Policy design and the added-value of the institutional analysis development framework

Abstract

This chapter reviews why people design institutions to solve shared problems and what makes institutions work, focusing on Institutional Analysis and Development (IAD) research. It extracts practical insights and research strategies from IAD scholarship framework and provides a brief background of the IAD's foundational concepts and the framework's theoretical and empirical underpinnings. It details the development of a novel synthesis of strands of IAD research that help translate the opaque language of the IAD. The chapter examines the research within the extensive IAD framework that has emerged over several decades as part of a larger research programme, often associated with the work of Vincent and Elinor Ostrom and their colleagues. It refers to the IAD's lessons on self-governance, core concepts and features of the IAD framework, and how IAD studies have produced contextually specific insights on institutional design.