Historical institutionalism is the hardest of the three streams to define because it includes so many different scholars and so many different methodological approaches. It is based on the assumption that institutional rules, constraints, and the responses to them over the long term guide the behaviour of political actors during the policy-making process. Historical institutionalism mixes the quantitative analysis of the rational choice stream with the idea- and culture-based thought of the sociological stream. It includes an eclectic group of scholars with a wide variety of research agendas.

Despite the differences, there are some common notions in this line of research. Historical institutionalists seek to define and explain specific real-world political outcomes, such as an election, using the historical legacy of institutional structures and feedbacks available to them. They also view politics as a competition over scarce resources and highlight differences in political power between institutions, such as between the courts and the legislature. They consider decision trees and path dependence, terms of art meaning the effects that one decision has to limit the available future choices for any political actor or institution. Historical institutionalists note that institutions do not perform with perfect efficiency (because they were designed in earlier times) and institutional rules (such as the insistence on supermajorities or unanimity in voting) are slow to change, and, thus, those factors must be taken into account in any analysis.