Path contingency: Advancing a spatial-institutionalist perspective on decision pathways for disaster risk governance

Path dependence has become a multi-disciplinary concept, employed across various literatures to explain why the past matters for decision-making. Debate within ‘new institutionalist’ scholarship has provided a detailed critique of the term over several decades. Some scholars argue that it is hampered by poor conceptual clarity and highlight its limitations in explaining institutional reform. Yet, this paper demonstrates how neglecting antecedent conditions and associated decision pathways is particularly inappropriate for politico-spatial issues like disaster risk and natural resource governance. Doing so risks omitting key material and perceptual contingencies influencing contemporary institutions. Examining southeast Queensland’s flooding disaster of 2011, the paper proposes that path contingency provides a useful theoretical bridge between institutionalist theories of stability and reform, and the geographic contexts within which disaster risk governance proceeds. The analysis then addresses the potential generalisability of path contingency beyond its application to disaster management, for consideration across a broader range of institutionalist research.