Christopher M. Weible and Tanya Heikkila, University of Colorado Denver
Research applying the “Institutional Grammar” (IG), originally by Crawford and Ostrom in the 1990s, has led to several adaptations of the IG that have improved our precision in dissecting and analyzing institutional statements. Such research has proven valuable in helping us understand how different types of institutions are designed and how such designs vary by context. Yet, methodological and conceptual challenges remain for applying IG approaches to a large number of institutional statements and upscaling the analyses from individual institutional statements to public policies as a whole. This presentation will discuss a methodological approach for applying insights from the IG using semi-automated text analyses to address these challenges. To demonstrate the applicability of the methods, we present results from three empirical applications that explore the design of public policies addressing oil and gas development in the United States. We conclude with recommendations to further advance knowledge of how public policies are designed and how those designs matter for policy processes.
Related literature: Weible, et al. (2020) and Heikkila et al. (2021)
