Path dependence and jumping tracks: Investigating institutional continuity and change across the Tasmanian convict and pauper systems

Abstract

This article uses a historical case study to significantly advance theoretical debates on path dependence in institutional change and continuity. In particular, it argues that the heuristic of ‘jumping tracks’ can be productively developed to explain how institutional arrangements can shift into different policy arenas. The historical criminological case study examines welfare provision and penalties in colonial Australia. Substantively, the case study provides historical support to current claims that the boundaries between crime, poverty and welfare are fluid. Just as the shadow of the contemporary carceral state is enlarging non-criminal pathways to punishment, it will be shown that in 19th-century Tasmania the shadow of the penal colony acted to control paupers. When the Tasmanian penal system began to be dismantled, the institutional arrangements that had developed within it jumped tracks to the pauper system. Fundamentally, the key theoretical proposition is that path dependence can work across institutions by jumping tracks.