Historical Institutionalism in International Relations

This article reviews recent contributions to International Relations (IR) that engage the substantive concerns of historical institutionalism and explicitly and implicitly employ that tradition's analytical features to address fundamental questions in the study of international affairs. It explores the promise of this tradition for new research agendas in the study of international political development, including the origin of state preferences, the nature of governance gaps, and the nature of change and continuity in the international system. The article concludes that the analytical and substantive profiles of historical institutionalism can further disciplinary maturation in IR, and it proposes that the field be more open to the tripartite division of institutional theories found in other subfields of Political Science.