Historical Institutionalism and West European Politics

Abstract

This article explores the selective affinities between the study of West European politics and historical institutionalism. We divide the last 30 years into four phases: the foundational ideas of the late 1970s and early 1980s; the evolution of these ideas from structuralism to institutionalism in the late 1980s and early 1990s; more radical revision under the turbulent 1990s and early 2000s; and the future outlook at the end of the first decade of the 2000s. We emphasise the ways in which the field of West European politics has shaped the direction of historical institutionalism as a distinctive approach to the study of politics, particularly historical institutionalism's focus on explaining actors' interests and behaviour. We also discuss recent debates within historical institutionalism concerning the role of history and path dependence, ideas, and institutional origins and change in the context of developments within West European politics. We conclude by discussing several challenges for both historical institutionalism and the study of West European politics: maintaining and improving analytical rigour as politics in Western Europe become even more fluid; continuing to build middle range theory; and extending our comparative analysis of Western Europe to include regions outside of Western Europe.