ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the contribution made by institutional theory to understanding the public policy process. The first part of the chapter will explore its deep roots in the sociological analysis of policy processes, and in institutional economics. Then, will follow an exposition of the theory today, showing how the concept of ‘institution’ has been used very widely to embrace cultural and ideological phenomena. The next part of the chapter explores the way in which theorists have sought to address the problem that an emphasis on institutions tends to imply a stress on stability and either the absence of policy change or the tracking of such change occurs down an institutionally determined ‘pathway’. The two main solutions to this are either to try to develop a way of analysing critical points at which opportunities emerge for system change or simply to stress, as March and Olsen have, that actually the theory does little more than assert that the organisation of political life makes a difference. This leads to a view that institutional theory faces some of the same problems as network theory, inasmuch as its explanatory uses are limited, but indicates that this, in many ways, simply emphasises the extent to which the analysis of the policy process is an intuitive art.
One way to solve the problems about using institutional theory may lie in comparative work in which institutional differences between countries suggest reasons for differences in policy processes. Chapter 5 will address this theme.
