Neo-institutionalist theories characterised pensions as extremely change-resilient and only available for incremental/parametric change. Observing mounting evidence of substantial changes, pension scholars have thus welcomed concepts of incremental but transformative change, such as drift, conversion, and layering. Most often, however, analysts have not taken seriously these concepts’ intrinsic time dimension. Instead of trying to identify incremental processes over the medium-long run, most scholars have employed concepts such as layering or conversion to assess the content and ambitions of specific reform proposals at a given moment – sometimes characterising them as mere reform-mongering strategies, rather than as actual modes of change. The proposed paper will address this theoretical inconsistency. We build on the results of a forthcoming article, where we empirically assessed the Italian and Swedish pension trajectories after the adoption of a notional defined contribution (NDC) formula. The introduction of a NDC formula on top of a traditional pension system can be seen as a typical case of layering: the new system is explicitly adopted as the old phases out, so expectations of a gradual replacement over time are high. Nonetheless, if the reformed system fails to produce its own positive feedbacks, it may be ‘counter-reformed’, undergoing a process of erosion leading back to the previous habits and rules. In order to generate testable hypotheses on the mechanisms that bring about layering or, conversely, lead to erosion, we apply Eric Patashnik’s notions of political sustainability, identity/affiliation feedbacks, and investment feedbacks, performing a single case analysis of the Italian policy trajectory. While this gives us enough over-time variation in institutional, political, and structural variables, the conclusions will make use of secondary literature to discuss the merits of the new hypotheses. It will be the task of future research to test them within a larger country sample.
