chapter 3
...................................................................................................................................................HISTORICAL
INSTITUTIONALISM
...................................................................................................................................................elizabeth sanders
The central assumption of historical institutionalism (HI) is that it is more
enlightening to study human political interactions: (a) in the context of rule
structures that are themselves human creations; and (b) sequentially, as life is
lived, rather than to take a snapshot of those interactions at only one point in
time, and in isolation from the rule structures (institutions) in which they occur.
As to the development of the behavior shaping rule structures themselves, a now
conventional notion, borrowed from economics and popularized by Paul Pierson
( 2000 ), is that institutional development over time is marked by path dependence
(PD). A crisis, or a serendipitous conXuence of events or social pressures, produces
a new way of doing things. For example, in the case of regulating railroads by
independent commission, ‘‘increasing returns’’ accrued to the steady elaboration of
this path—and not toXuctuating experimentation withothermethods of reducing
social costs occasioned by uncontrolled railroad entrepreneurship—and, for that
reason, the railroad commission lasted a long time and its functional connections
to society became ever more elaborate. Transportation businesses, trade unions,
investor decisions, and legislative and party politics gained a stake in the ‘‘path’’ of
railroad regulation by independent commission and calculated and defended their
interests within its rules. To understand the actions of all these political players, one
must take cognizance of the historical development of the institution, and the
original, distinct culture and problems in which it arose. That is the central logic