Institutionalism and Public Policy

Institutions shape public policy, and in turn public policies shape institutions. This chapter discusses the role that institutions, viewed from a number of theoretical perspectives, play in shaping policies. Institutions can structure the flow of information and ideas from the environment and also have their own perspectives on what constitutes good policy. Institutions also help to provide stability in public policies and credible commitment on the part of government. The policies that an institution administers also define its pattern of functioning and its relationships with other organizations and actors in its environment.

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Notes

There are instances in which the bureaucracy may act as a single institution, for example, the pursuit of higher civil service salaries, but there are generally analytic dangers in considering the institution as a unitary actor.

This argument is analogous to the open-systems approach to organization theory (see Katz and Kahn (1978)).

That is, of course, somewhat the opposite of the perspective of March and Olsen in their seminal work on the New Institutionalism (1984). In that view institutions were fundamentally political, and politics was fundamentally institutional.

The continuing belief that the cavalry could produce breakthroughs in World War I, even when confronted by increasingly lethal weapons, is but one example of the persistence of ideas in the face of negative outcomes (Ellis 1976).

For example, environmental agencies may find themselves opposed to the policy agenda of conservative governments that may generate internal conflicts and perhaps more fundamental change within the institution.

As we argued for historical institutionalism (Peters et al. 2005) change may come about only when there is a new idea that is capable of replacing the ideas that have been dominating policies within the institution.

That statement is perhaps somewhat unfair to this strand of literature. Pierson’s explanations for the maintenance of paths (Pierson 2000), for example, do depend on reinforcement coming to individuals through positive feedback, as do explanations of path dependency based on habituation (Sarigil 2009).

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

1. University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, USA B. Guy Peters

1. B. Guy Peters