Dr. sc. Hrvoje Mataković

BASIC CHARACTERISTICS OF HISTORICAL INSTITUTIONALISM

Historical institutionalism is one of the most influential versions of the new institutionalism, movement in the social sciences, which arise at the end of the 1980s. New institutionalism newly discovered institutions and argues that institutions matter for political and social life in general, and historical institutionalism focuses on the historical dynamics of political processes and institutional development, studying how institutions are formed and how they are embedded in concrete temporal processes. Some of the basic settings of historical institutionalism are path dependence, critical junctures and ideas, i.e. the role of ideas in policymaking.

Keywords: historical institutionalism, path dependence, critical junctures, ideas, public policy.