Changing Dominant Practice: Making use of Institutional Diversity in Hungary and the United Kingdom

Abstract

Abstract As discussed in the introduction to this volume, neoinstitutional theory is generally better equipped to deal with continuity and stability than with discontinuity and change. Institutional configurations are often presented as a straightjacket from which endogenous actors cannot escape and which can only be seriously modified through external shocks. However, from time to time endogenous actors do make major and more or less sudden changes. It is by no means common; more often than not the central puzzle of a situation is why powerful, strategic actors do not change institutions which they recognize to be functioning in ways that do not suit their interests. That is why neo-institutionalism and path dependence are attractive as explanatory approaches. However, from time to time radical, rather rapid change is introduced by endogenous actors. Unless neo-institutionalism is simply to concede explanatory failure at such moments, it needs to be able to give its own account, consistent with its overall approach, which of course stresses the strength of institutions.

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