Explaining change in legislatures: Dilemmas of managerial reform in the UK House of Commons

How do institutions adapt and reform themselves in response to new challenges? This article considers the role of ideas and posits that the concept of ‘dilemma’ — clashes of beliefs played out through power relations and practices — offers a complementary tool to understand institutional change. It draws on the 2014 appointment of a new Clerk to the UK House of Commons — in which conflicting beliefs about the House of Commons administration opened a dilemma for key parliamentary actors — as a token case study to highlight the value of the concepts of beliefs, practices and dilemmas. It further broadens out these findings to consider the value of a wider interpretive approach for understanding how institutions may adapt and change. In doing so, it makes (i) a theoretical contribution by exploring the role of ideas in causing institutional change and (ii) an empirical contribution through its analysis of parliamentary administration, an under-studied area.