institutional change and rule configurations

The most recent issue of the Journal of Institutional Economics is dedicated to the “evolution of institutions.”   Several interesting articles.  The piece that caught my eye outlines a “diagnostic tool for analyzing institutional dynamism.”  The article is written by Elinor Ostrom and Xavier Basurto, titled “Crafting analytical tools to study institutional change.”

So, the paper tries to, very practically, offer a framework of sorts for studying configurations of rules and systems.  Table 1, below, summarizes the defaults for their various “rule types” (boundaries, aggregation, information etc).  The authors, then, apply the framework to a typical “commons” problem: irrigation systems.

A pretty straightforward, interesting paper.  The paper of course has a normative, design flavor (in a refreshing way).  And, it also has a very set-theoretic feel (e.g., see Table 3) and indeed cites the work of Charles Ragin.  (Of course, Peer Fiss has lately been doing lots of work in this space, highlighting the potential of fuzzy sets type methods for comparative organizational analysis.)

Worth a read.