Article2005

A Critique of the Use of Path Dependency in Policy Studies

525 citations0/0 files storedPublic Administration

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Policy Transfer and Learning Public Policy and Administration Research Social Policy and Reform Studies

Abstract

Path dependency is an important notion in diachronic approaches to understanding social and political processes. The first section of this paper examines the application of path dependency to policy studies; the advantages of the concept in understanding policy development are highlighted by examples from pension policy and social housing policy in the UK, and the EU budget. The next section considers several criticisms of path dependency: (1) it is a fashionable label for the intuition that ‘history matters’ without a clear and convincing account of decision-making over time; (2) it explains only stability and not change; (3) its normative implications are confused and mostly left unexplored. The final section concludes that path dependency, despite being theoretically inchoate and difficult to operationalize empirically, is a valid and useful concept for policy studies. However, its proper application demands sensitivity from scholars to other temporal dynamics that may operate in policy development.

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References

1990Institutions, Institutional Change and Economic Performance 2000Increasing Returns, Path Dependence, and the Study of Politics 1993Policy Paradigms, Social Learning, and the State: The Case of Economic Policymaking in Britain 1996Political Science and the Three New Institutionalisms 1971The Entropy Law and the Economic Process 1994Increasing Returns and Path Dependence in the Economy 1999HISTORICAL INSTITUTIONALISM IN COMPARATIVE POLITICS 1966Aspects of Scientific Explanation.

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