Institutional barriers: A synoptic or pluralist approach

Abstract

The term institutional barriers, seems to imply that institutional arrangements can be rather readily divided into those that are barriers and those that are favourable to a better flow of information and to a more efficient and effective approach to environmental and economic concerns, or to sustainable development. Such a perspective, if intended, reflects a rational or synoptic view of the situation. It seems to suggest that if certain institutions can be identified as barriers and changed or removed, especially with respect to information, then a better approach to environment and economy will be possible and many of our problems witl disappear. Institutions can be viewed however, from a pluralistic perspective, i.e. that they have evolved in many cases as compromises, as buffers, facilitators, or links among groups, which often have different perceptions, attitudes, values, goals, and interests. From this pluralist perspective, information systems, laws, agencies, private corporations, citizen organizations, political parties, and other institutional arrangements are not viewed as machinery or technology which can be re-tooled so as to ultimately move groups and individuals toward some broad consensus, or utopian state. To put the point in another way, from the pluralist perspective institutions are essentially social in character, whereas from the synoptic perspective institutions are basically technical in character. Indeed institutions are sometimes referred to as infrastructure, comparable to roads or transmission lines. Others view institutions as culture, as learned behavior, much of which is ultimately beyond accurate technical analysis and portrayal and so precise understanding and design. It is the pluralist view that is favoured here with its understanding of institutions as both explicit social guides such as laws, policies, agencies, and organizations and also as implicit social guides such as traditions, customs, or heritage. From the pluralist perspective one approaches institutions with much caution for fear of coming to too quick a conclusion about how they work and how to change them so as to achieve some desired purpose or goal. Indeed, purposes or goals themselves need careful examination at the outset, perhaps by informed, analytical and disinterested observers, if not by a group of people with a wide view, representative of the many interests that are usually affected by a new project, program, or policy. Since World War II, Canadians and other peoples, especially in the Western world, have neglected the pluralist perspective and have favoured the synoptic, or technical, view of institutions,