Analyzing path-dependent change

So far, the methods outlined provide a basis for describing the institutionalization practices and the ensuing changes in the institutional configuration of a regional international society. In order to tap on the full explanatory potential – explanatory, it should be repeated, not in a narrow causal sense – the analysis needs to be complemented by methods that uncover the processes of stabilization and destabilization influencing the dynamics on the two institutional layers. This part essentially relies on three elements: analyzing the role of feedback effects, identifying sources for contestation and examining the interplay of the two institutional layers.

With regard to the first step, I have elaborated in the theoretical part how various feedback effects may impinge on actorsʼ ability to engage in practices of institutional contention. As outlined in the theoretical section, these are power effects, reification, vested interests and institutional linkages. As all of them can be at work simultaneously,

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the analysis takes up each effect, analyzing how strongly they worked in favour of the continued institutionalization of the existing institutions and impeded oppositional discourses from posing serious challenges to the institutional configuration.

Power effects rely on the phenomenon that institutions have an impact on actorsʼ abilities to participate in the process of their reproduction because they identify certain actors as legitimate and authoritative while others are ascribed a subordinate position or denied actorness altogether. In international societies, the inclusiveness of these processes depend on the degree of its ‘stratification’ (Keene 2014), meaning the differentiation of power positions within an international society, indicates which actors assume privileged or subordinate discursive positions.³⁸ If a primary institution ascribes legitimate authority for some actors over others, I will take this to indicate a privileged power position. Secondary institutions constitute actors in the sense that they ascribe more differentiated roles. To determine their stratifying effects, it is helpful to identify what kinds of positional power they entail. Such power is indicated by privileged access to institutionalization practices, for example through the granting of veto power in the decision-making procedures of a regional organization. The more restricted the access to the main institutionalization processes of an international society, the stronger I will assume power effects to be.

Reification means that the basic structural conditions of international society generated by the international institutions are taken for granted. This effect is of course hard to pin down, as it by definition concerns latent aspects that are not manifest in discourse. One way of dealing with this problem is to look at the degree to which discursive articulations of an institution are connected to explicit legitimizing arguments. For example, the virtual absence of a discourse legitimizing the restriction of national self-determination, and the hierarchy constituted by this interpretation, during the colonial era attests the naturalized status of these ideas.

Vested interests are present when the relevant actors have preference structures that are conducive to the reproduction of existing institutions. The empirical observation

38 Unlike Keene, who uses a multi-dimensional framework to analyze the relative importance of different logics of stratification (material, social and legal), I adopt the more simplified view that generally, the power positions constituted by different international institutions, or in different power dimensions, will be more or less aligned. The view is thus rather one of an international society stratified along a single hierarchy. While Keene focuses on interstate relations, the concept can easily accommodate supranational and ‘world society’ actors.

93 of preferences is a longstanding problem of neo-liberal institutionalist literature, which has tried to circumvent the lack of means of direct observation by assuming ‘revealed preferences’, meaning that preferences can be observed from behaviour. I will take a slightly different, though similarly parsimonious, approach here, which infers preferences, on the one hand, from a simple assessment of the general distribution of benefits effectuated by the institution in question, and on the other, from discursive statements of actors. I thus ask two questions: first, who benefits from the allocation of resources, broadly understood to include pecuniary as well as security rents and social status? And second, what preferences do the actors express factually? If those benefiting the most are also the ones with privileged access to the reproducing institutionalization practices, then the feedback effects should be assumed to be strong.

Institutional linkages are strong when the institutional configuration displays a high degree of consistency. I have argued that references to endogenous tensions provide oppositional actors with arguments justifying their discursive practice. If, however, the configuration is largely consistent, the strong institutional linkages will make criticism harder. In the empirical chapters, I therefore map out the relevant primary and secondary institutions that defined the institutional context at the point in time when calls for change first gained momentum in the discourse, and look for potential tensions in the configuration. This requires comparing the constitutive logic of different institutions, both within and between the two layers. Are all the institutions consistent with regard to the actors and the practice they identify as legitimate? Or are there conflicting expectations in the sense that a specific action can be judged as legitimate or illegitimate, depending on which institutionsʼ standard is applied? The less consistency I find, the weaker I assume institutional linkages are.

The impact of these effects can be influenced by institutionalization practices.

Drawing on specific discursive sources, subordinate actors can increase their authority, problematize apparently natural conditions, change preference structures and weaken institutional linkages. This is one of the core assumptions of my constitutive explanation of institutional change. As indicated in the theoretical section, an analysis of the social processes that make institutional change possible must consider two sources: exogenous shocks and endogenous dynamics. The two sources are not mutually exclusive, as it may well be that the discursive representation of a shock exacerbates dynamics that are internal to the institutional configuration itself. For example, the collapse of the colonial

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empires of the UK and France beginning with the Second World War coincided with, and accelerated, an incremental discursive shift in the relation between, on the one hand, the institution of national self-determination and, on the other, the interpretation of sovereignty as a gradual concept applying first and foremost to the nation-states of the Western core of international society. Accordingly, the objective of the analysis is to determine the relative importance of the two sources in the particular instance of change in question, rather than making an either-or distinction.

The analysis of these sources pays particular attention to oppositional voices at the onset of change. It is not so much the substance of the competing visions of international order that are central here but rather the justifications that are given for the call for change by those actors. On what grounds do some actors call the existing institutional configuration into question? If the texts mainly refer to a contingent and discrete event to delegitimize an institution and make change appear desirable, then we can assume such pressures to be exogenous, or shock-induced. Such arguments can take the form of describing the expectations of an existing institution as outdated or dysfunctional in light of certain events, or promoting new institutional expectations as timely or better equipped to fulfil certain functions. These events must not necessarily be punctual but can also take the form of longer-term processes, such as globalization.

The relevant feature of a shock is not its ‘suddenness’ but the fact that it initially occurs outside of the institutional logic of constitution and institutionalization.

If an external reference is missing and oppositional discourses refer to the institutional configuration as such, then endogenous dynamics should be assumed to be present. This can take the form of explicit references to contradictory expectations in order to delegitimize an institution. For example, socialist anti-colonial actors pointed to the inherent contradiction between the institution of national-self determination and the idea that the sovereignty of peripheral states could be compromised. Obviously, the opportunity to use this kind of discursive resource is influenced by the degree of consistency in the institutional configuration, which is analyzed in the previous step.

Alternatively, the need for a new institution can be derived from an existing institution.

For example, the ECJ began ascribing constitutional character to Community law on the grounds that the institution of pooled sovereignty constituted a relation between the individual, the nation-state and the supranational authorities which could not be accounted for under the premises of classical international law.

95 I have pointed out in Section 3.4.3 that shocks and endogenous dynamics are not transcendental events but only become relevant and actionable through certain discursive interpretations. Therefore, it is important to know not only the source of change as such but also the kind of interpretation that made the source discursively relevant and mobilized opposition – the process, in other words, that transformed it from a mere event into a motivation for acting towards institutional change. The discourse analysis follows this line of thinking by uncovering the main line of argument behind the discursive interventions that contest established institutions: why is the status quo considered to be in need of overhaul? Change can be constructed as a necessary and inevitable response to coercion, as an expedient choice to maximize utility or as a morally desirable act. Only if the argument resonates with the frames of thought of a large part of the audience, it will interrupt the feedback effects by changing power relations, deconstructing taken-for-granted perceptions, modifying interests and preferences, or putting institutional linkages into question have a chance of inducing change.

Important aspects in this respect are points in time when a particular primary or secondary institution has become institutionalized. The theoretical implication is that in such instances, change in the institutions on one level has created a new constitutive context for institutionalization on the other. This context consists of discursive positions and meaning structures which either stabilize the institutional configuration by

‘freezing’ tensions, or further destabilize it by affecting the feedback effects and thereby enabling certain actors to challenge the institutions on the other level (institutionalization). The former case is evidenced by instances where an institutional discourse on one of the two levels has become dominant, but this is not followed by institutional change on the other level. The latter case is marked by a discourse in which references to certain general expectations have become dominant and now calls for the creation or adaption of specific rules that apply to a certain regional organization in the same field become more pronounced, frequent and formalized – or vice versa, the formalization of certain secondary institutions in a regional organization is followed by an increase in interventions promoting expectations that apply more generally beyond the organization as such. In both cases, the analysis examines how change on one level affected the feedback effects and what results this had for institutionalization practices on the other:

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 Did it create new power positions for the involved actors or leave them intact?

The positional power of an actor or a group of actors, in this context, can be conceived to increase when influential texts ascribe new authority to them. This authority can come in different forms. It might be by a diffuse acknowledgement of equality or inequality between groups of actors, by concrete statements of specific rights or by defining rules of participation in the discourse, such as more or less restrictive decision-making procedures.

 Did it create meaning structures that called into question taken-for-granted realities, or reinforce their reification? Hard evidence for de-naturalization is difficult to find, but the increasing need to legitimize previously taken-for-granted assumptions may provide some indication. Coming back to the example given above, after the Second World War, colonial practices were increasingly dependent on being legitimized through the notion of development, which indicates an increasing problematization of the structural conditions of the international society in this period.

 Did it alter preference structures or leave them intact? Based on the considerations outlined above, I examine whether the institutional change resulted in an altered distribution of resources. Such an altered distribution may mean that a certain practice is now rewarded or sanctioned differently. For example, the rise of a nationalist discourse in the Southeast Asian dependencies caused local elites to reorient their loyalties from collaborating with the foreign rulers towards supporting the independence movements, as local audiences were increasingly central for the acquisition of status and authority.

 Did it freeze institutional dynamics by strengthening institutional linkages or catalyze further change by weakening them? Freezing can be assumed when the institutionalization contains implicit or explicit references to seemingly contradicting institutions on the respective other level. For example, the Bangkok Declaration of ASEAN froze the tension between the primary institutions of national self-determination and non-alignment in security and defence policies through ambiguous language in its provisions on foreign bases and accession criteria. Evidence for a catalyzing effect of institutionalization can be found when the call for new institutions on one level is explicitly justified by

97 reference to a previously established institution on the other level, but also when they are less explicitly connected – for example, when a primary institution is invoked in the preamble of a resolution calling for secondary institutional change.