Passage:

A political theorist critiques a familiar story about reform. In that story, institutions resist change until a heroic leader forces them to modernize. The theorist argues that this narrative flatters audiences because it makes reform look like a single dramatic moment rather than a prolonged negotiation. In the cases the theorist examines, small procedural adjustments, such as changing who must sign a form or when meetings can be called, slowly alter which groups can reliably block decisions. These adjustments rarely look like reform when they occur, yet they reshape incentives in ways that later make sweeping changes appear inevitable. The theorist concludes that what is remembered as sudden transformation is often the visible end of an earlier, less visible sequence of constraint changes.

Which choice best states the central idea of the passage?