Bulletin n. 1-2/2014
November 2014
CONTENTS
  • Section A) The theory and practise of the federal states and multi-level systems of government
  • Section B) Global governance and international organizations
  • Section C) Regional integration processes
  • Section D) Federalism as a political idea
    • Patel-Campillo Anouk, DeLessio-Parson Anne, Smith Stephen M.
    The Role of Institutional Sedimentation, Regulatory Ambiguity and Institutional Footholds in Shaping Alcohol Governance in California and Pennsylvania
    in Territory, Politics, Governance , Volume 2, Issue 2 ,  2014 ,  135-139
    Change in the social organization of markets involves the state, economic actors, and civil society in a mutually conditioning and dynamic relation. While much is known about this relation, the processes and mechanisms used by economic actors to influence regulatory institutions to shape their economic spaces over time remain insufficiently specified. Based on a most-different case approach of wine in California and Pennsylvania across time, we explain why and how these states adopted very different regulatory frameworks for alcohol governance: a license and state control system, respectively. Our findings indicate that winemakers who created and effectively deployed ‘institutional footholds’ during periods of ‘regulatory ambiguity’ were better positioned to exert influence over regulatory outcomes. Here we define ‘institutional footholds’ as mechanisms used to create spaces of political traction within the state apparatus. A form of critical juncture, ‘regulatory ambiguity’ refers to moments of uncertainty that precede a shift in the existing norms and rules governing particular economic spaces. We find that over time, this mutually conditioning process generates what we term ‘institutional sedimentation’, where the rules governing particular economic spaces become part of more permanent institutional architectures. The results of a recent survey with Pennsylvania winemakers conducted by the authors serve to further underscore divergence in the micro-foundations of collectivities and their strategic actions.
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