How do government changeovers undermine policy continuity? A state-internal mechanism analysis of E-government implementation in Lesotho

Abstract

This study investigates how government changeovers influence policy continuity in emerging democracies. Using Lesotho’s e-government implementation (2012–2017) as a critical case, the analysis focuses on the state-internal mechanisms through which executive succession is translated into administrative disruption. The research applies a mechanism-based Historical Institutionalist framework, drawing on 24 semi-structured interviews with bureaucratic actors and documentary evidence. The approach identifies organisational processes activated by recurrent executive transitions and situates them within broader institutional conditions. Four mechanisms were identified: institutional reset, agenda instability, symbolic ownership, and legislative fragmentation. Each mechanism disrupted continuity through distinct pathways, including reopening implementation trajectories, redirecting priorities, reinterpreting programme identity, and obstructing regulatory consolidation. Together, they embedded discontinuity into routine bureaucratic practice, demonstrating that turnover effects are contingent on enabling conditions such as executive concentration, weak bureaucratic autonomy, and limited safeguards. The findings extend Historical Institutionalism by showing that displacement, drift, and conversion operate cyclically under recurrent changeovers. Path dependence emerges as an institutional achievement rather than an inherent property of institutions. The framework is analytically transferable to coalition-based and politically volatile systems, contributing to comparative debates on policy continuity, coalition politics, and institutional resilience.