Abstract
Building on historical and discursive institutionalism, this article examines the agent-based dynamics of gradual institutional change. Specifically, using marriage equality in the United States as a case study, we examine how actors’ ideational work enabled them to make use of the political and discursive opportunities afforded by multiple venues to legitimize the process of institutional change to take off sequentially through layering, displacement, and conversion. We also pay special attention to how the discursive strategies deployed by LGBT advocates, religious-conservative organizations and other private actors created new opportunities to influence policy debates and tip the scales to their preferred policy outcome. The sequential perspective adopted in this study allows problematizing traditional conceptualizations of which actors support or contest the status quo, as enduring oppositional dynamics lead them to perform both roles in subsequent phases of the institutional change process.
Highlights
Gradual institutional change analyses have allowed drawing a more flexible line between stability and transformation when examining how institutions evolve over time, in the absence of major critical junctures or exogenous shocks
Focusing on the introduction of marriage equality in the United States (US, ), this article traces how the discursive strategies employed by change actors tolegitimize an existing institutional arrangement at multiple venues constitute a mechanism through which a sequenced process of gradual institutional change is set in motion to achieve specific policy outcomes
Taking stock of and contributing to the scholarship that combines historical and discursive institutionalism, this article has shown that, when departing from a dynamic model of agency that takes the role of ideas seriously, modes of gradual institutional change can be studied simultaneously as processes that unfold over time, often in a sequential fashion, as outcomes of these processes, and as strategies pursued by actors to steer, impede or undermine policy change
Summary
Gradual institutional change analyses have allowed drawing a more flexible line between stability and transformation when examining how institutions evolve over time, in the absence of major critical junctures or exogenous shocks (see Hacker et al, 2015; Mahoney and Thelen, 2010; Streeck and Thelen, 2005). The ruling left open the question of the constitutionality of state-level laws that recognize specific public and private actors’ right to religious objection in the provision of services to same-sex couples without directly challenging marriage equality Exploiting this ambiguity, religious liberties have been pitted by religious-conservative actors against LGBT couples’ newly recognized right to marry. Employing their “conflicting rights” frame, religious-conservative actors’ lawyers claimed that freedom of religion entitled the foster care agency to obtain an exemption from Philadelphia’s anti-discrimination law They challenged LGBT advocates’ analogy with the Civil Rights Movement by arguing that, unlike the ruling that struck down interracial marriage bans in Loving v.
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
