Formative Moments and Path Dependant/Path Developments in the Danish Gender Policy Regime

This paper will discuss how changes in a gender policy regime over time may be conceptualized and explained. Our focus is changes in women’s representation as well as policy changes in relation to gender equality, and we discuss strengths and weaknesses of two concepts and approaches: formative moments and path dependency. One of the authors has applied the concept of formative moments from social movement literature to identify major turning points and progress in history. The other author takes her point of departure in a feminist neo-institutionalist approach, focusing on the dynamics of political institutions and their path dependency. Do formative moments create the path dependency of tomorrow? Formative moments: Hughes and Paxton make a highly relevant distinction between continuous and episodic forces of change (Politics & Gender, 2008, 4(2), 245-46). The difference is defined not by the magnitude of the change, but by the consistency of the force of change (2008: 245-46). Yet structural forces, as discussed by Hughes and Paxton have to be transformed into tangible actions, new discourses and decisions, and consequently, the concept of formative moments is preferred for meso-level analyses, indicating points in history with far-reaching consequences (Dahlerup & Leyenaar, Breaking Male Dominance in Old Democracies, 2013: 241 f.). Path dependency: Path dependency is the key concept and dynamic of historical institutional institutionalism, which we combine with feminist institutionalism. The latter brings gender into the new institutionalist approaches to explaining policy changes, but it does not in itself offer a conceptualization of institutional change and dynamic. Historical institutionalism emphasizes the role of time and sequence and the significance of decisions for later developments. We discuss the two approaches by applying them to a specific period in the Danish gender policy regime, namely the 1970’s that was characterized by both unfavorable and a favorable opportunity structures.