Institutional Rational Choice

This chapter focuses on the institutional analysis and development (IAD) framework that has evolved out of the work of many colleagues at the Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis at Indiana University. It presents an updated version of the framework in light of the additional work undertaken since 1982 and of theories and models consistent with this framework. Undertaking an overview and assessment of the IAD framework proves to be quite a challenge in 2006 given all of the attention paid to it. The elements involved in the framework are closely related to concepts that play an important role in related theories, such as those represented in the work of Douglass C. North, Oliver Williamson, and others in the "new institutional economics" tradition. Various aspects of the IAD approach are clarified by becoming aware of the difficulties to be overcome in undertaking any form of institutional analysis.