Institutional persistence despite cultural change: a historical case study of the re-categorization of dogs in Germany

Birgit Pfau-Effinger () and Marcel Sebastian ()
Additional contact information
Birgit Pfau-Effinger: University of Hamburg
Marcel Sebastian: University of Hamburg

Agriculture and Human Values, 2022, vol. 39, issue 1, No 30, 473-485

Abstract: Abstract Human–animal relations in post-industrial societies are characterized by a system of cultural categories that distinguishes between different types of animals based on their function in human society, such as “farm animals” or “pets.” The system of cultural categories, and the allocation of animal species within this cultural classification system can change. Options for change include re-categorizing a specific animal species within the categorical system. The paper argues that attempts by political actors to adapt the institutional system to cultural change that calls for re-categorization of certain animal species can start a contradictory process that may lead to long-term survival of the respective institution despite the cultural change. It is common to explain the persistence of political institutions with institutional path dependency or policy preferences of the governing parties. This paper introduces a new institutional theoretical approach to the explanation, the approach of “rejecting changing a part for fear of undermining the whole.” This paper uses a case study of a series of failed political efforts to change the treatment of dogs in the framework of the agricultural human–animal policy in the Federal Republic of Germany in the second half of the twentieth century, to evaluate its theoretical argument, using analyses of historical political documents, mass media, and communication documents between civil society actors and policymakers. This paper makes an innovative contribution to the theory and research on institutional change, the sociology of agriculture and food, and the sociology of human–animal relations.

Keywords: Institution theory; Institutional persistence; Cultural change; Agricultural policy; Human-animal relations (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s10460-021-10272-4 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:agrhuv:v:39:y:2022:i:1:d:10.1007_s10460-021-10272-4

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/economics/journal/10460

DOI: 10.1007/s10460-021-10272-4

Access Statistics for this article

Agriculture and Human Values is currently edited by Harvey S. James Jr.

More articles in Agriculture and Human Values from Springer, The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS)
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().