Mechanisms Of Institutional Change Research Articles

Between Displacement, Layering, Conversion and Drift: The Institutional Construction of the Romanian Freedom of Information Act

Using Mahoney and Thelen’s four mechanisms of institutional change (displacement, layering, conversion and drift), I argue that the Romanian Freedom of Information Act (Law no. 544/2001 and Methodological Norms no. 123/2002) has proven to be stable in the last two decades since its adoption, it has been accepted by some of us but not all, even though it was created to protect each of us as citizens, there have been failed attempts of institutional destabilization along with a series of institutional consolidations, whereas its enforcement has recorded a gradual deterioration, without attracting attention or encountering major criticism, this change being contrary to the public interest.

To reform or to replace? Succession as a mechanism of institutional change in intergovernmental organisations

AbstractGiven high costs of negotiating formal international institutions, states are widely expected to adapt, reform, and repurpose existing institutions rather than create new ones. Nevertheless, during the past century some 60 intergovernmental organizations (IGOs) have been directly replaced by a legal successor. Why do states sometimes dissolve an existing IGO only to replace it with a new one that takes over the incumbent organization’s mandate and assets—a practice known as institutional succession? We offer a theory of institutional succession and illustrate with examples. Against the dominant belief that creating new IGOs is a choice of last resort, we argue that reform and succession are equally expedient tools for achieving institutional change but address different negotiating hurdles. By creating a new institution (as opposed to amending an existing one) succession bypasses veto players that may stunt reform. However, succession suffers from potential diseconomies-of-scale (since not every member of an existing IGO may join the successor) which reform does not. Depending on which negotiation hurdle prevails, reform will be preferred to succession or vice versa. Our analysis advances existing understandings of institutional contestation and change within the life cycle of an international organisation.

Mainstreaming immigrant integration in Labour Market Support: policy index and alternative policy frameworks

ABSTRACT In many Western European countries, governments have increasingly accepted the strategies of enhancing equality between immigrants and EU nationals in major policy domains. One of the latest trends in integration policy framework is mainstreaming – the practice of bringing the needs and priorities of vulnerable groups such as immigrants to the centre of attention in more generic policies (e.g. employment support, education) as opposed to responding to the specific concerns of these groups through separate policy interventions. To examine and categorise the scope of mainstreaming and the level of access to mainstreamed policies for various groups of immigrants, I develop a Policy Index of Mainstreaming in Labour Market Support that covers data from 2006 to 2016 across 25 EU/EEA countries. The paper explores the policy patterns revealed by the Index. It argues that while mainstreaming as a theory challenges existing integration approaches, differences in political ideology do not necessarily lead to radical institutional change. This finding contributes to the historical-institutionalist argument on policy compatibility through institutional change mechanisms.

INSTITUTIONAL ENVIRONMENT OF THE DIGITAL ECONOMY SECTOR

The purpose of this article is to improve the theoretical and methodological foundations for studying the essence and peculiarities of development of the institutional environment of the digital economy sector, to allocate the components of its architectonics as the basis for forming a platform for the conceptual development of the national economy based on digitalisation. Methodology. The methodological basis of the study is formed by modern economic and sociological institutional theories, the object of analysis of which is the institutional dynamics of the environment: institutional theory, new institutional theory, substantivist theory, the concept of institutional density, the concept of institutional matrices, the theory of societal psyche. The paper uses the historical-logical and dialectical methods to study the contradictions of the processes of formation and development of the institutional environment, as well as the methods of system analysis to study the components of the architectonics of the institutional environment of the digital economy. Results. From the standpoint of institutional theory, it is formulated and substantiated that the institutional environment of the digital economy sector is a synthesis of a set of formal/іnformal basic/complementary institutions of the traditional and digital economies of different levels and institutions that are in certain interconnections and relationships with each other, forming a hierarchical integrity. Institutions determine the creation and operation of relevant institutions, which, in turn, ensure the implementation and enforcement of established rules and regulations. At the same time, the resilience and flexibility of the environment is based on the natural accumulation or forced implementation of basic institutions capable of ensuring the emergence of new digital economy institutions or significant modernisation of existing ones, which protects and promotes the development of the digital economy. The task of managing the institutional environment is to balance the ratio of institutions. The architectonics of the institutional environment of the digital economy sector is a system that combines a functional set of institutions of the traditional economy (management, labour, property, market, non-market), specific institutions of the digital economy (information, participation, digital space), global institutions, and regional institutions. Institutions as systemic elements, through implementation/legitimation mechanisms, form a set of institutions of the digital economy that mediate the interaction of economic actors, provide contracting, and mechanisms of institutional change. The most important institutions include innovation labs, research centres, technology companies, start-ups, cryptocurrency exchanges, digital agencies, consultancies, educational institutions, learning platforms, government agencies, legislative bodies, banks, digital banks, financial institutions, digital platforms, and digital networks. Interaction and mutual influence of institutions and institutions of the digital economy form the guidelines for selecting effective elements of the institutional structure from alternative institutional forms. The digitalisation of Ukraine, which is focused on the norms of international, European and regional cooperation, will facilitate Ukraine's integration into the European and global market of e-commerce, goods and services based on information and communication technologies. A new global economic architecture is being designed, into which new economic agents are integrating. At the same time, regionalisation processes are taking place, new regional clusters are emerging, and the country is being integrated into the European cluster. Practical implications. The elements of the architectonics of the institutional environment of the digital economy sector are identified and summarised by criteria, which makes it possible to identify the most problematic areas of institutional transformations and to formulate and select instrumental solutions to overcome them. The development of the relevant elements of the institutional environment of the digital economy sector contributes to a rapid and profound digital transition, when the results of digital transformation will become the basis of Ukrainian society and a key factor on the path to Ukraine's prosperity and welfare. Value/оriginality. It is established that the use of institutional analysis tools will allow determining the optimal directions of institutional building/transformation of digital economy institutions and minimising the social costs of Ukraine's evolutionary development. A two-level approach to designing the institutional environment of the digital economy sector in the national space is proposed: at the institutional level – as designing the socio-political and economic conditions for the development of digital economy institutions based on the development of digital products and technologies; at the individual level – as designing the functional place of a digital product in the human life space.

Urban intensification and land value capture in Toronto: Conjunctural analysis, critical junctures, and developmental pathways in urban planning

Toronto has for 70 years been one of the fastest growing city-regions in North America, and over the last two decades has seen booming high-rise intensification. A distinctive land value capture (LVC) system and practice has emerged. This paper traces the contested evolution of Toronto LVC since 1946, including recent major changes to the rules, and makes three main contributions: First is the suggestion that at its core, LVC is an attempt to purposefully alter the distribution of the costs and benefits of urban property development between public and private actors, and should be considered a key metric to evaluate the social equity of property development processes. Second, conjunctural analysis has recently emerged as an approach to reading the intersection of political, economic, social, and ideological processes that come together to produce historical changes in specific cases. I argue that Historical Institutionalism (HI) is a valuable complement to the conjunctural analysis approach in its focus on the genesis of and contestation over specific sets of institutions. HI provides a set of midlevel conceptual frameworks and research methods to identify major institutions, the actors involved, and institutional change mechanisms, processes, and patterns. I bring together two hitherto separate traditions of thought about conjunctures, that arising from Gramsci through Stuart Hall, and that developed in HI, arguing that HI brings analytical clarity to the comparative analysis of conjunctures. Third, the Toronto case is revealing of processes of institutional change, mechanisms supporting path dependence, and the urban impacts of globally hegemonic ideological conjunctures.

Rising Tides Don’t Create Racialized Change: Analyzing Institutional Change Projects in Postsecondary Philanthropy’s College Completion Agenda

ABSTRACT This paper uses critical archival analysis, paired with textual analysis of grant descriptions, to understand how nine foundations — all with endowments derived from the student loan industry — have motivated their college completion work and the relationship between these commitments and grantmaking over time (2000–2019). Mobilizing concepts of theorization and racialized change work (RCW) to analyze the relationship between funders’ deployed racial frames and their theory of change, this paper offers three primary contributions: 1) A methodological approach to analyzing philanthropic or intermediary-led reform campaigns (e.g. the college completion agenda) as a form of theorization — a core mechanism of institutional change and diffusion — inclusive of funders’ racial projects; 2) Insights on the qualitative, causal pathway by which one foundation created organization-specific interest convergence that facilitated engagement in RCW, and 3) Evidence demonstrating how race-evasive theorizations, even if efficacious mechanisms for change, fail to deinstitutionalize a core mechanism of racialization: investment in deficit-minded, individual-level projects. These insights speak not only to the material differences between race-evasive and race-conscious theorizations, but also organizational pathways toward durable race-conscious commitments in higher education.

INSTITUTIONAL ECONOMICS: FROM BASIC CONCEPTS TO CONTEMPORARY CONTRADICTIONS

The purpose of this study is to analyze the evolution and current state of institutional economics, to clarify its subject area, and to identify relevant problems. As a result, it was shown that modern institutional economics is one of the most productive and contradictory scientific fields. On the one hand, by combining the methods of various social sciences, it has offered effective tools for the solution of certain problems, has extended the economic approach to many spheres of life, has promoted the coordination of contradictory economic interests. It took into account the achievements of normative, ethical, informational, evolutionary, game, transactional, contractual and organizational approaches. On the other hand, due to the increased availability of data and the use of computational methods, institutional economics has been enriched by results in the areas of institutional diversity, institutional change, the study of the impact of institutional quality on inequality problems, and the role of individual economic actors. However, the degree of rationality of individual behavior, the impact of economic institutions on increasing imbalances in the distribution of wealth and power, the implementation of mechanisms of institutional change, and the transplantation of effective economic institutions remain debatable.

공공체육시설 조성의 정책변동에 관한 연구

The purpose of this study is to analyze the policy-making process for the Gocheok Sky Dome, the nation’s first domed baseball stadium in the southwestern region of Seoul. For this, the study adopts a theoretical framework that integrates Kingdon’s multiple streams framework and the path evolution model based on historical institutionalism. We found that, as highlighted in the previous domestic and international studies, the political stream and policy entrepreneurs have greatly influenced the policy-making process for the construction of the baseball stadium. Moreover, there was a significant policy change from the half-dome amateur baseball stadium to a fully domed professional one throughout the policy-making process, which might be regarded as a case of ‘conversion’ as a mode of institutional change. This study will contribute to extending the purview of the original multiple streams framework by revealing the mechanism of institutional change that has been little studied in previous research on public sports facilities. It can also provide a point of comparison for future research on the construction of public sports facilities by local governments.

Understanding institutional change mechanisms for land use: Lessons from Ecuador’s history

Ecuador constitutes a fascinating case study to explore land policies and reforms. Since colonial times, it has experienced prolonged and ongoing struggles to transform land institutions. This paper investigates how, across levels, historic institutional factors affected land-use decision making in the Mindo parish and western foothills of Pichincha, Ecuador, as perceived by its landowners. Following techniques and procedures for developing grounded theory, we identify four main periods of institutional change related to land by relying on the narratives of landowners. These periods are: a) colonial institutions – hacienda feudal modes of production; b) the way toward an Agrarian Reform and Colonization Law; c) rural development after the Agrarian Reform; and d) forest conservation incentives versus ‘neo-extractivism’ practices. We reconstruct and explore these in light of the existing literature. Along with individual and collective perceptions, we are also concerned with the drivers underlying these institutional changes and the structure of these changes. Lastly, we discuss and provide conclusions on the key issues that help us explain institutional change in the study area, including theoretical explanations about cognitive variation (cultural-cognitive), power relationships, individual ability to change and perceive, as well as the system’s capacity to reorganize, persist, and reproduce.

Changing environment and development institutions to enable payments for ecosystem services: The role of institutional work

Payments for ecosystem services (PES) are increasingly promoted as nature-based solutions to climate, environmental, and business challenges. While participation in PES schemes is mandated in countries such as China, Costa Rica, and Vietnam, it remains unclear how PES schemes emerge in countries devoid of national mandates. This article investigates how actors have attempted institutional change to enable PES, by reinterpreting or adapting national laws, policies, and plans. We present an analytical framework theorising how geographical variations in (1) institutional frameworks, and (2) actor capabilities, dictate which institutions actors attempt to change. We then apply this framework to multi-scalar actors and institutions in Thailand and the Philippines. Our empirics reveal the types of institutional work that actors perform such as advocacy, education, mimicry, and networking, and demonstrate how this creates legal and discursive support, and improves stakeholder awareness and acceptance of PES as an environmental management strategy. Eight formal institutions are shown to have undergone change to enable PES across these countries, including those related to indigenous people, energy production, protected areas, pollution control, carbon offsetting, and decentralised governance. We show institutional change to be a geographical and contextual process that requires actors to match the right types of institutional work, with the right mechanism of institutional change, and a suitable target institution if they are to be successful in effecting change. Yet, we also report failed attempts, and explain how informal cultural norms act as challenges to formal institutional change. Through our comparative analysis of multiple institutions, actors, and national settings, we identify trends and make recommendations with global relevance to PES scholars and practitioners, and that can aid other initiatives that seek to address climate change and promote environmental sustainability.

Fishing rights and colonial government: institutional development in the Bengal Presidency

Abstract We examine the evolution of fishing rights in colonial Bengal through a series of cases heard at the Calcutta High Court in the 1880s and culminating in the passage of legislation in 1889. We posit an implicit relational contract between the colonizing British and the landowning class in colonial Bengal as a way to understand the concurrent evolution of fishing rights and institutions of governance in the region. The system of incentives created by this contract determined the development of fishing rights at a crucial moment in the history of colonial Bengal and, more broadly, became a primary mechanism of institutional change in the region. The analysis also shows the High Court to have acted, albeit in vain, as a truly independent judiciary; had its resolution of the cases prevailed, the institutional development of the region might have been substantially different than it was.

Fishing Rights and Colonial Government: Institutional Development in the Bengal Presidency

We examine the evolution of fishing rights in colonial Bengal through a series of cases heard at the Calcutta High Court in the 1880s and culminating in the passage of legislation in 1889. We posit an implicit relational contract between the colonizing British and the landowning class in colonial Bengal as a way to understand the concurrent evolution of fishing rights and institutions of governance in the region. The system of incentives created by this contract determined the development of fishing rights at a crucial moment in the history of colonial Bengal and, more broadly, became a primary mechanism of institutional change in the region. The analysis also shows the Calcutta High Court to have acted, albeit in vain, as a truly independent judiciary.

Dared to Care: Mechanisms of Logic Hybridization in Community Ophthalmology Field

An organization that sets out to address a grand challenge often faces an uphill task of triggering institutional change. In doing so it needs to work under established normative institutional prescriptions that act as institutional barriers and manage under institutional complexity. In this paper, we undertake an in-depth analysis of institutional change process undertaken by a social enterprise from developing country and its partners. Our findings reveal the non-linear and dynamic nature of institutional change process, its triggers and the mechanisms of institutional change. We find that institutional contradictions become salient in the field under conditions of pluralism, external change and resource scarcity. However, the interpretations of the contradictions diverge depending on the actors’ cognitive frames which also influences the role they assume in change process- institutional guardians, temporary and persistent change agents. Temporary change agents dropped their efforts too soon despite large supporters’ base, while few other change agents persisted to create hybrid organizing templates. The latter group of change agents creatively embraced the institutional contradictions and worked along with the by-standing organizations and institutional guardians in order to diffuse and institutionalize the change they had introduced. We note that such approach was the result of the paradoxical frame which helped them to identify and reconcile contradicting logics, perceived value-conflict and the inherent multiple embeddedness of their roles. These acted as an impetus for the institutional change through a repertoire of mechanisms, namely: re-framing solution, collective reflexivity, collective experimentation and practice authentication.

Influence of Innovation on Mechanisms of Institutional Change- A Global Perspective

Innovation has been much talked concept in the present times. Whether it is large or small and medium enterprises or even government, innovation has influenced in some way or other to do something different. This difference has been seen in the form of new product, new processes or even new prospective policies launched by either government or an enterprise. This has redefined the way they function. This chapter highlights a global perspective of influence of innovation on mechanisms of institutional changes, i.e. how innovation has resulted in change in the institutional policies at a global level. Few global examples have been taken to support and verify the claim. This is done to see whether innovation has resulted in any change or not. The innovative examples have been considered from Middle East, Asian and African continent. The study of institutional changes due to innovation is also limited to these regions.

Roles and Motivations of Planning Professionals Who Promote Public Participation in Urban Planning Practice: Two Case Studies from Beijing, China

Public participation in urban planning is a contested issue in China. In this article, we look at the endogenous mechanism of institutional change, by analyzing the roles and motivations of “third-party” planning professionals in two contrasting cases: a government-led and a citizen-led participatory practice. Findings show that planners were advocates of citizen participation in heritage preservation in both cases and acted as “mediators” in the first and “activists” in the second, yet remained within the mainstream planning structure. Their motivation to serve the rights of the citizens was clear, but subordinate to the drive to conform to the professional norms of authenticity in preservation in both cases. In contrast to both the Global North where more agonistic approaches question inclusive planning and the Global South where insurgent planning finds space to maneuver, Chinese urban planning seems to proceed by taking small steps within narrow margins when it comes to citizen engagement.

Influence of Innovation on Mechanisms of Institutional Change- A Global Perspective

The paper focuses on influence of innovation on the government policies and other stakeholders, Is it enhancing more innovation or curbing it. The study undertakes few examples from public and private sector to explore the topic better.

O PAPEL DAS COMPLEMENTARIDADES E HIERARQUIAS NO PROCESSO DE MUDANÇA INSTITUCIONAL: O CONTROLE EXTERNO E A ASSIMILAÇÃO DAS REFORMAS DOS ANOS 1990

As instituições exercem um papel fundamental na configuração e operação de um modelo de desenvolvimento econômico. No Brasil, desde os anos 1930 até os dias atuais, o dirigismo do Poder Executivo e a sua ampla margem de discricionariedade política constituem um traço marcante na estruturação e operação do ambiente institucional correlato ao desenvolvimento. As reformas dos anos 1990, enquanto tentativa de reconfigurar um modelo de desenvolvimento por meio da intervenção no ambiente institucional, reproduzem esta característica marcante. Todavia, a capacidade política de reformular um modelo de desenvolvimento sofre uma série de condicionantes. Acreditamos que, no âmbito dessa discussão, o exame do papel desempenhado pelas instituições de controle em um contexto de reformas pode ajudar a melhorar nossa compreensão dos mecanismos de mudança institucional. Que papel uma instituição relevante de controle externo, como o Tribunal de Contas da União (TCU), teria jogado no processo de endogeneização de novas instituições trazidas com a agenda reformista? No enfrentamento de tais questões, tomaremos como objeto de exame empírico algumas das respostas do TCU – seja no plano de sua reorganização administrativa, seja no exercício de sua atividade-fim – a determinadas reformas do ambiente institucional entre a segunda metade da década de 1990 e o início dos anos 2000. Avaliamos em que medida o caso examinado apresenta as características de um processo de síntese, no contexto do qual se revela a influência que complementaridades e hierarquias podem exercer na assimilação de reformas no arcabouço institucional.

Monetary Power Reconsidered: The Struggle between the Bundesbank and the Fed over Monetary Leadership

AbstractThis article reexamines the theory of monetary power to explain the role of the Bundesbank (and Germany) in the emergence of the rules-based low-inflation regime in the late1980s and early 1990s. Our theory of monetary power draws on the notion of institutional power and the concept of monetary leadership, understood as the capacity to attract foreign investment, and thereby explains how domestic institutional features and contingent historical events affect countries’ external monetary power. This theory is employed to trace how the Bundesbank go-it-alone strategy in 1989 triggered a cross-national sequence of events that changed the international monetary order in a way that was consistent with the German interests. The transition was marked by a shift from the US-led pragmatist approach of international macroeconomic coordination to a rules-based approach founded on the principle of low-inflation–targeting. The article argues that this change took place despite the opposition of the Federal Reserve System (Fed) and the US Treasury. The article contributes to the literature on the decline of US hegemonic power as well as the literature on the mechanism of institutional change at the international level. It also sheds new light on current debates about the putative decline of the rules-based world order.

Institutional change and divergent economic resilience: Path development of two resource-depleted cities in China

Existing literature on the economic resilience of cities has primarily focused on the study of capabilities and outcomes, while little has been conducted on the evolutionary processes. Drawing upon institutional change and path development concepts, this article develops an analytical framework that explains how different modes of institutional change shape path development processes in relation to economic resilience in cities. This article provides a comparative study on the divergent path development involving distinctive institutional change mechanisms in two Chinese mining cities both facing resource depletion since 2000, namely Zaozhuang in Shandong province and Fuxin in Liaoning province. It shows that Zaozhuang enables endogenously-based layering and conversion that leads to path renewal and creation with a more dynamic resilience engendering structural change, whereas Fuxin is trapped in exogenously-induced institutional thickening that results in path persistence and extension with a less dynamic resilience hindering economic renewal. The findings of this study advance the regional resilience literature by incorporating the role of agency, institutional change and path development in the context of China.

Cohesion Policy and institutional change in Hungary and Estonia

ABSTRACTIn the discourse on European Union Cohesion Policy (EUCP) reform, much attention is being paid to policy content, while less attention is being paid to the institutions responsible for adapting and implementing EUCP in national contexts. From a historical institutionalist perspective, regional policy institutions in EU member states are influenced in part by EUCP and national institutional contexts and legacies. Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries, in particular, have grappled with institutional transformations in the recent era including the transition, pre-accession and post-accession periods, but the influence of EUCP on institutional change has not been well studied following EU accession. Using the cases of Hungary and Estonia, this study builds upon comparative research on CEE from the transition and pre-accession periods, providing an updated view of institutional developments with the aim of widening current understandings of EUCP. Different mechanisms of institutional change are highlighted, pointing to cross-country inconsistencies in the Europeanization process and implementations of EUCP resulting in weak institutions and ambiguity surrounding core policy concepts. Thus, the study reinforces the importance of national institutions for EUCP outcomes and legitimacy, which should factor into current discussions of EUCP reform for the future programming period.