Abstract
Previous studies of institutional change suggest that delegitimated institutions will subsequently lose coherence and dissipate (deinstitutionalization). However, this process has been assumed but not substantiated. Using a historical case study involving the Meiji Restoration in Japan between 1853 and 1868, I argue that delegitimated institutions may persist indefinitely under certain conditions, even as replacement institutions achieve dominance. Moreover, dormant delegitimated structures may later be recovered and restored through relegitimation. This process of institutional persistence is explained using a combination of structuration theory and sedimentation processes. Thus, I suggest that deinstitutionalization may represent a separate phenomenon from that of delegitimation, although the literature has treated these phenomena as intertwined.
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