Path Creation in the Study of Social Policy Change: A Potential Alternative Framework

Institutional scholarship highlights the character of social policy as a frozen landscape, which explains the policy's reluctance to depart from the predetermined trajectories. It may be necessary to reconsider this postulate in light of the dramatic reversal of welfare regimes in the Global South over the past two decades. This article discusses how path creation can be used as a relevant alternative framework for social policy change models in radical change situations. In a nutshell, as described in this article, path creation is a new developmental trajectory that is deliberately manipulated and made possible without requiring a critical juncture for its emergence. The path creation process is characterized by a deviation of policy from the path followed as an institutionally embedded principle. This framework has not been incorporated into a social policy study yet; thus, it can be developed more seriously in future research.