Bringing ideational power into the paradigm approach: Critical perspectives on policy paradigms in theory and practice

The work of Peter A. Hall (1993) on the role of policy paradigms in public policy is remarkable. Unrivalled by any other publication in ideational scholarship in terms of citations and impact, it — together with the work of scholars like Sabatier and Jenkins-Smith (1993), Kingdon (2003), Baumgartner and Jones (2009), and Stone (1988) — drew on the social learning-tradition (Heclo, 1974) to help bring ideas on the agenda of mainstream political science and policy studies (Béland & Cox, 2013; Blyth, 2013; Daigneault, 2014). With the subsequent important work of what may be termed ‘second generation ideational scholarship’ (e.g. Béland, 2007; Berman, 1998; Blyth, 2002; Campbell, 1997; Campbell & Pedersen, 2001; Cox, 2001; Lieberman, 2002; Schmidt, 2002), ideational frameworks for analyzing policymaking grew into a more or less coherent approach in its own right, what Schmidt (2008) later dubbed ‘discursive institutionalism.’ Hall’s (1993) theory of policy paradigms was essential for the coming of age of the ideational approach because while it placed institutions and interests centrally in its explanatory framework, ideas were the primary factor in accounting for processes of stability and change.