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A Theory of Institutional Change: Illustrated by Dutch City-Provinces and Dutch Land Policy

Since the early 1990s, planning theory has focused on the issue of institutional change. Not only does institutional change have clear bearings on processes of spatial planning, it is also, increasingly, seen as an object of planning. A core concept in the literature is the juxtaposition of ‘institutional design’ and ‘institutional evolution’. Yet, in understanding processes and the role of institutional change, this dichotomy does not appear to be very helpful. We therefore propose a more encompassing perspective that includes both ‘design’ and ‘evolution’ dimensions, invoking various components from theories of policy change, inspired by the work of Kingdon. We try to unravel, in particular, why, under seemingly comparable conditions, some cases show substantive institutional transformations while others do not. We briefly discuss two cases from the Netherlands to illustrate this point, namely the thwarted process of establishing city regions within the scalar fabric of territorial governance, and some instrumental changes in land policy.