Punctuated Incrementalism: How American Disability Rights Policymaking Sheds Light on Institutional Continuity and Change

• In Event: 376 - Section on Rationality and Society Paper Session. Rationality and Social Structure

Abstract

Few cases of institutional transformation fit the ideal typical scenarios proposed by path dependence and punctuated equilibrium. Rather, change is a result of the interaction between endogenous, incremental processes and punctuated bursts brought on by exogenous shocks. In this paper, I propose that what best explains policy change is punctuated incrementalism, a quasi-homeostatic theory that ties the incremental work of political entrepreneurs inside policy networks to punctuated bursts that facilitate the expansion of their policy ideas. Using disability policy as an example, I argue that the rise of disability rights was the result of many instances of incremental adjustments peppered with few instances of more significant political deviations – in other words, a leptokurtic distribution of change. Ironically though, while leptokurtic distributions are often used as evidence for punctuated equilibrium, they are also evidence for incrementalism. For decades, disability policymakers promoted incremental policy innovations within a closed policy network dominated by rehabilitation. When exogenous shocks in the 1960s reconfigured this strategic action field, socially skilled political entrepreneurs found it easier to creatively pursue a rights-based policy agenda even in light of rehabilitation’s historical legacy. Their efforts redefined the disability community as clients and/or patients deserving of health and social services to citizens entitled to civil rights.

Author

• David Nicholas Pettinicchio, University of Toronto