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Institutionalism

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The Palgrave Handbook of EU Crises

Part of the book series: Palgrave Studies in European Union Politics ((PSEUP))

Abstract

Institutionalism is a venerable perspective in the social sciences, one that has generated a rich literature on the importance and impact of institutions. This chapter explores different versions of institutionalism, focusing on how they explain both institutional stability and institutional change. With respect to understanding crisis, the central concept in the institutionalist tool kit is the idea of “critical juncture.” Recent scholarship problematize an association of critical junctures with radical change and intervening periods with gradual incremental change. Instead, institutional change during a crisis is likely to be uneven, with some forces working to defend and consolidate existing institutions and others experimenting with new institutions. A brief investigation of the EU’s response to the Eurozone crisis suggests that crisis-driven institutional change is likely to blend old and new.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Soifer says it somewhat differently, saying that a juncture becomes more critical to the extent that “the outcomes generated in one historical moment persist over time” (2012: 1577).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of California, Berkeley, CA, USA

    Christopher Ansell

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  1. Christopher Ansell
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Correspondence to Christopher Ansell .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Inland School of Business and Social Sciences, Inland University, Rena and Lillehammer, Norway

    Marianne Riddervold

  2. Inland School of Business and Social Sciences, Inland University, Rena and Lillehammer, Norway

    Jarle Trondal

  3. Department of Political Science and Management, University of Agder, Kristiansand, Norway

    Akasemi Newsome

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Ansell, C. (2021). Institutionalism. In: Riddervold, M., Trondal, J., Newsome, A. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of EU Crises. Palgrave Studies in European Union Politics. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-51791-5_7

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