ABSTRACT
The final chapter discusses key contributions derived from the empirical analysis in this book before revisiting the different cases discussed in earlier chapters. It explores how this volume offers a significant theoretical contribution to the literature on Historical Institutionalism in three distinct areas. First, it develops a succinct approach to operationalising key concepts, specifically the notions of path dependence, increasing returns and positive feedback, institutional stickiness, and institutional lock-in. By creating a nuanced understanding of institutional stickiness, the model paves the way for assessing whether an institution is fully locked in, placing it on a suboptimal trajectory, or whether it can alter through incremental adaptations caused by path dependency. Second, this research offers a typology for critical junctures. Here, it distinguishes between different levels of critical junctures: transformative events that reshape the institutional matrix in its entirety through the amendment of primary law and smaller critical junctures that impinge on the institution through the adjustment of secondary law, but which leave the overall institutional framework unaltered. And, third, it advances a framework that incorporates both rational choice and normative factors as determinants of energy policy decision-making. Following a discussion of the cases, the chapter closes with a discussion of five analytical units identified as most important for policy development.
