Institutional analysis helps to identify the constraints within an organization that can undermine policy implementation. These constraints may exist at the level of internal processes, concern relationships among organizations (e.g., between ministries), or be a product of the way that the system is organized (reporting hierarchies) or operates (the financial year is not followed in practice and accounts are not closed). Institutional analysis evaluates formal institutions, such as rules, resource allocation and authorization procedures. It also evaluates "soft" institutions, such as informal rules of the game, power relations and incentive structures, which underlie practices. In the latter sense, it identifies organizational stakeholders that are likely to support or obstruct a given reform. The analysis is most useful for complex reforms, such as delivery of public services or regulation of markets and decentralization, which affect institutional responsibilities or coordination.
The excerpt below, taken from the materials prepared for the 9 April 2002 workshop on PSIA, has more information on how to go about assessing the "rules of the game" in organizations. It discusses the institutional assessment tool (IAT), which PREM's Public Sector Group designed to help analysts structure their thinking about the complex institutional relationships and processes inherent in many reforms. It also discusses the technique of organizational mapping, used for tracing how specific organizations affect and are affected by reforms. It also includes an example of process mapping, which was carried out for a development project in Indonesia. Back to Tools and Methods for PSIA |
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