You are on page 1of 7

WHAT IS POLICY PROCESS RESEARCH?

Policy process research is the study of interactions among people and public policy. Policy process research is often depicted by the policy cycle. The policy cycle refers to the key stages of policymaking: (i) how people struggle to define issues as problems worthy of attention on government agendas; (ii) how people analyze problems and devise and select among policy alternatives; (iii) how people implement policy; and (iv) how people evaluate and sometimes terminate policy. Also called the stages heuristic (Sabatier, 1999), the policy cycle began in the original work by Harold D. Lasswell (1948/2009; 1956) and later refined by others, notably Brewer (1974), Brewer and deLeon (1983), and deLeon (1988). In many ways, the policy cycle has defined public policy research, more as a typology, however, rather than as an analytic framework (deLeon, 1999). Among the leading textbooks in public policy, James Anderson (2005), Howlett and Ramesh (1995), and Kraft and Furlong (2007) portray policy process research by the policy cycle. The policy cycle, however, too narrowly depicts the scope of policy process research. A cursory look at the theoretical and practical applications of policy process research shows that it encompasses, at a minimum, the study of (i) political behavior among individuals, groups, and coalitions; (ii) minor and major policy change; (iii) the role of experts and citizens as well as the different uses of information and other resources; (iv) collective action problems as related to public policy issues; (v) social constructions; and (vi) power, inequalities, and policy designs. Depictions of policy process research that transcend the policy cycle can be found in the theories, frameworks, and models in Sabatiers edited volume (2007) and in the introductory primers by Parsons (1995), Birkland (2001), and Smith and Larimer (2009). Lasswell famously argued for policy research (i.e., in his case, the policy sciences) as a function of knowledge in and knowledge of the policy process (Lasswell, 1971). The Policy Process Research Lab intentionally focuses on Lasswells knowledge of description, which largely reflects our above description of policy process research. The knowledge in description is the traditional practice found in policy analysis and evaluation literature (e.g., the work associated with Weimer and Vining [2005] or Stokey and Zeckhauser[1978]). The traditional differences between the policy process and policy analysis/evaluation literatures are several, with the latter usually designed to place low emphasis on theory and high emphasis on improving

democracy, conducted in service of a client, and published as practitioner reports. Trying to understand and explain the policy process requires an understanding of the relationships among a complex number of factors in dynamic systems with nested levels of interactions and uncertain inputs and outputs. In the policy process, hundreds of government officials and people outside of government with different beliefs and interests interact, and their interactions are embedded in a community with its own history, geography, and formal and informal institutions. Given the enduring truth that peoples cognitive limitations fundamentally constrain their ability to observe the world, the question then emerges: How can we possibly make sense of a complex, often interactive phenomena and their effects on the public policy? One of the best strategies for approaching complex phenomena is to employ frameworks, theories, or models that can help organize or explain this complexity. However, any singular framework, theory, or model will fail to capture the full range of factors that shape or underlie policy processes. Thus, policy process researchers must understand and be able to apply the diverse analytical approaches that are available to them to have a comprehensive perspective on policy processes. In this sense, then, the conditions imposed by the problem will motivate the approach employed.

INSTITUTIONAL ANALYSIS AND DEVELOPMENT (IAD) FRAMEWORK


Institutional Analysis and Development (IAD) Framework emerged from the Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis at Indiana University, Bloomington. Pioneered by Elinor and Vincent Ostrom, it is the product of multiple collaborations among researchers from around the world who are interested in understanding how individuals behave in collective action settings and the institutional foundations that inform such arrangements. The IAD Framework offers researchers a way to understand the policy process by outlining a systematic approach for analyzing institutions that govern action

and outcomes within collective action arrangements (Ostrom, 2007, 44). Institutions are defined within the IAD Framework as a set of prescriptions and constraints that humans use to organize all forms of repetitive and structured interactions (Ostrom, 2005, 3). These prescriptions can include rules, norms, and shared strategies (Crawford and Ostrom 1995; Ostrom 1997). Institutions are further delineated as being formal or informal; the former characterized as rules-in-form and the latter as rules-in-use. The IAD framework identifies key variables that researchers should use in evaluating the role of institutions in shaping social interactions and decisionmaking processes. The analytical focus of the IAD is on an action arena, where social choices and decisions take place. Three broad categories of variables are identified as influencing the action arena: institutions or rules that govern the action arena, the characteristics of the community or collective unit of interest, and the attributes of the physical environment within which the community acts (Ostrom 1999; Ostrom 2005). Each of these three categories has been further delineated by IAD scholars into relevant variables and conditions that can influence choices in the action arena. For instance, the types of rules that are important in the IAD include entry and exit rules, position rules, scope rules, payoff rules, aggregation rules, authority rules, and information rules. Key characteristics of the community can include factors such as the homogeneity of its members or shared values. Biophysical variables might include factors such as the mobility and flow of resources within an action arena. The IAD further defines the key features of action situations and actors that make up the action arena. The action situation has seven key components: 1) the participants in the situation, 2) the participants positions, 3) the outcomes of participants decisions, 4) the payoffs or costs and benefits associated with outcomes, 5) the linkages between actions and outcomes, 6) the participants control in the situation, and 7) information. The variables that are essential to evaluating actors in the action arena are 1) their information processing capabilities, 2) their preferences or values for different actions, 3) their resources, and 4) the processes they use for choosing actions. In addition to the types of relevant variables that may help explain collective choices, the IAD has identified multiple levels of institutional analysis -operational level, the collective-choice level, and the constitutional level which scholars should attend to in studying these choices (Kiser and Ostrom 1982; Ostrom 1990; Ostrom 1999). The operational level of analysis is where individuals collectively make decisions about day to day activities. The collective-choice level of analysis focuses on decisions about the choice of rules that govern operational activities. The constitutional level of analysis is concerned with the authorized actors for collective-choice decisions and the rules governing those decisions.

Any one decision-making group or action arena may operate at more than one level of institutional action.

The Institutional Grammar Tool (IGT) The Common Pool Resource (CPR) Theory

FACULTY WITH IAD RESEARCH INTERESTS


Tanya Heikkila Chris Weible

STUDENT AFFILIATES
Mark Davis, Student Alumni, mark.davis@ucdenver.edu David Carter, PhD Student, david.carter@ucdenver.edu

CURRENT PROJECTS
Drs. Chris Weible and Saba Siddiki and PhD student John Calanni are currently working with Dr. Xavier Basurto from Duke University to develop an additional syntactic component to the Institutional Grammar, the oBject, or B-Code. To find out more about this project, please go the Institutional Grammar page.

Recent IAD Publications and Conference Papers and Presentations by SPA Faculty and Students
Basurto Xavier, Kingsley, Gordon, McQueen, Kelly, Smith, Mshadoni, and Weible, Christopher M. Forthcoming. "A Systematic Approach to Institutional Analysis: Applying Crawford and Ostroms Grammatical Syntax." Political Research Quarterly. Schlager, Edella and Tanya Heikkila. 2009. Resolving Water Conflicts: A Comparative Analysis of Interstate River Compacts. Policy Studies Journal. 37(3): 367-392. Siddiki, Saba, Chris Weible, Xavier Basurto, and John Calanni. Using the IADs Institutional Grammar to Understand Policy Design: An Application to Colorado Aquaculture. Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis. Indiana University, Bloomington. 3-6 June 2009.

References
Jagger, Pamela. 2004. Artisans of Political Theory and Empirical Inquiry: Thirty Years of Scholarship at the Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis . Bloomington, IN: Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis. Ostrom, Elinor. 1990. Governing the Commons: The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press. Ostrom, Elinor. 2007. Institutional Rational Choice: An Assessment of the Institutional Analysis and Development Framework. In Sabatier, Paul, ed. 2007. Theories of the Policy Process. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. Ostrom, Elinor. 2005. Understanding Institutional Diversity. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Ostrom, Elinor, Roy Gardner, and James Walker. 1994. Rules, Games, and Common-Pool Resources. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.

INSTITUTIONAL GRAMMAR TOOL


The IADs Institutional Grammar Tool (IGT) was first proposed by Sue Crawford and Elinor Ostrom (1995) to help systematically identify and code rules-in-form presented in various types of policy documents. The Institutional Grammar offers researchers an effective method for conducting a micro-level analysis of institutions. This valuable tool allows policy process scholars to ascertain the genetic code of policies that guide activities within various political arenas. The IGT provides a prescribed coding structure to identify and dissect institutional statements, such as those found in almost any policy, from legislative directives to organizational by-laws. Application of the IGT generates systematically collected data that may be used to identify (i) the main actors in a system and what they may, must, or must not do; (ii) the spectrum of actions required by a policy and the associated conditions describing how, when and where the actions take place; (iii) The objects that receive the action by the actors in the system. The IGT is primarily tool for collecting data and can be used by multiple theories during analysis. The IGT is meant to be applied to almost any policy-related document, such as state or federal legislation. The IGT describes how to divide phrases from the documents into institutional statements and then dissecting these statements in accordance with a prescribed coding structure. The Grammar includes five components:

Attribute (A) -- describes to whom a particular institutional statement is directed

Object (O) describes the inanimate or animate part of a statement that is the receiver of the action described in the aIm and executed by the agent in the Attribute

Deontic (D) -- indicates whether the action in the statement being referred to is obliged, permitted, or forbidden

aIm (I) -- describes the particular actions or outcomes to which the Deontic is assigned,

Condition (C) -- describes when, where, how, and to what extent an AIm is obliged, permitted, or forbidden

Or else -- includes the punitive actions/sanctions associated with not

obeying an established institution (Crawford and Ostrom, 1995, 584). In the Grammar, each institutional statement must contain, at minimum, an Attribute, an AIm, and a Condition. The Deontic and Or else component may be present but are not necessary to qualify a phrase as an institutional statement. Those statements which contain each of the aforementioned components are characterized as rules (ADICO), while statements containing the first four components (ADIC) are characterized as norms, and statements only containing an Attribute, AIm, and Condition (AIC) are considered to be shared strategies. Recent applications of the Institutional Grammar show both its promise as an analytical tool but also unresolved challenges (Basurto et al. 2009; Andersson, 2007). Basurto et al. (2009), for example, conclude that some of the challenges associated with the technique include: ambiguity regarding how to code statements where the Deontic is implicit rather than explicit, uncertainty in identifying the Attribute in the institutional statement, and difficulty in distinguishing between the aIm and the Conditions. Research is currently underway that seeks to address some of these limitations.

Current Projects
Dr. Chris Weible and PhD students Saba Siddiki and John Calanni, are currently working with Dr. Xavier Basurto from Duke University, to develop an additional syntactic component to the Grammar, the oBject. The research team suggests that the oBject is useful in minimizing coding ambiguity in certain cases, may increase inter-coder reliability, and expands the scope of possibilities for researchers when conducting nested and configuration analyses relating to the Institutional Grammar. The use of this additional component minimizes confusion in statements where (i) there is no animate Attribute explicitly stated, but there is an explicit inanimate subject to which the aIm applies, and (ii) when there are two animate actors within a sentence and ambiguity exists as to which is the appropriate Attribute.

Recent Institutional Grammar Publications and Conference Papers and Presentations by SPA Faculty and Students
Basurto Xavier, Kingsley, Gordon, McQueen, Kelly, Smith, Mshadoni, and Weible, Christopher M. Forthcoming 2009. "A Systematic Approach to Institutional Analysis: Applying Crawford and Ostroms Grammatical Syntax." Political Research Quarterly. (link to paper) Siddiki, Saba, Chris Weible, Xavier Basurto, and John Calanni. Using the IADs Institutional Grammar to Understand Policy Design: An Application to Colorado Aquaculture. Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis. Indiana University, Bloomington. 3-6 June 2009.

References
Andersson, Krister. 2007. Motivation to Engage in Social Learning about Sustainability: An Institutional Analysis. Paper prepared for the Symposium on Social Learning about Sustainability at the Annual Meetings of the American Association for the Advancement of Science on February 14, 2008, in Boston, MA. Basurto Xavier, Kingsley, Gordon, McQueen, Kelly, Smith, Mshadoni, and Weible, Christopher M. Forthcoming . 2009. "A Systematic Approach to Institutional Analysis: Applying Crawford and Ostroms Grammatical Syntax." Political Research Quarterly. Crawford, Sue E.S. and Elinor Ostrom. 1995. A Grammar of Institutions. American Political Science Review. 89 (3): 582-600.

You might also like