Policy Change: What Institutions Do in Dynamic Settings

25 Pages Posted: 19 Jul 2010 Last revised: 20 Aug 2010

See all articles by Brandon C. Zicha

Brandon C. Zicha

University of Antwerp; Free University of Amsterdan

Date Written: 2010

Abstract

Political Scientists have been explicitly concerned with the role of decision-making institutions in policy-making since the beginning of modern political science, if not earlier. Contemporary formal approaches such as the social choice based analyses of Tsebelis’s Veto Players theory (2002) have formed the foundation of a good deal of comparative political research on cross-national policy changes. This paper shows that the static assumptions that underlie these analyses drive a number of the most important conclusions of these arguments. When models such as Veto Players are put in motion the resulting conclusions about policy dynamics become more ambiguous. This finding helps to explain why these arguments have been so difficult to square with empirical reality across contexts, suggests a possible explanation for divergence from the standard veto players arguments, and points to simulation based theoretical exercise aimed at specifying the circumstances where the conclusions based on static analyses hold and where they fail. The paper concludes with the observation that while static analysis is excellent for demonstrating how institutions work in any one circumstance, they are more limited in explaining what institutions do to policy changes across different dynamic systems

Keywords: Veto Players, Policy Change, Punctuated Equilibrium

Suggested Citation

Zicha, Brandon C., Policy Change: What Institutions Do in Dynamic Settings (2010). APSA 2010 Annual Meeting Paper, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1642845

Brandon C. Zicha (Contact Author)

University of Antwerp ( email )

Prinsstraat 13
Antwerp, 2000
Belgium

Free University of Amsterdan ( email )

De Boelelaan 1105
Amsterdam, ND North Holland 1081 HV
Netherlands

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