book
How Institutions Evolve: The Political Economy of
Thelen, Kathleen. How Institutions Evolve: The Political Economy of Skills in Germany, Britain, the United States, and Japan. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004.
Why this matters here
Thelen’s How Institutions Evolve traces gradual institutional change—how skills regimes and rules adapt through incremental conversion rather than abrupt replacement. When Accountability No Longer Expires uses that evolutionary lens to name moral drift without collapse: institutions can change what values do while keeping the same names, so legitimacy that never expires can widen the gap indefinitely.
