Policy Definitions

Organizations and Institutions

I take these definitions from Douglass North, Institutions, Institutional Change, and Economic Performance, 1990, Cambridge University Press, and Elinor Ostrom, Understanding Institutional Diversity, Princeton University Press, 2005.

An organization is defined as "groups of individuals bound by some common purpose to achieve objectives" (North, p5). An institution is "any form of constraint that humans devise to shape human interaction" (North, p4). North discusses "formal" institutions, such as laws and rules, and "informal" institutions, such as norms, guidelines, and codes of conduct. He uses a sports metaphor for the distinction between these two definitions; organizations are the "players of the game" and institutions are the "rules of the game."

Ostrom (p3) provides a more detailed definition of institutions that focuses on its character and where such institutions emerge: "Broadly defined, institutions are the prescriptions that humans use to organize all forms of repetitive and structured interactions including those within families, neighborhoods, markets, firms, sports leagues, churches, private associations, and governments at all scales."

The structure of institutions

According to Ostrom, rules specify what people may, must, or must not do under particular circumstances with particular costs for non-compliance. Rules have the following 5 elements, either given explicitly or known implicitly by the actors within a given context:

Attribute: the set of individuals to whom the rule applies.
Deontic: one of may, must, or must not.
Aim: constraints on actions or outcomes.
Conditions: when and where the rule applies.
Or-Else: the consequences for when the rule is not followed.

Ostrom distinguishes rules from norms, in that norms have the first four elements above, but do not have an "or-else."

Institutions and your "policy paper"

I am using "institution" interchangeable with "policy" for the purposes of your paper. Your task for versions 2 and 3 of your policy paper, then, is to develop a set of rules and/or norms to be used by a specific organization or citizenry (members of some community, region, or nation) to "solve" (or address, improve, shape) the policy vacuum that you have identified elsewhere in your paper.