Sunday, February 27, 2005

I ususually avoid personal posts, but lately all my dreams are about cars, elevators, and airports. What could it mean?

Aside from that, I've been reading a really good book by Paul Pierson called Politics in Time. It includes a critique of ahistorical political science and a really interesting discussion of how time or sequencing can be important for political outcomes. In particular, it has a very nice explanation of positive returns and how small events can push history down a particular path, and later similar events (even on a larger scale) can have little effect. In many ways, some of the arguments are very similar to those in his work on welfare and that of Theda Skocpol. Institutions matter because they shape future possibilities.

I had been thinking about ways to relate my arguments about the development of welfare institutions in Mexico to the functional needs of the dominant actors at the time of the creation of the institutions...like much of the political economy literature, but now I'm second guessing that strategy.

posted by Michelle @ 11:13 AM,

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