The Critical Juncture Concept’s Evolving Capacity to Explain Policy Change

Abstract

This article examines the evolution of our understanding of the critical junctures concept. The concept finds its origins in historical intuitionalism, being employed in the context of path dependence to account for sudden and jarring institutional or policy changes. We argue that the concept and the literature surrounding it-now incorporating ideas, discourse, and agency-have gradually become more comprehensive and nuanced as historical institutionalism was followed by ideational historical institutionalism and constructivist and discursive institutionalism. The prime position of contingency has been supplanted by the role of ideas and agency in explaining critical junctures and other instances of less than transformative change. Consequently, the concept is now capable of providing more comprehensive explanations for policy change.KEY WORDS: Critical juncture, contingency, path dependence, ideas, policy 以不断演变的关键时刻概念解释政策变化 本文考察了对关键时刻概念的理解所发生的演变。此概念起源于历史制度主义, 在路径依赖的 背景下得以应用, 用于解释突发和不符合制度的变化或政策变化。笔者主张, 围绕此概念的相 关概念和文献 (现包括观念, 话语和政府机构) 逐渐变得日益全面和复杂, 因为历史制度主义已 延伸到观念历史制度主义 (ideational historical institutionalism) 和建构话语制度主义 (constructivist and discursive institutionalism)。 偶发性所占的重要位置已被观念和政府机构所扮演的角 色所取代, 用于解释关键时刻和其他略低于重大变化的时刻。结果则是, 关键时刻概念现能为 政策变化提供更多全面性的解释。 关键词: 关键时刻, 偶发性, 路径依赖, 观点, 政策 La capacidad evolutiva del concepto de coyuntura cr ıtica para explicar el cambio de pol ıtica Este art ıculo examina la evoluci on de nuestra comprensi on del concepto de coyunturas cr ıticas. El concepto encuentra sus or ıgenes en el institucionalismo hist orico, siendo empleado en el contexto de la dependencia de la trayectoria para explicar cambios institucionales o pol ıticos repentinos y discordantes. Argumentamos que el concepto y la literatura que lo rodea, que ahora incorpora ideas, discurso y agencia, se ha ido haciendo cada vez m as comprensivo y matizado a medida que el institucionalismo hist orico fue seguido por el institucionalismo hist orico ideacional y el institucionalismo constructivista y discursivo. La posici on principal de la contingencia ha sido suplantada por el 170

Policymaking in multiple European cases

“…从激发思考的论坛文章出发，本期还收录了六篇包含理论和实证的文章，它们都通过了高质量的双盲同行评审。作者John Hogan（）从论坛文章的理论思路出发，对关键时刻概念进行了理论研究。通过将此概念的起源追溯至历史制度主义，Hogan主张：将关键时刻概念与观念、机构、话语进行结合，导致关键时刻出现的原因发生改变，并且变化后的原因更适合于解释政策变化。…”

“…Después de esta contribución al foro, el tema recopila seis artículos teóricos y empíricos sólidos que se sometieron a una revisión por pares doble ciego de alta calidad. John Hogan () continúa la línea conceptual del artículo del foro con una contribución teórica sobre la noción de coyunturas críticas. Al rastrear los orígenes del concepto hasta el institucionalismo histórico, Hogan argumenta que al combinar el concepto con ideas, agencia y discursos, las razones para que ocurran coyunturas críticas han cambiado y ahora son más adecuadas para explicar el cambio de política.…”

“…Following this thought‐provoking forum contribution, the issue compiles six strong theoretical and empirical articles that underwent high‐quality double‐blind peer review. John Hogan () continues the conceptual line of the forum article with a theoretical contribution on the notion of critical junctures. Tracing the origins of the concept back to historical institutionalism, Hogan makes the argument that in combining the concept with ideas, agency, and discourses, the reasons for critical junctures to occur have changed and are now better suitable to explain policy change.…”

Policy programme cycles through old and new programmatic groups

“…While the established perspectives inherently capture a dynamic of alternating phases of policy stability and change over time (Capano and Howlett 2009), the foci of interests differ. Perspectives on policy stability identify stabilizing determinants of path dependence and preshaped trajectories for incremental change through feedback effects as well as critical junctures at which departing from this path would lead to major change (Koning 2016;Mettler and Sorelle 2017;Béland and Schlager 2019;Hogan 2019). However, they do not explicitly address a continuous major change in a certain programmatic direction.…”

“…Bauer and Knill (2014) assume that policy actors act rationally according to cost-benefit analyses and particularly the goal of electoral success when dismantling and terminating policies. Additionally, the notion of critical junctures refers to the identification of instances when there is a chance for policy termination and major policy change beyond incremental change (Hogan 2019;Rinscheid et al 2019). In accounting for both exogenous and endogenous triggers for critical junctures, incrementalists have centred on the concept of actors inherent particularly in ideational institutionalism to assess in what way and under what circumstances actors alter institutions and policies (Koning 2016).…”