"Seek and Ye Shall Find" : linking Different Perspectives on Institutional Change

Abstract

Two theoretical schools rationalist and constructivist approaches dominate the literature on policy and nstitutional change. They tend to focus the debate on the ontological understanding of human behavior and hence the logic behind change. The authors note that another dimension of change namely, its scope is treated unsatisfactorily in the literature due to a neglect of the level of abstraction used as a point of departure by different studies. Hence, the literature is littered with false debates couched in the language of ontological disagreement.Aregrouping of the literature into structure- and agency-based approaches will help to take for more systematic account of the levels of abstraction problem and therefore the varying measuring rods applied to assess the scope of change. The authors analytical focus runs orthogonal to the question of ontology and complements the dominant debate by allowing for a separation of different analytical dimensions in the study of political change.