Stability and change: the last dualism?

Abstract

Stability and change are key issues for policy analysts, but the literature on the relationship between the two is limited in both senses of the term. This article examines that literature, placing in it firmly against discussions about how to conceptualize time and arguing that the relationship between stability and change is best viewed as a duality, not a dualism. As such, the article strongly critiques the concept of punctuated evolution and defends a historical institutionalist position, against a constructivist institutionalist one.