Discourses exercise constitutive power that constrains political decisions and shapes policy paths.

Evidence

This chapter introduces discourse analysis as a theoretical concept and an empirical methodology that may enable the endogenization of path-creating and path-breaking changes in conventional models of political path dependency. Economic criteria, such as rents created by a policy, do not always provide a comprehensive explanation of path-dependent political decisions. Discourse theory suggests that specific interpretative schemata and narratives, such as storylines in the mass media, heavily influence political discourse. Discourses themselves can actually exercise a constitutive power that constrains decision-making processes and, thus, influence the ensuing policy-creation path. Hence, discourses must be taken into account when political path dependency, path-breaking and path creation are analyzed. — Georg Schreyögg and Jörg Sydow, The Hidden Dynamics of Path Dependence, 976

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to institutional-economics work on self-reinforcing mechanisms (Arthur, Pierson) — here the lock-in carrier is narrative rather than increasing returns. — connects to: Institutional dialogue can function as a tool to co-opt and defuse social movements. — Vincent Bevins, If We Burn: The Mass Protest Decade and…, 360; Politicians deliberately shape who votes by steering policy to select their own electorate. — Daryl Levinson and Benjamin I. Sachs, Political Entrenchment and Public Law, 281
• SEED: Angle: ‘Policy locks are made of stories, not just money’ — how dominant storylines in media lock in inefficient policy.
• DEEPTHINKING: If discourse itself constitutes the lock-in mechanism, then path dependence is an interpretive, not merely transactional, phenomenon — a reframing that takes days to absorb.