The study of the politics of regulation has followed two distinct paths in recent years. “New institutionalism” research has focused primarily on the policy-making process, particularly the interplay between regulators (who implement policy) and their political principals (who attempt to control regulators’ activity). In contrast, “new governance” scholarship has focused on strategies other tha...

There is and has long been great debate over the means and motivations necessary for societal organisation, and most particularly in relation to the establishment and maintenance of governance systems in the context of the nation state. One of the key fault-lines in this discourse lies in the role played by the individual against that of the collective. At the centre of the argument lies a disa...

T concept of “critical junctures” is an essential building block of historical institutionalism. many causal arguments in the historical institutionalist literature postulate a dual model of institutional development characterized by relatively long periods of path-dependent institutional stability and reproduction that are punctuated occasionally by brief phases of institutional flux—referred ...

Based on an extensive sample of the literature, this critical review dissects the principal themes that have animated the Canadian political science profession on the topic of medicare. The review considers the coincidence of economic eras and how these are reflected in the methodological approaches to the study of medicare. As is to be expected, most of the scholarly activity coincides with th...

Despite the establishment of the National Health System in Greece in the early 1980s, the institutional framework remained largely unchanged due to opposition from interest groups and large set-up costs, thus allowing the powerful stakeholders to preserve their privileges. Not until almost two decades later was reform attempted in order to rationalise and modernise purchasing and delivery. The ...

This article provides a theory-driven account of the emergence, development, and ultimate disappearance of the normal school as a unique institutional form within higher education. To that end, this article engages new institutionalism in order to construct a composite narrative from the historiography of teacher education that counters the cursory treatment of normal schools in popular and wid...