3 Constructivist Institutionalism
Applied: Crises, Paradigm Shifts, and
Uncertainty
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Whilst there may well be something of a tension between the contemporary trajec-
tory of historical institutionalism and the developing constructivist institutionalist
research agenda, this should not hide the considerable indebtedness of the latter to
earlier versions of the former. The work of Peter A. Hall, in particular that on policy
paradigms, social learning, and institutional change ( 1993 ), has proved a crucial
source of inspiration for many contemporary currents in constructivist institution-
alism. Indeed, the latter’s indebtedness to historical institutionalism is arguably
rather greater than its indebtedness to constructivism in international relations
theory. For despite the ostensible similarities between constructivist institutionalism
and constructivism in international relations theory, the former has been driven to a
far greater extent than the latter by the attempt to resolve particular empirical
puzzles. Those puzzles, principally concerned with understanding the conditions
of existence of signiWcant path-shaping institutional change, have led institutional-
ists to consider the role of ideas in inXuencing the developmental trajectory of
institutions under conditions of uncertainly and/or crisis. They were exploredWrst
by historical institutionalists, most notably Peter A. Hall.
Hall’s work represents by far the most sustained, consistent, and systematic
attempt within the historical institutionalist perspective to accord a key role
for ideas in the determination of institutional outcomes. Like most of the con-
structivist institutionalist scholarship which it would come to inform, Hall’s
approach to ideas comes not from a prior ontological commitment (as in
constructivist international relations theory), but from the observation of an
empirical regularity—ideational change invariably precedes institutional change.
Drawing inspiration from Kuhn, Hall argues that policy is made within the context
of ‘‘policy paradigms.’’ Such interpretative schema are internalized by politicians,
state managers, policy experts, and the like. They come to deWne a range of
legitimate policy techniques, mechanisms, and instruments, thereby delimiting
the very targets and goals of policy itself. In short, they come to circumscribe the
realm of the politically feasible, practical, and desirable. As Hall elaborates:
policy makers customarily work within a framework of ideas and standards that speciWes
not only the goals of policy and the kind of instruments that can be used to attain them, but
also the very nature of the problems they are meant to be addressing.... [T]his framework
is embedded in the very terminology through which policy makers communicate about
their work, and it is inXuential precisely because so much of it is taken for granted and
unamenable to scrutiny as a whole. ( 1993 , 279 )
The identiWcation of such distinctive policy paradigms allows Hall to diVerentiate
between: (a) periods of ‘‘normal’’ policy-making (and change) in which the
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