Concern about institutional status quo bias runs through American founding debates

Evidence

Similar concerns about status quo bias can also be found in the Federalist and Anti-­Federalist debates—by authors like Madison and Hamilton—which often revolved around the balance of power and stability in representative institutions. Our argument also aligns with work in historical institutionalism on path dependency suggesting that existing arrangements prevail unless large disruptions take place (Pierson 2000; Skocpol 1992; Thelen 1999). — Mikael Persson and Anders Sundell, Blocking the Poor, 34

Categorization

• XREF: Links the Federalist/Anti-Federalist balance-of-power debate to modern path-dependency scholarship on institutional persistence.
• QUESTION: Which specific Federalist papers treat stability as a design feature versus a defect worth chasing down?