What is Historical
Institutionalism?: How might it
help us make sense of criminal
justice legislation in England &
Wales?
Stephen Farrall, Sheffield University
Outline
• Introduce historical institutionalism; give a flavour of
it’s key concepts and some of it’s weaknesses.
• Briefly outline our current ESRC grant (on the legacy of
Thatcherite social and economic policies for crime)
Award no. ES/K006398/1.
• Explore these issues via an examination of key
elements of 1982-1998 criminal justice legislation.
• Conclude that key institutions, ideas and social actors
all helped to shape the pathway with regards to
imprisonment in England and Wales.
• Reflect on what this tells us about this approach.
What is HI?
• Institutions are: “… the formal rules, compliance procedures,
and standard operating practices that structure the
relationship between individuals in various units of the policy
and economy” (Hall, 1986: 19). [social norms, states, govts]
• HI is concerned with illuminating how institutions and
institutional settings mediate the ways in which processes
unfold over time (Thelen and Steinmo, 1992: 2)
• “… neither a particular theory nor a specific method. It is best
understood as an approach to studying politics. This approach
is distinguished from other social science approaches by its
attention to real world empirical questions, its historical
orientation and its attention to the ways in which institutions
structure and shape political behaviour and outcomes.”.
Steinmo, 2008.
What is HI?
• Institutionalists are interested in how institutions are
constructed, maintained and adapted over time.
• Institutions do not simply channel policies; they help to define
policy concerns, create the objects of any policy and shape
the nature of the interests in policies which actors may have.
• Politics does not simply create policies; policies also create
politics.
• Longitudinal in focus.
HI is an attempt to develop understanding of how political and
policy processes and relationships play out over time coupled
with an appreciation that prior events, procedures and processes
will have consequences for subsequent events.
What are the main
concepts within HI?
• Path Dependencies: what happened at an earlier point will
affect what can happen later. Reversal costs are high and
institutional arrangements hard to completely ‘undo’. Policy
concerns and interests become constructed within parameters.
• Positive feedback loops: once a set of institutions is in place,
actors, organisations and other institutions adapt their
activities in ways which reflect and reinforce the path.
• Timings and event sequences: both the timing and ordering of
events can shape outcomes.
• The speed of causal processes and outcomes: there are both
fast- and slow-moving causal processes and outcomes
(cumulative, threshold and chain causal processes).
Last two radically alter the time-frames of our explanations.
What are the main
concepts within HI?
• Critical junctures: those rare and relatively short-lived periods
when institutional arrangements are placed on a particular
path. During these periods actors may be able to produce
significant change.
• Punctuated equilibrium: long-run stability in policy-making is
subject to occasional seismic shifts when existing institutions
and issue definitions break down and pressure for change
accumulates to the point where is cannot be ignored.
• I think this last point resonates with Mark Olssen’s comments
on bifurcation and changes in equilibrium yesterday.
… and what are the
problems with it?
• ideas also matter too (not just institutions), so does HI
underplay the importance of actors, perhaps?:
• too much focus on reproduction of institutions? (similar to
critiques of theories of structuration);
• focus on political elites (little about the populous);
• important to remember that not all institutions will be
changed, adapted or maintained and that the speeds of
change may be variable too.
• Ignores new events and processes which may dramatically
alter paths – Mark Olssen’s talk yesterday.
Using these ideas in our
research: Criminal Justice
Acts 1982-1998
What might a ‘Thatcherised’
CJS have looked like?
Social workers ‘‘created a fog of
excuses in which the muggers and
burglars operate’’, Riddell, 1989:171).
[anti-penal welfarism?]
“Safety on the streets” (Riddell, 1985:
193). “never … economise on law and
order” (Savage, 1990: 91). [crime
control models of policing?]
Pro-capital punishment. [harsher
penalties?]
But what did we actually get?
(Or: The Absence of ‘Thatcherite’ Action on Criminal Justice)
• 1982-1991: Generally speaking, liberal policies,
but with the rhetoric of ‘toughening’ sentences
(in order to reduce the use of imprisonment).
• 1993 and since: few (if any) liberal criminal
justice policies, a lot more punitive sentences.
BUT, and crucially these build on the rhetoric of
toughness established earlier.
So ‘getting tough’ after Thatcher’s time in office.
Shifting Social Attitudes (BSAS)
Changes to the legislative agenda: Proportion of
attention to law and crime in Queen’s Speech
(from policyagendas.org)
Making Sense of this ...
• The desire to reduce imprisonment was a longstanding Home Office aspiration.
• But following the death of the rehabilitative ideal
and the emergence of New Right rhetoric, the
route to reducing imprisonment was to toughen
non-custodial sentences.
• This toughening was initially targeted on a few
types of offences/offenders.
Making Sense of this ...
• Back in the ‘real world’, crime rates and
anxiety about crime were rising (a new
element of discourse following the expansion
of surveys - BCS in 1982, BSAS in 1983).
• Popular attitudes towards crime were shifting
too, and this encouraged changes in agendas.
• Michael Howard’s arrival at the Home Office
was a critical appointment; recognised anxiety
rejected HO doctrine and adopted toughness
as a policy stance.
Making Sense of this ...
• Institutional aims + punctuated equilibrium
(Home Office).
• The role of ideas (rehabilitation, popular
concerns) and of new knowledge.
• The role of specific agents who ‘shape paths’
(Michael Howard).
• Outcomes at national level (see next slide).
Outcomes for real people
Prison Popn 1970-2013
1970
1980
1990
year
2000
1970: 39028
Average Prison Popn (Key years):
1979: 42220
1993: 44552
1994: 48621
2010
2013: 84249
What have we learnt?
• HI does feel slightly too ‘sticky’; social actors do have roles to
play/power; but possibly only certain ones and at certain
moments. Agency is real (for some).
• That said, Labour have followed (and extended) Howard’s
lead, so path dependencies can be said to exist.
• Ideas and new forms of knowledge are key during moments of
change; at points of change it might be possible for some
social actors to create quite radical changes if their ideas strike
the right chords.
• The 1970s was one such moment for UK society, the 1990s
another for our criminal justice system. Slow-mo’ processes.
Outline of future work
ESRC grant with Colin Hay, Emily Gray and Will Jennings.
• Data sets to be made available
• Training workshop (with UK Data Service May 2015)
• Documentary Film (Doc Fest 2015)
• http://www.sheffield.ac.uk/law/research/projects/crimetrajectories
• Email newsletter (s.farrall@sheffield.ac.uk)
• Twittering: @Thatcher’s Legacy