Corte Interamericana de Derechos Humanos

While a focus on the institutions of the state never completely disappeared from political science, since the 1980s there has been resurgence in academic research that treats institutions as an independent variable. This “new institutionalism” came as a result of frustration with the limitations of the previous orthodoxy and the empirical evidence of distinctive and divergent nation state development paths despite similar international

pressures and socio-economic conditions. This led researchers to consider whether domestic institutions had a structuring effect on outcomes and across a number of disciplines three variants of a new institutionalist approach developed including: rational choice, sociological and historical institutionalism (HI).

HI analysis of public policy has numerous features that help to understand its methodological and theoretical foundations. Firstly, it can help explain how institutions influence stability, incremental change and rapid change in public policy over time. Secondly, it views existing public policy as an important institution. Rather than the outcome of battles between

interests, ideas, politics and economics, policy legacies are a powerful influence on policy development. Thirdly, it focuses on the important role of history and treats long time horizons and an eye to timing as vitally important. Fourthly, it can demonstrate why ideas and interests are not exogenous forces impacting on the course of public policy but complex variables that are heavily structured by institutions. Fifthly, historical institutionalists have brought concepts from economics such as path dependence to the study of public policy with success. Finally, it demonstrates that public policies are often inefficient and can have unintended consequences. While critics have made arguments about the weaknesses of the HI approach, the existing literature has developed powerful arguments that institutions (including policy legacies) are key drivers of public policy. HI has strong possibilities as an approach to the study of alcohol control policy in Australia and New Zealand. HI researchers have studied social, regulatory and economic policy and provided arguments about the

shaping impact of institutions on national policy development. However, there have not been any alcohol control policy case studies by historical institutionalists.

HI research in recent years has highlighted a number of key findings and claims. They have included that:

 The key institutions of interest are: state structure, division of powers, policy legacies and the resulting levels of state capacity;

 Institutions set the rules of the game and influence politics and markets;

 Institutions shape the goals, structures and resources of actors and interests – who often seek to protect the benefits they gain from the system;

 Institutions are a prism for ideas and mediate international trends, but also that new policy paradigms can disrupt an established institutional order;

 Critical junctures provide an explanation for policy change that includes long periods of stability, interrupted by brief periods of significant change;

 An alternative explanation is incrementalism that involves regular but minor refinements that collectively deliver greater change than attempts at major reform;

 Policy stability is common because actors adapt and embed themselves around existing policies – path dependence shows how preceding steps in a direction induce further movements in the same direction;

 Institutional and policy efficiency is not assumed and there may be unintended consequences because policies last well beyond the horizons of their creators; and

 Sequence and timing are important because decisions have impacts in the future.

The two cases of the dependent variable to be described and analysed will be alcohol policies in Australia and New Zealand from 1900 to 2010, and each case will be described and

explained through procedures of historical inquiry (Chapter Three will outline the

interventions by governments that are considered to form alcohol control policy). A number of independent variables will also be described and analysed, including: political institutions, policy legacies, actors, ideas and socio-economic conditions. The interaction of multiple variables has been shown to impact on public policy, and this requires careful analysis as a simple causal relationship between a single independent variable and the dependent variable is unlikely.

Consistent with other HI studies, this research will seek to answer significant questions about the comparative course of alcohol control policies in Australia and New Zealand. While being conducted in a similar manner to other research, the question in this case will reflect the unique nature of the topic as no other scholar has undertaken an HI comparison of alcohol control policies in Australia and New Zealand with a specific focus on whether policy paths have converged or diverged, and what has shaped these paths. The research question informs the search for data, its presentation and analysis. The research will use secondary sources of

data because the facts are already largely established and the aim is to re-analyse those facts through a new approach to the data. Where there are gaps in the narrative then primary documents will be sourced. Because of the comparative and historical approach to be used, each case narrative will be presented chronologically. Following this, a cross case analysis will test cause and effect relationships between variables.

Identifying stability or change in the dependent variable and then explaining the possible causes will be a primary focus. Tracking all variables over time will build the narrative and provide the best opportunity to identify stability, change, and causal mechanisms. Cause identification is difficult, especially with so many variables. But the aim will be to identify causal relationships between variables and then the specific mechanisms that have driven the policy path in each case. While HI research is commonly linked with policy stability through path dependence, there are also explanations for policy change. These range from rapid and major change through critical junctures to incremental change through institutional

conversion and layering, and other explanations such as “punctuated evolution”. There are likely to be many variables that combine and interact in specific historical contexts to generate the outcome. Comparing the cases over time gives the best opportunity to outline important factors that drive the policy path; whether it is political institutions, policy legacies, ideas or actors (or the interaction of multiple variables). Comparing the alcohol control policy paths of both countries over time will allow the identification of whether there has been policy convergence or divergence over time, and isolate the potential causes of this outcome.

This research will make an academic contribution by filling a gap in the existing literature and will have application in both the academic and policy making community. It matters because alcohol is a significant regulated product that is a major preventable cause of death and injury around the world. Developing an understanding of the factors that have shaped the path of alcohol control policies can also assist in the development of broader understandings about how public policies are shaped and whether we can expect to see policy convergence or divergence going forward. Chapter Three will introduce the issue of alcohol and how

governments have become involved in alcohol control policies. It will outline how the range of alcohol policy measures can impact on alcohol related harm. Chapter Three will also explore the range of academic literature on alcohol and alcohol control policies, and confirm that the research will add to the stock of knowledge in areas of alcohol regulation, HI, and

Chapter 3 Alcohol policy context