When, why and how institutional change takes place: a systematic review and a future research agenda on the importance of policy entrepreneurship in macroeconomic bureaucracies

Figures & data

Table 1. Inclusion criteria and web-based search results.

General information
Service	Thomson Reuters – web of knowledge
Date	27 January 2016
Timespan	Starts: 1st January 1980	Ends: 31st December 2015
Language	English
Catalogue	Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI)
Filtering processes
Filter 1	Topic: reform	Results: 58,214 publications
Filter 2	Category: ‘Political Science’ and ‘Public Administration’
	Document type: Article	Results: 9915 articles
Filter 3	Topic: ‘Central Bank’	Results: 55 articles
	Topic: ‘Ministry of Finance’	Results: 16 articles
	Topic: ‘Treasury’	Results: 29 articles

Table 2. Organisations under research.

Organisations	Number of articles
Only central banks	21
Only ministries of finance	3
Only treasuries	2
Multiple organisations^*	3

Note:

^* There are two articles that compare reforms in a central bank with non-financial bureaucracies.

Table 3. Research designs used in the articles.

Research design	Number of articles
Single case	22
Large-N	5
Multiple cases	1
Theoretical overview	1

Table

#	Author(s)	Year	Journal	Empirical focus	Design and method	Theory	Key findings/arguments*
1	Kawasaki	1993	Journal of Public Policy	Ministry of Finance	Single case design (Japan in 1970s and 1980s)/Qualitative: Process tracing	Historical institutionalism	In Japan, the crisis itself did not suffice to trigger a policy change. Political ‘leadership’ plays an undeniable role in pushing for a policy change agenda. Vice-Minister of Finance Hatoyama’s leadership had a significant impact in overcoming the policy-making deadlock as he used ‘the norm of consensus-building to his advantage’
2	Chen	1995	Issues & Studies	Central Bank	Single case design (China – from 1978 reforms until early 1990s)/Qualitative: Process tracing	Atheoretical narrative	1978 reforms changed the Chinese economic system drastically and People’s Bank of China adopted functions of a western-style central bank (due to introduction of new financial commodities and policy instruments) in order to respond to the new systemic setting
3	Hawtrey	1997	Australian Journal of Public Administration	Central Bank	Single case design (Australia 1980s-1990s)/Qualitative: Historical analysis	Atheoretical narrative	Greater CBI in Australia was a product of the combined forces of financial deregulation, technological advance, monetary innovation and banking globalisation
4	Bernhard	1998	American Political Science Review	Central Bank	Large-N/Quantitative: Statistical model (OLS) – Sample 18 countries. Few-cases (Germany, Britain and Italy)/Qualitative: Process tracing	Rational choice institutionalism	Politicians will choose an independent bank (1) if government ministers, party legislators, and coalition partners have different monetary policy incentives and (2) if government ministers fear that party legislators and coalition partners will withdraw their support over a policy dispute
5	Boylan	1998	Comparative Politics	Central Bank	Single case design (Chile – 1989)/Qualitative: Process tracing	Rational choice institutionalism	Democratisation (leading to a possible change in the political office) creates a reform window for the incumbent to adopt stabilise the present institutional setting as he/she seeks to insulate to prevent policy changes in future
6	Boylan	2001	Comparative Political Studies	Central Bank	Single case design (Mexico – Early 1990s)/Qualitative: Process tracing	Historical institutionalism	Democratisation creates a reform window for the incumbent who seeks to insulate the system by institutionalising CBI
7	McNamara	2002	West European Politics	Central Bank	Theoretical overview	Organisational institutionalism	The spread of central bank independence should be seen as a fundamentally social and political phenomenon, rooted in the logic of organisational mimicry and global norms of neoliberal governance
8	Caporale	2003	Scottish Journal of Political Economy	Central Bank	Single case design (USA-1990s)/Qualitative: Process tracing	Atheoretical narrative	Ideas and intellectuals play a significant role in the institution-building process (foundation of a working central bank) in the post-crisis change processes
9	King	2005	West European Politics	Central Bank	Single Case design (Britain – late 1990s)/Qualitative: process tracing	Constructivist and rational choice institutionalism	Economic ideas are central to explaining the outcome. The Labour Chancellor was convinced by an epistemic community of monetary experts that central bank independence would achieve New Labour’s electoral goals
10	Marcussen	2005	Journal of European Public Policy	Central Bank	Large-N / Quantitative: Descriptive statistics	Organisational institutionalism	Adoption of a certain organisational structure or a rule (either the establishment of a central bank or its independence) becomes a necessity in case they become a condition for a state to be considered modern and developed and thereby a legitimate actor in world society
11	Polillo and Guillén	2005	American Journal of Sociology	Central Bank	Large-N design (Sample: 71 countries)/Quantitative: statistical analysis	Organisational institutionalism	Countries boost the independence of their central bank from the political power as their exposure to foreign trade, investment, and multilateral lending increase
12	Quaglia	2005a	Governance	Various organisations	Single case design (Italy)/Qualitative: process tracing and within case comparison	Historical and organisational institutionalism and public policy theory	Technical knowledge and a distinctive operational culture are particularly important for macroeconomic bureaucracies, making possible the buildup of a particular kind of ‘credibility,’ which in turn enables certain civil servants to extricate certain parts of macroeconomic policy-making from everyday domestic politics
13	Quaglia	2005b	West European Politics	Central Bank	Single case design (Italy)/Qualitative: longitudinal analysis of a single case with a comparative perspective	Historical and organisational institutionalism	Institutional change is the product of the international, national and organisational factors that reinforce CBI
14	Epstein	2006	Comparative Political Studies	Central Bank and Agricultural Policy	Single design (Poland – 2000s)/Qualitative: Within-case comparison (Central Bank Independence reform – Common Agricultural Policy reform)	Constructivist and organisational institutionalism	Three factors play an important role in the success of reform agendas introduced by international organisations: presence of a ‘technical consensus’, style of introducing the policy into the domestic level, and sectoral (dis)continuity in the sector to be reformed. Depending on these factors change process is marked by consensus or polarisation -and latter leads to a politically turbulent reform process
15	Johnson	2006	Review of International Political Economy	Central Bank	Few-cases design (Hungary and Czech Republic) / Qualitative: Cross Case Comparison	Rational choice institutionalism and constructivist institutionalism	EU accession-related economic convergence reform agendas are translated into domestic politics in two tracks: ‘norm internalization’ and ‘motivations based on external incentives’. In case the external incentives are assured, pro-reform domestic coalition is shaken as supporters motivated by external incentives don’t need to pursue the reform agenda anymore
16	Maman and Rosenhek	2007	Review of International Political Economy	Central Bank	Single case design (Israel – 1980s and 1990s)/Qualitative: process tracing	Historical institutionalism	Crisis creates the convenient environment for the reform. Reform ideas channeled during the interaction of the reformers with a cross-national network including the US government and international economists
17	Jung	2008	Pacific Focus	Ministry of Finance	Single case design (South Korea in 1990s and 2000s)/Qualitative: Process tracing	Historical institutionalism	President Kim Dae-Jung actively reinterpreted the challenges posed by the financial crisis and utilised them as a rationale for establishing a new agency, the Ministry of Planning and Budget (MPB), to strengthen the Presidential reform initiative in post-crisis Korea
18	Ang	2009	Public Administration and Development	Treasury	Single case design (China)/Qualitative: Process tracing	Atheoretical narrative	‘By centralizing treasury management, central reformers in China hoped to disburse fiscal transfers and earmarked grants in more reliable manner to lower-level governments, as well as grassroots social service providers like village schools’
19	Bakir	2009a	Governance	Central Bank	Single case design (Turkey – 2001)/Qualitative: Process tracing	Variants of institutional theory and multiple streams analysis	External shock (crisis) creates room for reform and policy entrepreneur – thanks to his/her privileged position in policy-making – steers the reform process
20	Maman and Rosenhek	2009	Socio-economic Review	Central Bank and Ministry of Finance	Single case design (Israel 1990s)/Qualitative: process tracing	Historical institutionalism combined with a relatively weak public policy approach	Political and ideational mechanisms that play a role in the institutional change (rise of the normative power of experts; will to emulate/adapt foreign models referring to efficiency and appropriateness) are deeply embedded in political processes of competition between local actors
21	Patel	2009	Policy Studies	Central Bank	Single case design (Britain: Post WWII nationalisation of CB and late-1990s CBI)/Qualitative: Cross-temporal comparison	Historical institutionalism and organisational institutionalism. A relatively weak public policy approach	Institutional chance occurs following the opening of ‘policy windows’ – such as the post-war reconstruction or governmental change
22	Rapaport et al.	2009	The Policy Studies Journal	Central Bank	Large-N design/Quantitative: statistical analysis	Organisational institutionalism. Public policy approach.	Opening a window of opportunity does not constitute a sufficient condition for policy reform, but it is a necessary condition: if the window of opportunity is closed policy does not change
23	Wallis	2010	Australian Journal of Public Administration	Treasury	Single case design (New Zealand)/Qualitative: Cross-temporal comparison	Atheoretical narrative	Officials seem to be free to adopt different leadership strategies but they are in need of responding to different structural and relational conditions
24	Keating	2011	Democratization	Central Bank	Single case design (Uganda in 2000s)/Qualitative: process tracing	Historical institutionalism	Institutional change in the political setting alters the power distribution among parties in disagreement over the policy reform. Democratisation process can go hand in hand with the institutional redesigning of the economy bureaucracy
25	Maman and Rosenhek	2012	Review of International Political Economy	Central Bank	Single case design (Israel – 1980s and 1990s)/Qualitative: process tracing	Historical institutionalism combined with a public policy approach.	Elucidation of their argument about the institutional entrepreneurship of Central Bank in Israel, from a central-bank centred analytical perspective. Central banks are presented as a ‘nexus’ channelling the normative pressure generating from global field into the domestic field where reform processes do actually occur
26	Sahin	2012	Cooperation and Conflict	Central Bank	Single case design (Turkey – 2000s)/Qualitative: Process tracing	Neo-Gramscian perspective	Adoption of central bank independence in Turkey can be seen as an outcome of interaction between pro-reform and counter-reform social forces competing to establish hegemony
27	Dellepiane-Avellaneda	2013	British Journal of Political Science	Central Bank	Single case design (Britain − 1997)/Qualitative: Process tracing	Analytic narrative, institutionalist perspective	Gordon Brown’s decision to grant operational independence to the Bank of England is a strategy to binding others rather than being acts of self-binding and enable New Labour to achieve economic and political goals
28	Cohen	2015	International Review of Administrative Sciences	Ministry of Finance	Single case design (Israel – 1985–2014)/Qualitative: Process tracing	Institutional analysis and Game theory analysis	Ministry of Finance is the key actor in organisational change and budget reform with its upper hand over Israeli politicians due to favourable informal institutions
29	Bodea and Hicks	2014	Journal of Politics	Central Bank	Large-N design/Quantitative: statistical analysis	Organisational institutionalism	Countries reform their central banks in order to attract international capital, but that reform is driven not just by competition among states but also by imitation of social peers from networks of intergovernmental organisations

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