| Specific Detail Info |
Policy universes are usually characterized by stability, even when stability
represents a suboptimal state. Institutions and processes channel and cajole agents
along a policy path, restricting the available solution set. Herein, structure is usually
to the fore. But what of agency? Do no actors choose? In fact, they do, even in policy
environments of incrementalism, even amid hostility. But where agency makes for
momentous change is during the punctuations of long policy equilibriums, perfect
storms enabling nonincremental movement onto a new policy trajectory, departing
from the old path. On both levels, the interaction effects of both structure and agency
make a difference — incrementally
in the first case, nonincrementally in the second.
It’s not just one damn thing after another, nor does just anything go. |
