>Colin Crouch (European University Institute, Italy)
>E-mail: colin.crouch at iue.it
>Problems of the new determinism: A critique of embeddedness and path
>dependency
>theory
>http://www.sase.org/conf2001/abstracts/abstracts.h.html
I guess the problem of determinism lies in not defining the scope conditions - i.e. treating a theory as universally valid. Saying that positive feedback from a path always obtains is like saying that people always make rat choices - it ignores contingencies embedded in reality. The fact of the matter is that sometimes people follow the path and sometimes they do not, sometimes they make rat choices and sometimes they do not, and when they do - sometimes they count certain factors (like, say, social or environmental costs) and sometimes they do not. The point of scientific inquiry (as opposed to moralizing or anecdote telling) is to identify conditions under which each of those possible behaviors is likely to occur.
wojtek