Positive feedback and path dependence -- Timing and sequence -- Long-term processes -- The limits of institutional design -- Institutional development -- Temporal context in social science inquiry
Summary
This groundbreaking book represents the most systematic examination to date of the often-invoked but rarely examined declaration that ""history matters."" Most contemporary social scientists unconsciously take a ""snapshot"" view of the social world. Yet the meaning of social events or processes is frequently distorted when they are ripped from their temporal context. Paul Pierson argues that placing politics in time--constructing ""moving pictures"" rather than snapshots--can vastly enrich our understanding of complex social dynamics, and greatly improve the theories and methods that we us
Bibliography
Includes bibliographical references (pages 179-194) and index
