Reconceptualizing layering—From mode of institutional change to mode of institutional design: Types and outputs

Due to its popularity, the term layering is often used generically, and it risks being transformed into a catch-all concept. Layering has become synonymous with incremental change, thus making it a synonym for change without any specification in terms of the change and its effects. To make the term more conceptually coherent and empirically useful, this article problematizes the historical neo-institutionalist definition of layering as a mode of change and, above all, its use in the literature. It argues that layering should be conceptualized in terms of modes of institutional design through which different types of additions to the actual institutional arrangement can be activated to pursue not only institutional and eventually policy change but also stability. As an approach to institutional design, layering can be distinguished according to that which is layered and the results that layering can achieve in terms of institutional and policy effects.