ABSTRACT
Institutions are the gatekeepers of knowledge and a source of competency that empowers or impedes public policy. The Institutions Process Model enlists a wide ensemble cast. It extends from the General Model of the Policymaking Process, and represents a sociological depiction of how the world works. It draws attention to obstacles encountered along the pathway from scientific prediction to climate change policy. The Institutions Process Model depicts three primary institutional mental models: the scientist, the layperson, and the policymaker; and two secondary institutional mental models: the politico-mediaist and the economist. Language operates as a 'representational system' which formulises a 'culture of shared understandings' and enables individuals and groups to interpret the world in more or less the same ways. The language of politics is characterised by an individualised and institutionalised set of framing conventions. Public choice theory can then be defined as: 'the economic study of nonmarket decision making, or simply the application of economics to political science'.
