Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-s2hrs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-10T13:18:10.127Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Historical institutionalism and technological change: the case of Uber

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 October 2019

Madison Cartwright Open the ORCID record for Madison Cartwright [Opens in a new window]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

In recent years, jurisdictions have struggled to address the emergence of “sharing” businesses, such as Uber. These businesses have used technology to avoid the regulations that usually apply to industries, such as taxis. By applying a historical institutionalist analysis, this article explains how authorities have responded to these companies. Through a detailed case study of Uber's presence in Baltimore, Maryland, in the United States, the article makes an empirical contribution by illustrating how regulatory regimes have responded to “disruptive” technology. Furthermore, by applying an exogenously induced and endogenously mitigated model of change the article addresses the bifurcation in historical institutionalist literature between exogenous and endogenous accounts of change. This helps develop historical institutionalism theoretically, responds to criticisms of agent-based approaches and advances a model that can be applied to the study of technological change more generally.

Keywords

historical institutionalismUbersharing economyregulationtechnological disruption
Type
Research Article
Information
Business and Politics , Volume 23 , Issue 1 , March 2021 , pp. 67 - 90
Copyright
Copyright © V.K. Aggarwal 2019 and published under exclusive license to Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Babcock, Stephen. 2015a. “Annapolis is about to start cracking down on Uber drivers.” technical.ly, 29 January 2015. https://technical.ly/baltimore/2015/01/29/annapolis-ticketing-uber-drivers /.Google Scholar
Babcock, Stephen. 2015b. “Maryland and Uber are still at odds over ridesharing regulations.” technical.ly, 18 February 2015. https://technical.ly/baltimore/2015/02/18/maryland-uber-still-odds-ridesharing-regulations/.Google Scholar
Bell, Stephen. 2005. “How tight are the policy constraints? The policy convergence thesis, institutionally situated actors and expansionary monetary policy in Australia.” New Political Economy 10 (1): 65–89.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bell, Stephen. 2011. “Do We Really Need a New ‘Constructivist Institutionalism’ to Explain Institutional Change?” British Journal of Political Science 41 (4):883–906.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bell, Stephen. 2017. “Historical Institutionalism and New Dimensions of Agency: Bankers, Institutions and the 2008 Financial Crisis.” Political Studies 65 (3): 724–39.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bell, Stephen, and Feng, Hui. 2013. The Rise of the People's Bank of China. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bell, Stephen, and Feng, Hui. 2014. “How Proximate and ‘Meta-Institutional'Contexts Shape Institutional Change: Explaining the Rise of the People's Bank of China.” Political Studies 62 (1): 197–215.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bell, Tom W. 2014. “Copyright Porn Trolls, Wasting Taxi Medallions, and the Propriety of Property.” Chap. L. Rev. 18: 799.Google Scholar
Capoccia, Giovanni. 2015. “Critical junctures and institutional change.” In Advances in Comparative Historical Analysis, edited by Mahoney, James and Thelen, Kathleen, 147–179. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Capoccia, Giovanni, and Daniel Kelemen, R.. 2007. “The study of critical junctures: Theory, narrative, and counterfactuals in historical institutionalism.” World Politics 59 (03): 341–69.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cartwright, Madison. 2018. “Who cares about Reddit? Historical institutionalism and the fight against the Stop Online Piracy Act and the PROTECT Intellectual Property Act.” Policy Studies 39 (4): 383–401.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Christensen, Clayton M., Raynor, Michael E., and McDonald, Rory. 2015. “What is disruptive innovation.” Harvard Business Review 93 (12): 44–53.Google Scholar
Cortez, Nathan. 2014. “Regulating disruptive innovation.” Berkeley Technology Law Journal: 175–228.Google Scholar
Edelman, Benjamin G., and Geradin, Damien. 2015. “Efficiencies and regulatory shortcuts: How should we regulate companies like Airbnb and Uber.” Stan. Tech. L. Rev. 19: 293.Google Scholar
Elliott, Rebecca Elaine. 2015. “Sharing App or Regulation Hackney: Defining Uber Technologies, Inc.” The Journal of Corporation Law 41 (3): 727–753.Google Scholar
Hacker, Jacob S., Pierson, Paul, and Thelen, Kathleen. 2015. “Drift and conversion: hidden faces of institutional change.” In Advances in comparative-historical analysis, edited by Mahoney, James and Thelen, Kathleen, 180–208. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Katz, Vanessa. 2015. “Regulating the sharing economy.” Berkeley Technology Law Journal 30: 1067.Google Scholar
Mahoney, James, and Thelen, Kathleen. 2010. “A Theory of Gradual Institutional Change.” In Explaining Institutional Change: Ambiguity, Agency, and Power, edited by Mahoney, James and Thelen, Kathleen, 1–38. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Maryland, United States. 2015. Public Utilities - Transportation Network Services and For-Hire Transportation.Google Scholar
Mastracci, Joshua M. 2015. “Case for Federal Ride-Sharing Regulations: How Protectionism and Inconsistent Lawmaking Stunt Uber-Led Technological Entrepreneurship.” Tulane Journal of Technology and Intellectual Property 18: 189.Google Scholar
Miller, Stephen R. 2016. “First principles for regulating the sharing economy.” Harvard Journal on Legislation 53: 147.Google Scholar
Mitchell, Erin. 2015. “Uber's Loophole in the Regulatory System.” HLRe: Off Rec. 6: 75.Google Scholar
Peters, B. Guy, Pierre, Jon, and King, Desmond S.. 2005. “The politics of path dependency: Political conflict in historical institutionalism.” The journal of politics 67 (4): 1275–300.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pierson, Paul. 2015. “Power and path dependence.” In Advances in comparative-historical analysis, edited by Mahoney, James and Thelen, Kathleen. Cambridage: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Posen, Hannah A. 2015. “Ridesharing in the Sharing Economy: Should Regulators Impose Uber Regulations on Uber.” Iowa Law Review 101: 405.Google Scholar
Public Service Commission of the State of Maryland. 2013a. “Case No. 9325 and delegation to the Public Utility Law Judge Division, In the Matter of an Investigation to Consider the Nature and Extent of Regulation Over the Operations of Uber Technologies, LLC and Other Similar Companies, May 16, 2013.”Google Scholar
Public Service Commission of the State of Maryland. 2013b. Motion to Compel. Case No. 9325. (ML 148606), 19 July 2013.Google Scholar
Public Service Commission of the State of Maryland. 2013c. Order No. 86528, In the Matter of an Investigation to Consider the Nature and Extent of Regulation Over the Operations of Uber Technologies, LLC and Other Similar Companies, 6 August 2014.Google Scholar
Public Service Commission of the State of Maryland. 2013d. Public Brief of Staff, In the Matter of an Investigation to Consider the Nature and Extent of Regulation Over the Operations of Uber Technologies, LLC and Other Similar Companies, 11 December 2013.Google Scholar
Public Service Commission of the State of Maryland. 2013e. Staff's Report on Uber Technologies, LLC and Other Similar Companies, 9 May 2013.Google Scholar
Public Service Commission of the State of Maryland. 2015a. Order No. 86877 Order No. 86877. (ML 164551), 26 February 2015.Google Scholar
Public Service Commission of the State of Maryland. 2015b. Proposed Amendments to the Commission's Passenger-for-Hire Regulations. Case No. 9325 (ML 164084), 12 February 2015.Google Scholar
Public Utility Law Judge Division. 2014. Proposed Order with Confidential version. Case No. 9325 (ML 154524), 24 April 2014.Google Scholar
Rassman, Catherine Lee. 2014. “Regulating rideshare without stifling innovation: Examining the drivers, the insurance gap, and why Pennsylvania should get on board.” Pittsburgh Journal of Technology Law & Policy 15: 81.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stark, Alastair. 2018. “New institutionalism, critical junctures and post-crisis policy reform.” Australian Journal of Political Science 53 (1): 24–39.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Steinmo, Sven. 2008. “Historical institutionalism.” In Approaches and methodologies in the social sciences: A pluralist perspective, edited by Porta, Donatella Della and Keating, Michael, 118–38. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Streek, Wolfgang, and Thelen, Kathleen. 2005. “Introduction: Institutional Change in Advanced Political Economies.” In Beyond Continuity : Institutional Change in Advanced Political Economies, edited by Streeck, Wolfgang, and Thelen, Kathleen, 1–39. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Thelen, Kathleen, and Steinmo, Sven. 1992. “Historical institutionalism in comparative politics.” In Structuring politics: historical institutionalism in comparative analysis, edited by Steinmo, Sven, Thelen, Kathleen, and Longstreth, Frank, 1–39. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Thelen, Kathleen. 2018. “Regulating Uber: The Politics of the Platform Economy in Europe and the United States.” Perspectives on Politics 16 (4): 938–53.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Thurbon, Elizabeth. 2016. Developmental mindset: The revival of financial activism in South Korea. Ithica, NY: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Uber Technologies. 2013. Uber Technologies Inc. - Response to May 8, 2013 Staff Report on Uber Technologies and Other Similiar Companies, 13 May 2013.Google Scholar
Van der Heijden, Jeroen, and Kuhlmann, Johanna. 2017. “Studying Incremental Institutional Change: A Systematic and Critical Meta-Review of the Literature from 2005 to 2015.” Policy Studies Journal 45 (3): 535–54.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zaleski, Andrew. 2014. “Case 9325: Uber and the legality of ridesharing in Maryland.” technical.ly, 11 March 2014. Available at: https://technical.ly/baltimore/2014/03/11/uber-ridesharing-case-9325/.Google Scholar