History
See also: Historical institutionalismRecent methodological work in comparative politics and sociology has adapted the concept of path dependence into analyses of political and social phenomena. Path dependence has primarily been used in comparative-historical analyses of the development and persistence of institutions, whether they be social, political, or cultural. There are arguably two types of path-dependent processes:
- One is the "critical juncture" framework, most notably utilized by Ruth and David Collier in political science. In the critical juncture, antecedent conditions allow contingent choices that set a specific trajectory of institutional development and consolidation that is difficult to reverse. As in economics, the generic drivers are: lock-in, positive feedback, increasing returns (the more a choice is made the bigger its benefits), and self-reinforcement (which creates forces sustaining the decision).
- The other path-dependent process deals with "reactive sequences" where a primary event sets off a temporally-linked and causally-tight deterministic chain of events that is nearly uninterruptible. These reactive sequences have been used to link the death of Martin Luther King, Jr. with welfare expansion and the industrial revolution in England with the development of the steam engine.
The critical juncture framework has been used to explain the development and persistence of welfare states, labor incorporation in Latin America, and the variations in economic development between countries, among other things. Scholars such as Kathleen Thelen caution that the historical determinism in path-dependent frameworks is subject to constant disruption from institutional evolution.
Read more about this topic: Path Dependence
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“Anything in history or nature that can be described as changing steadily can be seen as heading toward catastrophe.”
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“the future is simply nothing at all. Nothing has happened to the present by becoming past except that fresh slices of existence have been added to the total history of the world. The past is thus as real as the present.”
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“The true theater of history is therefore the temperate zone.”
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