Understood in this light, historical institutionalist analyses typically begin with rationalist assumptions about actor preferences, and proceed to examine how institutions can shape the behaviour of rational actors over time through institutional lock-ins and processes of path dependence. In recent years, these insights have been applied increasingly to the development of the EU, with various authors emphasizing the temporal dimension of European integration (Armstrong and Bulmer 1998).
Pierson’s (1996b) study of path-dependence in the EU, for example, seeks to understand
European integration as a process that unfolds over time, and the conditions under which path-dependent processes are most likely to occur. Working from essentially rationalist assumptions, Pierson argues that, despite the initial primacy of member governments in the design of EU institutions and policies, ‘gaps’ may occur in the ability of member governments to control the subsequent development of institutions and policies, for four reasons. First, member governments in democratic societies may, because of electoral concerns, apply a high ‘discount rate’ to the future, agreeing to EU policies that lead to a long-term loss of national control in return for short-term electoral returns. Secondly, even when governments do not heavily discount the future, unintended consequences of institutional choices can create additional gaps, which member governments may or may not be able to close through subsequent action. Thirdly, the preferences of member governments are likely to change over time, most obviously because of electoral turnover, leaving new governments with new preferences to inherit an acquis communautaire negotiated by, and according to the preferences of, a previous government. Given the frequent requirement of unanimous voting (or the high hurdle of QMV) to overturn past institutional and policy choices, individual member governments are likely to find themselves ‘immobilized by the weight of past initiatives’ (Pierson 1996b: 137).