The Relevance of an Incremental Approach to Ideational Change

A Rejoinder to Liam Stanley

Datos Bibliográficos

ID6344728
AutoresMartin B Carstensen (0000-0002-0432-1632, Copenhagen Business School, autor de correspondencia)
Año2012
Volumen60
Número3
Páginas720-728
Fecha de publicación2012-10-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaPolitical Studies (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0032-3217 • E-ISSN: 1467-9248
EditorialSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1111/j.1467-9248.2012.00984.x
OpenAlexW1939588239
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas1
Referencias citadas18

This rejoinder takes issue with two criticisms of my Political Studies article on incremental ideational change presented in a recent reply by Liam Stanley. It argues that by presenting my critique of historical and discursive institutionalism as focused on the lack of ‘realism’ in their standard conceptualisation of ideas, Stanley creates a straw man. Instead, my criticism aims at the analytical outcomes of the mainstream understanding of ideas as generally coherent and stable, an approach to ontological criticism that Stanley explicitly approves of. Second, using examples from recent analyses of the financial crisis, I try to show the relevance of an ontology conducive to theories that capture and explain incremental ideational change. I also defend an eclectic approach to theory building that is focused less on policing the boundaries of different approaches and more on building consistent theoretical approaches from multiple social scientific traditions

Critical realism (philosophy of perception · Criticism · Economics · Epistemology · Institutionalism · Mainstream · Ontology · Political science · Politics · Positive economics · Realism · Relevance (law · Sociology · Housing, Finance, and Neoliberalism · Law · Philosophy · Political and Economic history of UK and US · Social Policy and Reform Studies