Breaking promises and raising taxes
Rhetorical Path Dependence and Policy Dysfunction in Time
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 6234867 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Wesley Widmaier (0000-0003-2261-4479, Griffith University, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2016 |
| Volume | 51 |
| Issue | 4 |
| Pages | 727-741 |
| Publication date | 2016-10-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Australian Journal of Political Science (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1036-1146 • E-ISSN: 1363-030X |
| Publisher | Informa UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/10361146.2016.1238871 |
| OpenAlex | W2558700588 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 1 |
| References cited | 23 |
Where historical institutionalists have stressed the path-dependent efficiencies that stabilise policy orders, their rationalist assumptions have increasingly obscured the scope for instability. To redress such oversights, I integrate historical institutionalist insights regarding incremental change with discursive institutionalist analyses of interpretive tensions in a way that accords with Daniel Kahneman’s analyses of shifting ‘fast’/principled and ‘slow’/cognitive biases. The resulting framework posits that initial principled constructions of policy ideas are undermined where their subsequent ‘intellectual conversion’ limits flexibility and legitimacy. Empirically, I contrast the practices of George HW Bush and John Howard, as each broke anti-tax promises. Bush’s intellectual justifications undermined his credibility, but Howard’s principled justifications enabled his success. This analysis has implications for theories of institutional agency and dysfunction
Agency (philosophy · Credibility · Economics · Flexibility (engineering · Historical institutionalism · Law and economics · Legitimacy · Neoclassical economics · Path dependence · Political science · Politics · Positive economics · Raising (metalworking · Redress · Rhetoric · Rhetorical question · Social science · Sociology · Electoral Systems and Political Participation · Law · Political and Economic history of UK and US · Social Policy and Reform Studies
Rationalism v. Constructivism
Risk, Ambiguity, and the Savage Axioms
System and process in international politics
Politics in Time
The Limits of Transparency
Ideas and Foreign Policy
Explaining Institutional Change
Great Transformations
The Presidency of George Bush
International Norm Dynamics and Political Change
Do We Really Need a New ‘Constructivist Institutionalism’ to Explain Institutional Change
The logic of habit in International Relations
Taking ideas and discourse seriously
The Study of Critical Junctures
Discursive Institutionalism
Knowing the Unknown Unknowns
The Politics, Power, and Pathologies of International Organizations
Increasing Returns, Path Dependence, and the Study of Politics
| Unique citing works | 1 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,2 |
| Citation span | 2021 - 2021 (1) |
| Citation velocity | historical |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 1 |