, and appropriate actions"

Institutions embody “mutually related rights and obligations” organising behaviour into “predictable ad reliable patterns”

Key typology of institutional change processes

Processes by outcome:

Incremental Change - leading to either continuity or gradual transformation

Abrupt Change - leading to survival and return or breakdown and replacement

‘Displacement’ in institutional change

New institutional models emerge and diffuse, calling into question and pushing aside existing forms. Originates from shifts in power or societal balance

“Layering”

Adding new elements to existing institutions without removing the old, producing gradual transformation through accumulation

“Drift”

When institutions fail to adapt to environmental changes, leading to altered outcomes though formal rules stay unchanged

Conversion

Existing institutions are redirected to new purposes different from original intentions through reinterpretation or altered application

Exhaustion

Existing institutions lose their effectiveness or relevance as their internal resources or legitimacy erode over time

Definition of “liberalisation” in advanced political economies

The steady expansion of market relations in domains previously reserved for collective political decision making, proceeding gradually

Which analytical deficit do Streeck and Thelen address in this book?

Lack of analytical tools for understanding gradual but transformative institutional change beyond punctuated equilibrium theories

Concept of institutions as sets of “mutually related rights and obligations”

Defines institutions as structuring social expectations that distinguish “right” from “wrong”, shaping predictable behavior