INSTITUTIONAL CHANGE FROM A HISTORICAL INSTITUTIONALIST PERSPECTIVE
INSTITUTIONAL CHANGE FROM A HISTORICAL INSTITUTIONALIST PERSPECTIVE

Summary/Abstract: In this article, I argue that historical institutionalist concepts such as 'path dependency', 'critical junctures: and 'feedback mechanisms' are vital for explaining institutional change. First, I describe the emergence of different 'new institutionalist' approaches as a reaction against the domination of behavioralism in political science. Moreover, I show that new institutionalists transcend the limits of old institutionalism, as they in-clude in the analysis both formal and informal institutions, and elaborate theories of institutional emergence and change. In the second section of the article, I discuss the main assumptions of historical institutionalism and its conception of institutional change. To grasp the distinctive character of the latter, I compare it with the conception of institutional change in rational choice institutionalism.

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