Institutional Path Dependence: A Resistance to Controversies

Besides its classical focus on stability, path-dependence logic also has the potential to explain change. Institutional path dependence defined in terms of a resistance to controversies incorporates both stability and change. Sztompka’s (1991) structuration-like theory of social becoming is used to argue that four levels of social reality are relevant in detecting where inertia and potential dynamics lie. It is argued that the ability to trigger, steer, settle or suppress controversies is an organizational capability (cf. Amit and Schoemaker, 1993, p. 35). The case of the Dutch small-fields policy is used to illustrate the example of two failed, yet significant, attempts to trigger a controversy. Both attempts were backed up by the logic that abandoning the current policy is both in the long and short run economically advantageous compared to maintaining the status quo. In other words, this case requires a path-dependence rationale that goes beyond the classical explanations for policy inertia. Applying the notion of the controversy points the finger at where and why lock-ins secure stability. In this case, it is particularly the lock-ins at the cognitive level of social structure that have suppressed the potential ability to trigger controversies which are aimed at altering the status quo.