Historical institutionalism is often regarded as the least rigorous and the more tautological of the ‘new institutionalisms’, but this reputation is undeserved. We argue that historical institutionalism, when viewed as a method for, rather than a theory of, examining institutional stasis and change, can provide a rigorous approach to process tracing that is useful in examining the impact of institutional legacies on contemporary political issues. Famous historical institutionalist scholars, including Kathleen Thelen, suggest that systematic approaches to comparative temporal analyses can help to overcome the shortcomings of the inductive method in comparative politics. While many comparative political studies adopt historical institutionalism as an approach to examining temporal sequencing, few studies specify how historical institutionalism is used as a method and even fewer do so explicitly. Borrowing from other disciplines that have a long history of using diagrams to explain changes to the status quo, this paper examines the benefits of adopting visual heuristics to operationalise historical institutionalism in comparative political studies. Benefits include a systematic approach to capturing past legacies that inform present choices, identifying key periods of stasis and change, and identifying the specific exogenous and endogenous pressures and tensions that result in critical junctures within a temporal sequence.

1. Diagrammatical Approaches to Operationalising Historical
Institutionalism as a Method in Comparative Politics
Michael de Percy
Stephen Darlington
michael.depercy@canberra.edu.au
www.politicalscience.com.au
stephen.darlington@anu.edu.au
#AusPSA2021

2. INSPIRATION FOR HI HEURISTIC
“The accompanying diagram will aid us in understanding this rather
perplexing subject. Let A to L represent the species of a genus large in
its own country...” (Charles Darwin 1861: 108-9).
Heuristic: aid to learning, discovery, or problem-solving by
experimental… methods (Merriam-Webster).
Why Darwin Converted the Crowd in Back to Methuselah: A
Metabiological Pentateuch (George Bernard Shaw, 1921)
“Darwin becomes tedious in the manner of a man who insists on
continuing to prove his innocence after he has been acquitted. You
assure him that there is not a stain on his character, and beg him to
leave the court; but he will not be content with enough evidence: he
will have you listen to all the evidence that exists in the world”.
Our Aim!

3. • Lots of people talking about HI (Alistair Stark)
• Lots of people doing HI (Kathleen Thelen)
• Not many people talking about how to do HI (gap in literature).
• Patrick Dunleavy (circa 2015) ‘algorithms are more familiar than diagrams’
• Stephen and I: Diagrams work best at explaining how to do HI
• Original approach from my 2012 thesis, picked up by Randal Stewart
(2013) in Whitlam Institute Perspectives and adapted by Stephen in his
study of NEHR
• Finally published in Policy Studies (2021)
• In use in a variety of publications (see next slide and reference list)
HI AS METHOD: FOR AND AGAINST

4. • Institutions/Institutionalism: The formal and informal rules of the game
(March and Olsen 1989).
• Critical Junctures: Choices made (or not), contingent events force change.
• Exogenous/Endogenous Pressures: External (events)/Internal (learning).
• Ideas: Policy learning, problem solving, political conflict over ideas.
• Path Dependency: Inertial forces limit available future choices.
• Punctuated Equilibrium: Equilibrium/stability between critical junctures.
• Process Tracing: Method of qualitative cause and influence of inst. change
• Temporal Sequencing: The sequence of events in space and time (hence
my interest in transport and telecoms)
• Increasing/Decreasing Returns: Feedback on efficacy of institutions
KEY ELEMENTS OF HI

5. ORIGINAL MODEL
2
Time
A Model of Co-Evolution
1 3
Critical
juncture
Choices/paths not taken
Exogenous event
Decision point
Choices available at 2 limited
by choices made at 1
Tipping point
New invention
Status quo
Policy problem
Model of the Co-Evolution of Communications Technologies and Institutions (de Percy 2012)

6. NEXT ITERATION (STEWART 2013)

7. PUBLISHED VERSION(DE PERCY & BATAINAH 2021)

8. • Path
• Critical Juncture (CJ)
8
Diagram components

9. 9
Comparing NEHRs - Darlington (forthcoming)

10. 10
Adding complexity – levels of analysis

11. • Institutional exhaustion and foreign aid: COVID-19 and the reinvigoration
of parallel multilateralism (de Percy, forthcoming)
• Comparison of e-health policies (Darlington forthcoming)
• EV Road User Charges: Evidence from Keynumbers (de Percy and Poljak,
forthcoming)
• Policy Legacies from Early Australian Telecommunications: A private sector
perspective (de Percy 2021a)
• Models of GBR: Auto/telecoms/trade/carbon emissions (de Percy 2021b)
• Comparison of communications technologies in Australia and Canada (de
Percy & Batainah 2021)
• Impact of ideas on multilateral institutions (de Percy 2020)
USES TO DATE:

12. PLANNING (DE PERCY 2020)
Populism and a New World Order

13. IN PROGRESS
Taxi Regulated Monopolies and Impact of Ride-Sharing

14. IN PROGRESS
EV Road User Charging and Future Scenarios (de Percy & Poljak, forthcoming)

15. Darlington, S.J. (forthcoming). Converging outcomes in nationally shareable electronic health records (NEHRs): An
historical institutionalist explanation of similar NEHR outcomes in Australia, England and the United States of America.
Doctoral Thesis, SPIR, ANU.
De Percy, M.A. and Poljak, J. (forthcoming). It’s time to charge EV for using roads: Keynumbers shows it isn’t so bad
after all. Presentation to CILTA, Department of Infrastructure, Canberra, 12th October 2021.
De Percy, M.A. (forthcoming). Institutional exhaustion and foreign aid: COVID-19 and the reinvigoration of parallel
multilateralism. In V. Jakupec, M. Kelly, and M.A. de Percy, The Impact of COVID Nationalism on Global Development:
Toward a New World Order in Foreign Aid. New York: Routledge.
De Percy, M.A. (2021a). Policy Legacies from Early Australian Telecommunications: A private sector perspective.
Journal of Telecommunications and the Digital Economy, 9(3).
De Percy, M.A. (2021b). Models of Government-Business Relations: Industry Policy Preferences versus Pragmatism in
Andrew Podger, Michael de Percy, and Sam Vincent (Eds.) Practice in Politics: Essays in celebration of John Wanna’s
contribution to politics, public policy and public administration. Canberra: ANU Press.
De Percy, M.A. and Batainah, H.S. (2021). Identifying historical policy regimes in the Canadian and Australian
communications industries using a model of path dependent, punctuated equilibrium, Policy Studies, 42(1): 42-59
DOI: 10.1080/01442872.2019.1581161.
De Percy, M.A. (2020). Populism and a New World Order in Viktor Jakupec, Max Kelly, and Jonathan Makuwira
(Eds.), Rethinking Multilateralism in Foreign Aid: Beyond the Neoliberal Hegemony. New York: Routledge.
De Percy, M.A. (2012). Connecting the Nation: An Historical Institutionalist Explanation for Divergent Communications
Technology Outcomes in Canada and Australia. Doctoral Thesis, RSSS, ANU.
Stewart, R. (2013). Climate Change in a New Democratic Age: Why we need more, not less, democratic participation
in Whitlam Institute Perspectives. Rydalmere, NSW: Whitlam Institute.
REFERENCES

16. THANK YOU
Questions and comments
Diagrammatical Approaches to Operationalising Historical
Institutionalism as a Method in Comparative Politics