THE HISTORY OF THE NICARAGUAN SOCIAL SECURITY INSTITUTE/ AN ANALYSIS OF PATH DEPENDENCY

Abstract

The use of path dependency in political science explanations of institutional development, especially social security helps us to better understand continuities and departures of a policy. The lack of theoretical work on the Nicaraguan Social Security Institute and its history, together with the country’s violent, sudden and disrupted political history that makes institutions vulnerable to arbitrary changes, were the motivation to look for an answer to the institution’s overall stickiness.

This thesis examines the historical development of the Nicaraguan Social Security Institute by using path dependency theory together with an interpretation of the public policy cycle in order to mitigate the absence of influential groups as important agents of change in the process. The Nicaraguan Social Security Institute represents an interesting case of path dependency in a context in which most of the institutions would change constantly and drastically without much regard for their past. This thesis finds that this unexpected dependency was only possible because of the institution’s very peculiar origins and reinforcement processes that made the costs of changing increasingly high throughout the years.