On routines and generative systems: investigating the emergence of duty prosecutors using critical realist case study principles

Drawing on the notion of mechanisms as systems of constitutive rules, this paper advocates a reappraisal of the generative systems metaphor in routines studies. While the recent practice-turn to routines studies has turned a blind-eye to the notion of generative systems, this paper endeavours to use critical realist tenets to shed a new light on the notion of generative systems. By analyzing the emergence of Duty Prosecutors as an instance of routinization in the making, the paper deploys critical realist case study principles that unpack the underlying structural mechanisms in a counterfactual fashion. Theoretical implications are discussed by highlighting that the structural nexus of position-practice relations is constitutive and, therefore, generative of patterns in variety.