5

Historical Institutionalism

Edwin Amenta

Historical institutionalism is an approach to political analysis that focuses on big

outcome-oriented questions about political phenomena and seeks to answer them with

historical and conjunctural explanations centring on institutions. Historical institu-

tionalist scholars also intervene in theoretical debates, often making mid-range political

institutional arguments, and advance meta-theoretical debates, notably about the im-

portance of path dependence. Historical institutionalist scholarship is catholic in meth-

odology, but identifies historical methods as particularly important. This scholarship

should go further in addressing theoretical debates between sociological and political

institutionalists, deploy ideas more in its claims and take further conceptual and

methodological advantages of its historical approach.

Historical institutionalism had its origins in comparative politics and in the

intellectual movements to bring the ‘state back in’ to the analysis of politics (Evans,Rueschemeyer and Skocpol 1985) and to analyze political outcomes with greater

historical sophistication. The pioneering scholars were reacting against pluralism,

Marxism, behaviourialism and rational choice modelling in political analysis, as wellas work that seemed a-historical (Hall and Taylor 1996; Campbell 2004). Historical

institutionalism was named in the late 1980s (Steinmo, Thelen and Longstreth 1992),its initial proponents seeking to unify scholars who shared similar approaches to their

work. They also shared some assumptions. Unlike rational choice perspectives in

political science, historical institutionalism holds that institutions are not typicallycreated for functional reasons; instead, institutions often are results of large-scale and

long-term processes that have little to dowithmodern political issues, and institutions

often have routine if unintended consequences to them. In part for these reasons,historical institutionalists engage in historical research to trace the processes behind

The Wiley-Blackwell Companion to Political Sociology, First Edition. Edited by Edwin Amenta,Kate Nash, and Alan Scott.� 2012 Blackwell Publishing Ltd. Published 2012 by Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

the persistence of institutions and their influence on policies and other political

outcomes. Their standard research product is a book (or long journal article)

addressing one or a small number of countries exhibiting a deep knowledge of themand the time period analyzed, and often seeking to explain divergent historical

trajectories (see Amenta and Ramsey 2010).

I begin by addressing general issues surrounding institutional theoretical claims andmove on to debates within historical institutionalism about how closely to align itself

with political institutional explanations, path dependency as mode of argumentation,

and the use of historical methods. Despite its origins in state-centred theory and itsefforts to be deeply historical, there remain disagreements within the group on its

theoretical, meta-theoretical and methodological tenets and practices. Historical

institutionalists do not necessarily rely on political institutionalist explanations, nordo their explanations always take a path-dependent or historicist form, nor do all

engage in methods similar to historians. Along the way, I discuss some of the main

achievements and promise of the perspective, as well as shortcomings, before makingsome suggestions for the future. To focus the discussion I often address research on

comparative public social policy, with which the perspective has been closely

associated.

Institutional Arguments and Historical Institutionalism

Like other forms of institutionalism, historical institutionalists define institutions asemergent, higher-order factors above the individual level that influence political

processes and outcomes and tend to produce regular patterns or stasis. Institutions

constrain or constitute the interests and political participation of actors ‘withoutrequiring repeated collective mobilization or authoritative intervention to achieve

these regularities’ (Jepperson 1991: 145). Political institutionalists see institutions as

formal or informal procedures, routines, norms and conventions in the organizationalstructure of the polity (see Amenta 2005), and often focus on states, electoral

procedures, party systems and the like. Sociological institutionalists have a broader

view of institutions, adding cognitive scripts, moral templates and symbol systems(Hall and Taylor 1996; Campbell 2004) that may reside at supra-state or supra-

organizational levels (Amenta and Ramsey 2010). The influence and durability of

institutions is a function of the extent towhich they are inculcated in political actors atthe individual or organizational level, and involve material resources and networks

(Clemens and Cook 1999).

Institutional theories posit two distinct forms of institutions’ influence overpolitical action. Institutions can be constraining, superimposing conditions of pos-

sibility formobilization, access and influence and limiting some forms of action, while

facilitating others. Theories of ‘politicalmediation’ (Amenta et al. 2005) and ‘politicalopportunity’ (Kriesi 2004) are institutional constraint arguments to the extent that

they posit that political institutions limit the conditions under which organized

interests mobilize and attain collective goods from the state. Another form ofinstitutional theorizing posits that institutions are constitutive, establishing the

available and viable models and heuristics for political action, and evoke an imagery

of cultural frameworks or toolkits. Political sociological ‘state constructionist’

48 EDWIN AMENTA

theories of mobilization and identity formation are institutional constitutive argu-

ments, proposing that the actions of states ‘help to make cognitively plausible and

morally justifiable certain types of collective grievances, emotions, identities, ideol-ogies, associational ties, and actions (but not others)’ (Goodwin 2001: 39–40).

Sociological institutionalist theories of the influence of ‘epistemic communities’ on

policy paradigms (Haas 1992) or of international non-governmental organizations(INGOs) on a ‘world society’ (Meyer 1999) similarly propose that normative and

cognitive institutions as embedded in networks of expertise constitute the moral and

epistemological bases of policy formulation.Some historical institutionalists, notably Skocpol (1985), previously referred to

themselves as ‘state-centred’ scholars, and many historical institutionalists have a

theoretical emphasis involving the constraining role of political institutions. But mosthave dropped the state-centred label, including Skocpol (1992), as they address

political institutions beyond states. Among historical institutionalists, there are

political institutionalists in the tradition of Tocqueville, Weber and Polanyi, andothers incorporatingMarxian ideas regarding institutions in the political economy. In

each case these institutions may be treated and understood from both ‘calculus’ and

‘cultural’ approaches to action (Hall and Taylor 1996), similar to Weber’s classicalideal and material interests. Political institutionalists tend to view political actors as

employing a logic of ‘self-interest’, whereas sociological institutionalists tend see them

as working from a logic of ‘appropriateness’. Unlike rational choice institutionalists,sociological, historical and political institutionalists are deeply sociological in the

sense of rejecting the idea that institutions are simply the result of strategic equilibria

(Hall and Taylor 1996; Campbell 2004).In addition to its eclectic conceptualization of institutions (Hall and Taylor 1996;

Pierson and Skocpol 2002; Campbell 2004; Amenta and Ramsey 2010; cf. Immergut

1998), historical institutionalists provide explanations that tend to be multi-causal,thus promoting further theoretical eclecticism. Although historical institutionalists

usually put forward theoretical arguments and entertain and appraise alternative

explanations, they tend to seek complete explanations, rather than explaining themost variation with the most parsimonious model. As a result the explanations

provided are usually configurational and implicate a conjunction of institutions,

processes and events (Katznelson 1997). The configurational explanations typicallyinvolve the interactions of more than one institution, and different aspects of these

institutions, aswell as possibly slow-moving processes and contingent factors (Pierson

and Skocpol 2002). In these complete explanations, other elements from othertheoretical perspectives are added to institutions.

Perhaps more important, because institutions tend toward stasis, explaininginstitutional change typically requires causal claims that go beyond institutions

(Clemens and Cook 1999; Campbell 2004; B�eland 2005). Historical institutionalists

will often invoke the impetus of crises, the activity of socialmovements, the rise of newgovernments and the like in their multi-causal explanations for change (Amenta and

Ramsey 2010). This usually involves some theorizing at the meso level of political

organization, often involving the interaction of politically active groups with statebureaucrats and other actors, or some combination of theorizing at the macro and

meso levels. The causal argumentation sometimes gets quite detailed at the organi-

zational level.

HISTORICAL INSTITUTIONALISM 49

Because historical institutionalists do not form a theoretical school its practitioners

do not always identify themselves as such. What is more, historical institutionalism is

less significant as an identity among political sociologists than among politicalscientists, where historical institutionalists seek to differentiate themselves from

behaviourists and the rational choice scholars who also deploy the term institution-

alism (Hall and Taylor 1996). Historical institutionalists are often located in the sub-disciplines of comparative politics and American politics, and within American

politics in American political development or the politics and history section of the

American Political Science Association. In US sociology, scholars identified oridentifying as historical institutionalists are usually connected to the American

Sociological Association (ASA) sections on comparative and historical sociology and

political sociology.But because most historical institutionalists rely on political institutional theory, it

is worth briefly comparing political and sociological institutionalist arguments. Like

political institutionalists, most historical institutionalists tend to see political institu-tions as being distinctive and extremely influential, and, far more than sociological

institutionalists, they are concerned with issues of power. Most historical institution-

alists also see political institutions at the country or state level as being constrainingand influencing political outcomes; sociological institutionalists mainly see institu-

tions as working at the supra-state level, constraining and influencing all states. For

this reason, unlike sociological institutionalists, historical institutionalists rarelyemphasize convergence in political processes and outcomes; instead they often argue

that country-level political or economic institutions bring enduring differences across

countries and over time, often transmuting global processes (see Campbell 2004).Historical institutionalist explanations usually involve showing that some structural

and systemic political conditions or circumstances hindered a potential political

change in one place and either aided or allowed the development in another, withenduring consequences for differences in political development; thus for historical and

political institutionalists ‘comparison’ usually means ‘contrast’, such as between

successful and failed revolutions (Goldstone 2003), successful and failed transitionstodemocracy (Mahoney2003), andpolicy innovations and failures (Amenta 2003). In

path-dependent arguments (see below), initial decisions about the creation of institu-

tions shape all future possibilities for politics.

Path Dependency and Historicism

Among historical institutionalists there has been a turn toward a specific meta-theoretical approach to explanation, involving increased sensitivity to time order

and path dependence (Abbott 1992; Griffin 1992; Pierson 2000), and a style of

theoretical argument involving ‘historicist’ causation (Stinchcombe 1968). In narra-tive causal accounts, as opposed to standard variable-based discussions, when

something happens is key to its influence in processes of major change (Griffin

1992; Sewell 2006).Following the lead of institutional economics, many historical institutionalists

argue that time matters by way of path dependence. Some key decision or action at a

critical juncture or choice point brings about institutions with mechanisms that

50 EDWIN AMENTA

provide increasing returns to action and self-reinforcing processes (Mahoney 2000;

Pierson 2000). To use the social policy example again, once new policies are adopted

and bureaucracies enforcing the policies and corporations adapting employee benefitprogrammes form around them, politics changes in ways that tend to favour the new

policies and disfavour previously plausible alternatives. Path dependence means that

causes of the rise of these institutions will have a different influence, possibly none atall, once the institutions are set in place. For example, Pierson (1994) argues that well-

established social programmes in the United States and Britain deflected attempts by

right-wing regimes to destroy them, whereas right-wing regimes easily prevented orslowed the initial adoption of social programmes (Amenta 1998). Historical institu-

tionalists address the issue of institutional change by seeking to identify both the

critical juncture and the set of causes that determined the path chosen. Hypothesesabout critical junctures are closely tied to conjunctural causal analyses in which

several conditions may need to occur simultaneously for a major institutional shift.

Thus the meta-theoretical commitment to path-dependent approaches to explanationimplies an elective affinity to theoretical eclecticism.

The most extreme versions of path-dependent arguments are ones that produce

historical ‘lock-in’ or ‘self-reproducing sequences’ (Mahoney and Schenshul 2006);after a specific set of events some political alternatives are removed from the realm of

possibility and reversing course may be exceedingly difficult. Lock-in occurs as

political actors and the public reorient their lives significantly around the policy andthere are increasing returns surrounding the policy (Pierson 1996). While locking in

themselves, new policies can sometimes lock out other policies. Skocpol (1992) argues

that the adoption in theUnited State of extensive nineteenth-centurymilitary pensionsmade it very difficult to adopt comprehensive social insurance policy on the European

model. Hacker (2002) argues that it was possible for the US government to develop

extensive old-age programmes because private benefits were minimal, but moreextensive private benefits in health care inhibited national interventions. Fully mature

pay-as-you-go old-age programmes, such as US Social Security, are difficult to

retrench (Myles and Pierson 2001). From a political economy perspective, it is arguedthat initial decisions to adopt liberal, conservative, or social-democratic welfare

capitalist regimes (Esping-Andersen 1990) shape all future possibilities for social

politics (Hicks 1999). The idea of lock-in provides the motivation for historicistexplanation. If the enactment or institutionalization of a policy makes it almost

impossible to change, inquiry is focusedon itsperiodof enactmentor institutionalization.

Within the historical institutionalist camp, however, there is disagreement abouthow central the role of path dependencymight be. The strong version, involving lock-

in and self-reinforcing patterns, suggests that path-dependent processes are rare andimportant; the weak version, holding simply that contingency matters, suggests that

path dependence is ubiquitous, though less and variably influential (Mahoney and

Schensul 2006). From this point of view, the idea of ‘layering’ (Thelen 2003; StreekandThelen 2005) suggests that a series of small and incremental changes, rather than a

brief disjuncture in a critical period, or a ‘punctuated equilibrium’, may lead to

reinforcing patterns. The layering idea has been claimed to best describe the devel-opment of US Social Security (B�eland 2007).

Some of the disagreements among historical institutionalists play out with respect

to the concept of ‘policy feedbacks’, which designates the impact of new policy on

HISTORICAL INSTITUTIONALISM 51

politics and the future possibilities of policy. B�eland (2010) discusses six different

policy feedback mechanisms and research streams. Aside from the lock-in effects

noted by Pierson, these include the state-building produced bynewpolicy, the creationor strengthening of interest groups around policy, the influence of private institutions,

a policy’s promotion of political participation by demographic groups, and the

ideational and symbolic legacies of policies. Most of these reinforce policies. ButWeaver (2010) finds that the structure of some programmes tends to undermine them,

such as underfunded pensions on a non-pay-as-you-go model. US public-employee

health and old-age benefits at the state level seem particularly vulnerable to retrench-ment. But there still remains the question of the conditions under which aspects of

policies will be reinforcing, or undermining, and to what degree.

Difficulties in path-dependent theorizing, whether of the weak or strong forms, gobeyond internal disputes about how much history matters, however. Claims about

path dependence are typically counterfactual. It seems likely that the reason that a

given path is not reversed is not that it cannot be reversed, but because there are noconcerted attempts to reverse it. The onlyway to ascertain an institution’s or a policy’s

true strengthwouldbe to subject it to constant and varied challenges,which in practice

rarely happens. To return toUS Social Security, in its formative years itwas challengedsignificantly only occasionally and thus it is unclear when it was locked in (Amenta

2006; B�eland 2007). Also, invoking path dependence may ignore the ways that

institutions shape the possibilities for later political contestation.

History as a Methodological Approach

All historical institutionalists employ ‘historical’ methods, but vary in how theyinterpret this charge. Almost all historical institutionalists gain extensive knowledge

of their cases by mastering the relevant historiography, usually regarding political

phenomena in specific countries and time periods; most trace over time the processesbywhich explanations are claimed towork (George and Bennett 2005). Some address

two or a few country-level cases, often gaining the analytical advantages of compar-

isons (Rueschemeyer 2003). Yet others go in the opposite direction and act more likehistorians (Sewell 2006), relying mainly on primary sources to appraise and develop

arguments and usually addressing just one country. Whether addressing one or a few

countries, historical institutionalists have been criticized for having too few caseschasing too many explanations.

Historical institutionalist works, usually monographs or long articles, strategically

deploy comparisons or trace historical processes to cast empirical doubt on alternativeexplanations, especially themechanisms bywhich theories are claimed towork, and to

provide support for their own explanations. This mode of analysis calls attention to

large-scale contexts and processes, which often go unnoticed in approaches to dataanalysis that focus on events surrounding the specific changes under study and do not

examine these events in wider historical or comparative contexts. This sort of work

requires detailed historical knowledge of individual countries and time periods. Also,given their wide scope, these analyses often range across different governmental

institutions, such as executives, bureaucracies, legislators and courts, unlike much

political science research that focuses on one institution. Whether these analyses rely

52 EDWIN AMENTA

on primary or secondary sources, they usually array in one place a wealth of

information scattered among different works, drawing a more analytically coherent

picture of what is to be explained. This form contrasts with the modal product ofsociological institutionalist analysis, which is a quantitative journal article addressing

the diffusion of specific policy innovation across a wide variety of countries or other

units (Amenta and Ramsey 2010).Historical institutionalist questions are motivated by puzzles often with both

comparative and theoretical aspects to them. Although not all historical institution-

alists engage in cross-national comparisons, their questions usually have comparativemotivations and implications. For instance, questions about the failure of national

health insurance or the late start of other public social programmes in theUnited States

are at least implicitly comparing these failures to successes elsewhere in similarlysituated countries. The puzzling aspect of the big question is also sometimes con-

structed from the failure of well-known theoretical explanations to provide a satis-

factory answer. For instance, US social policy lagged despite being among the richestof countries, and efforts to retrench social policy may fail despite the fact that right-

wing parties rule (Pierson 1996), as in Britain and the United States in the 1980s.

Some have noted the similarity between the types of theoretical argumentation ofhistorical institutionalists, which is often configurational and multi-causal (Katznel-

son 1997), with Boolean analytical techniques and fuzzy set analyses (Ragin 2008).

Similarly, sequence analyses can be suited to analyzing path-dependent and historicisttheoretical claims. Themore successful historical social science research areas, such as

on revolutions (Goldstone 2003), democratization (Mahoney 2003), and social policy

(Amenta 2003), address quantitative findings and seek to appraise the theories andclaims of scholars working with large-scale data sets. However, historical institu-

tionalists only rarely deploy the types of data sets required to carry out either Boolean

or sequence analyses and usually do not have the data-analytical inclination ortraining to do so. Historical institutionalist investigations are usually undertaken in

the absence of the possibility of generating the sorts of data sets statistically manip-

ulated in high-profile scholarly articles, such as the modal research products ofsociological institutionalists. In addition, historical institutionalist analyses are usu-

ally focused on explaining a specific set of outcomes, rather than theorizing about the

general impact of individual or joint causes (Mahoney and Terrie 2009), workingbackward from the outcome, rather than forward from purported causes.

Many historical institutionalists and like-minded historical social scientists now

consider it insufficient simply to employ comparative methods and similar ap-proaches, dropping a reliance on secondary sources andworkingmainlywith primary

sources like historians. Historical social scientists are warned against biases and gapsin historiography (Lustick 1996), and archival research wards off misunderstandings

and reveals what key actors thought about their actions. Being historical in this

methodological sense, however, is both time consuming and demands skills, such asinterpreting documents, in which social scientists are usually untrained. It is also

limiting in that the time required to analyze primary documents about an aspect of

politics in a specific country in a short time periodmakes it more difficult to accrue theanalytical advantages of comparing the same phenomena across a few countries or in

one country over a long period of time. Process tracings are richer, but deploying

comparisons to rule out explanations becomes less easy.

HISTORICAL INSTITUTIONALISM 53

Regardless of whether historical institutionalists act like historians or engage in

broader small-N comparisons, their work has been criticized as deploying too few

cases or empirical instances to make causal claims stick (Lieberson 1992; Goldthorpe1999) and as ‘selecting on the dependent variable’, limiting the value of explanations

(King et al. 1994). One standard response to the issue of limited observations is

through research design, trying to address and hold constant asmany possible relevantcausal factors, knownas a ‘most similar systems’ design (Przeworski andTeune1970),

notably comparing country cases or historical sequences that were otherwise similar,

but differing on key causal elements. Another strategy to increase the analyticalleverage of small-N studies is to break down large country cases into various over-time

or within-country comparisons (Amenta 2009). However, most strategies rely on the

strength of historical research, such as by way of process tracing – which can be donewell by historical scholars, but cannot be done by way of statistical analyses (George

and Bennett 2005). As for selecting on the dependent variable, examining positive

cases is a valid research strategy for explaining unusual occurrences of importance andcan be seen as an advantage of historical research (Ragin 2008).

The Future of Historical Institutionalism

As its proponents note, historical institutionalism promotes social scientific research

on questions and issues that would otherwise be ignored. Historical institutionalists

delve into issues and questions for which it is not easy to generate the sort of data setsrequired for standard multivariate analyses and thus much of what is known about

some subjects is provided by historical social scientists (Pierson and Skocpol 2002).

The big picture analyses provided by historical institutionalists will remain relevant inthese ways, but there remain ways for historical institutionalists to increase their

influence and harness the advantages of their approach to the study of politics.

One way is to pay greater attention to theory. Historical institutionalist theorizingto date has proceeded with an excess of reticence, often failing to theorize beyond the

cases and time periods of interest. Historical institutionalist explanations are usually

dependent on context, but often aspects of the historical context are set as ‘propername’ (Przeworski and Teune 1970) boundaries surrounding the causal claims, by

way of specific places and periods, such as ‘the United States between the wars’.

However, scope conditions are typically understood analytically (George and Bennett2005), and it would be better for historical institutionalists to make this analytical

leap, theorizing, say, about ‘rich democratic societies during the period of the rise of

welfare states’, even if they address closely only a few such examples. Similarly, theirconfigurational causal explanations are not always sorted for prominence or porta-

bility. It is worth thinking about the following questions: How influential are various

political contexts? Would the combination of variables or conditions likely haveimplications in many situations or few? If so, what might these situations be?

More specifically, historical institutionalists also would do well to intervene in

debates between political and sociological institutionalists. Political institutionalistspredominantly address political developments and policies that are consequential in

terms of resources and fundamental power arrangements; these issues inevitably attract

the attention of the most powerful state and domestic political actors. Sociological

54 EDWIN AMENTA

institutionalist studies, in contrast, usually address policies for which delegation to an

increasingly globally interconnected civil society is unlikely to result in major realloca-

tions of state resources or group interests. Similarly, the need for legitimacy – a keymotivator in sociological institutionalist accounts – is typically greater in more newly

minted states suffering from power deficits. That may account for the explanatory

power of sociological institutionalist analyses, which typically range across a widevariety of states. Positing and evaluating various empirical boundaries to these camps

may be useful for historical institutionalist scholarship to explore to ascertain how far

the claims of each tradition may go (see Amenta and Ramsey 2010).Historical institutionalism’s theoretical eclecticism leaves roles open for the influ-

ence of ideas, but these could use greater attention, especially from a political

institutionalist perspective. The roles of ideas can address more fine-grained,change-oriented questions, such as why particular reforms took the forms that they

did. Drawing on the policy streams approach of Kingdon (1995) and ‘policy learning’

theories from political science (Hall 1993; King and Hansen 1999), B�eland (2005)notably argues that the content of new policies is heavily dependent upon the national

policy domains of state bureaucracies, interest groups, think tanks, academic research

institutions and social movements that monitor an issue area and proposes thatresearch engage in careful tracing of the causal influenceof policy paradigms andof the

diffusion of proposals from policy-producing organizations to decision-making

authorities. This suggested integration of norms and schemas presumes relativelyautonomous, calculative authorities with agency to adjudicate policy decisions – but

operating within the bounds of available and feasible analyses and proposals gener-

ated by policy domain actors, which are partly the product of national politicalstructures (see also Campbell 2002). This approach addresses the role of ideas in

propelling policy changes over the hurdles of the legislative process, as elected officials

and policy advocates must frame policy innovations so as to draw public support oravoid resistance; this contrasts with the standard approach of sociological institu-

tionalist and policy learning theories, which discount domestic political constraints.

Historical institutionalists, like other qualitative researchers, can also addressfurther the sorts of theoretical cases that are discovered or created in the process of

research. As they complete their investigations another question that historical

institutionalists should ask themselves is this: What is the case a case of (Ragin andBecker 1992)? By the process of ‘casing’ scholars can make theoretical connections

that help to draw new conceptual lines around phenomena previously seen as

disparate and not obviously comparable. A study may thus prompt the investigatorto identify a new class of phenomena that might have similar causes and consequences

or add new instances to existing classes of phenomena. Case studies also provide anopportunity to think more deeply and conceptually about the phenomena revealed

during the analysis and aid in placing scope conditions on arguments (George and

Bennett 2005). Typically social scientists choose cases on the basis of their being a partof some larger theoretical population, either typical of a larger group or atypical and

thus extra worthy of explanation. Historical institutionalist scholars can refine

understandings of these more general populations and situate cases more preciselywith respect to others deemed as otherwise similar.

Historical work also can harness its deep knowledge of political developments to

revitalize standard quantitative scholarship. Scholars with deep understandings of

HISTORICAL INSTITUTIONALISM 55

cases often can ascertain which quantitative indicators are truly meaningful and

would provide appraisals of more general arguments. For instance, historical scholars

are more likely to be able to separate highly conflictual and significant votes in the USCongress from those that are not, or which aspects of policies were at the frontier of

political conflict. Although historical research tends to be concerned with explaining

specific key outcomes, whereas quantitative research tends to focus on the influence ofcausal factors (Mahoney and Terrie 2009), having historical institutionalists on the

lookout for valid indicators would help advance knowledge.

More generally, great intellectual progress can result from a dialogue betweensmall-N historical studies in large-N quantitative studies. Historical research can

appraise the mechanisms in these claims and address variance in larger statistical

patterns. If there is contention among theories about these patterns, historical analysescan adjudicate among them (see Amenta 2003). Institutionalist approaches would

also benefit from a cross-fertilization of research methods. Historical institutionalist

research that applies more rigorous statistical tests to more precisely formulatedexplanatory claims, analyzing more ambitious sets of data, would shore up explana-

tionswhose particularistic scope has consigned them to a frequentlymarginal status in

sociological and political theorizing and research.

Acknowledgement

I thank Daniel B�eland, Beth Gardner, Kate Nash and Alan Scott for comments on a

previous version.

Further Reading

Amenta, E. and Ramsey, K.M. 2010: Institutional theory. In K.T. Leicht and J.C. Jenkins (eds)

The Handbook of Politics: State and Civil Society in Global Perspective. New York:

Springer.

Campbell, J.L. 2004: Institutional Change and Globalization. Princeton, NJ: Princeton Uni-

versity Press.

Hall, P.A. and Taylor, R.C.R. 1996: Political science and the three institutionalisms. Political

Studies 44: 936–957.

Mahoney, J. and Schensul, D. 2006: Historical context and path dependence. In R.E. Goodin

and C. Tilly (eds) The Oxford Handbook of Contextual Political Analysis. New York:

Oxford University Press.

Pierson, P. and Skocpol, T. 2002: Historical institutionalism in contemporary political science.

In I. Katznelson and H.V. Milner (eds) Political Science: The State of the Discipline.

New York: W.W. Norton.

56 EDWIN AMENTA