The Institutionalization of a New Prostitution Regime: Theoretical and Methodological Insights from an Ideational Perspective on a Transformative Feminist Change

Recent work in the field of feminist institutionalism has made important progress in furthering our understanding of gendered institutional change. The present paper adds to this body of research by identifying a specific type of institutional change that has been scarcely addressed until now, namely, the way in which individual ideas can become institutions, which may also be termed the institutionalization of new ideas. It argues that gradual ideational changes play an essential part in many processes of gendered institutional change, and that the interaction between ideas and institutions therefore is of great importance to improve our knowledge of these kinds of processes. Revisiting an empirical study of Swedish prostitution policy the paper evaluates methodological as well as theoretical challenges of researching this type of transformative change. Methodologically the paper claims that the time sequence of ideational changes should be taken into account as well as the occurrence of endogenous critical junctures. Theoretically it specifies two idea-based mechanisms conducive to gendered change, namely consensus of the problem and gendering of the debate, which may function as informal institutions with lock-in effects. The article concludes by discussing how an ideational perspective is a fruitful way forward for research in this field.