Исторический институционализм: подходы и развитие

Social science approach
Historical institutionalism (HI) is a new institutionalist social science approach that emphasizes how timing, sequences and path dependence affect institutions, and shape social, political, economic behavior and change. Unlike functionalist theories and some rational choice approaches, historical institutionalism tends to emphasize that many outcomes are possible, small events and flukes can have large consequences, actions are hard to reverse once they take place, and that outcomes may be inefficient. A critical juncture may set in motion events that are hard to reverse, because of issues related to path dependency. Historical institutionalists tend to focus on history (longer temporal horizons) to understand why specific events happen. The term "Historical Institutionalism" began appearing in publications in the early 1990s, although it had been used in the late 1980s. The most widely cited historical institutionalist scholars are Peter Hall, Paul Pierson, Theda Skocpol, Douglass North, and Kathleen Thelen. Prominent works of historical institutionalist scholarship have used both sociological and rationalist methods. Due to a focus on events involving causal complexity (equifinality, complex interaction effects and path dependency), historical institutionalist works tend to employ detailed comparative case studies.

Kathleen Thelen and Sven Steinmo contrast New Institutionalism with "Old Institutionalism", which was overwhelmingly focused on detailed narratives of institutions, with little focus on comparative analyses. Thus, the Old Institutionalism was unhelpful for comparative research and explanatory theory. This "Old Institutionalism" began to be undermined when scholars increasingly highlighted how the formal rules and administrative structures of institutions were not accurately describing the behavior of actors and policy outcomes. Works, such as Karl Polanyi's The Great Transformation, Theda Skocpol's States and Social Revolutions, Philippe Schmitter's Still a Century of Corporatism?, Barrington Moore's Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy, and Evans, Ruschemeyer and Skocpol's Bringing the State Back In have been characterized as precursors to Historical Institutionalism, spawning a new research program. Historical institutionalism is a predominant approach in research on the welfare state. In the field of International Relations, John Ikenberry's After Victory and Abraham Newman's Protectors of Privacy are prominent works of historical institutionalist scholarship.

Historical institutionalism is not a unified intellectual enterprise (see also new institutionalism). Some scholars are oriented towards treating history as the outcome of rational and purposeful behavior based on the idea of equilibrium (see rational choice). They rely heavily on quantitative approaches and formal theory. Others, more qualitative oriented scholars, reject the idea of rationality and instead emphasize the idea that randomness and accidents matter in political and social outcomes. There are unsolvable epistemological differences between both approaches. However given the historicity of both approaches, and given their focus on institutions, both can fall under "historical institutionalism". Munck argues that work that emphasizes critical junctures as causes has two problems: (i) the problem of infinite regress (the notion that the cause of events can constantly be pushed back further in time), and (ii) the problem of distal non recurring causes (convincingly arguing that a distant non recurring event caused a much later event). Avner Greif and David Laitin have criticized the notion of increased returns. Sociological institutionalists and ideational scholars have criticized versions of Historical Institutionalism that adopt materialist and rationalist ontologies. Political scientists such as Henry Farrell, Martha Finnemore, Mark Blyth, Oddny Helgadóttir, and William Kring argue that Historical Institutionalism has over time tended to engage more with rational choice institutionalism than with sociological institutionalism. According to Michael Zurn, Historical institutionalism "lacks a theory of action." In Paradigms and Sand Castles, an influential book on research design in comparative politics, Barbara Geddes argues that there are methodological limits to the kind of path dependent arguments that is often found in Historical Institutionalist research. She argues that it is hard to rule out rival explanations for a proposed outcome and to precisely identify one purported critical juncture or another. Oxford University Press. Waylen, G. (2009). What Can Historical Institutionalism Offer Feminist Institutionalists? Politics & Gender, 5(2), 245–253.