Studying reform endurance in parliamentary systems: a comparative approach

In Chapter 3, I introduce and employ an analytical approach called Qualitative Comparative Analysis to uncover the essence and variation of endurance across the cases of reform. The goal here is to detect patterns and commonalities across the suite of reform cases, as well as over time. This chapter reveals that there are different ways that reforms can endure and different ways they can fail to endure. Of the reforms that I examine, the extent to which they proved viable varied at different points in time. Some reforms initially appeared to gain traction in implementation, only to dwindle and lose their focus or strength over time. Other reforms evolved more incrementally and became more strongly institutionalised with the passage of time. Durable reforms preserve and reinforce their high-level ambitions and narratives amid the inevitable vagaries of politics. In practice, this could mean the removal, addition, or adjustment of policy instruments, their recalibration, or the further concretisation of programme-level objectives. To understand endurance, it is important to consider the seemingly innocuous but potentially transformative adjustments of a reform’s architecture that occur over time. To further substantiate these cross-case claims, and further understand and contextualise how endurance pathways work in practice, I conduct two intensive case studies.