Discursive Institutionalism and Institutional Change

The power of think tanks is contingent upon their ability to move ideas through political space and have these ideas accepted and acted upon by political actors. This necessitates an in-depth understanding of the dynamics undergirding ideational impact on the policy process. Towards this end, this chapter traces the development of literature focusing on ideas and policy change by starting with the debates surrounding the ‘new institutionalisms’ of rational choice institutionalism (RI), historical institutionalism (HI) and social institutionalism (SI). It then turns towards elements of constructivism to explain and evaluate think tank power in specific historical and political contexts. These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.