AusPSA 2021 Conference Paper: Diagrammatical Approaches to Operationalising Historical Institutionalism as a Method in Comparative Politics

Diagramming Path Dependent, Punctuated Equilibrium, and Critical Junctures in EV Policy

Diagrammatical Approaches to Operationalising Historical Institutionalism as a Method in Comparative Politics

This week, I presented a paper with Stephen Darlington from the ANU on our approach to diagramming historical institutionalism as a method of process tracing in comparative politics. The abstract and our presentation are provided below.

Abstract

Historical institutionalism is often regarded as the least rigorous and the more tautological of the ‘new institutionalisms’, but this reputation is undeserved. We argue that historical institutionalism, when viewed as a method for, rather than a theory of, examining institutional stasis and change, can provide a rigorous approach to process tracing that is useful in examining the impact of institutional legacies on contemporary political issues. Famous historical institutionalist scholars, including Kathleen Thelen, suggest that systematic approaches to comparative temporal analyses can help to overcome the shortcomings of the inductive method in comparative politics. While many comparative political studies adopt historical institutionalism as an approach to examining temporal sequencing, few studies specify how historical institutionalism is used as a method and even fewer do so explicitly. Borrowing from other disciplines that have a long history of using diagrams to explain changes to the status quo, this paper examines the benefits of adopting visual heuristics to operationalise historical institutionalism in comparative political studies. Benefits include a systematic approach to capturing past legacies that inform present choices, identifying key periods of stasis and change, and identifying the specific exogenous and endogenous pressures and tensions that result in critical junctures within a temporal sequence.

Diagrammatical Approaches to Operationalising Historical Institutionalism as a Method in Comparative Politics from University of Canberra

Policy Legacies from Early Australian Telecommunications: A Private Sector Perspective

Rylstone Telegraph Office [CC BY-SA 4.0 by Cabrilis]

My latest research article, Policy Legacies from Early Australian Telecommunications: A Private Sector Perspective, has been published in the Journal of Telecoms and the Digital Economy.

Abstract

The purpose of this article on the policy legacies from Australia’s early telecommunications history is not to present a counterfactual to Australia’s choice of public monopoly provision of early telecommunications services, but rather to indicate the extent that politics limited the private sector’s role in deploying early telegraph and telephone infrastructure in Australia. The article begins by outlining a theoretical framework for analysing government’s role in deploying new telecommunications technologies, before investigating some of the less familiar literature on the historical impact of government intervention on the private sector in the early Australian telegraph and telephone industries. It then discusses some of the political issues relating to the subsequent liberalisation of the telecommunications industry in Australia and concludes with a discussion of the historical legacies of government intervention on the private sector in the Australian telecommunications industry.

Professional Orientation: The Journey Continues

The journey of a modern hero, to the island of Elba [Public Domain]

 Dr Jean-Paul Gagnon is a University of Canberra philosopher in democracy studies. As a senior lecturer in the School of Politics, Economics, and Society he delivers subjects, with colleagues, on politics, public policy, philosophy and professional orientation. E: jean-paul.gagnon@canberra.edu.au. 

In this podcast, Dr Jean-Paul Gagnon and Dr Michael de Percy discuss their approach to teaching Professional Orientation, a first-year professional development unit in the Canberra School of Politics, Economics and Society, and its relationship to Professional Evidence, the capstone unit for professional development for third-year students.