PEDU 6209
Policy Studies in Education
Topic 7
The Meso Context of Policy Studies:
The Institution
Boundedness and Embeddedness
of Public Policy
 If public policy is (for simplicity sake) defined as what
the state choose to act or not to act, these state actors
certainly act in particular historical, socioeconomic,
cultural and political contexts.
 In the field of policy-making studies, it is common
knowledge that policy-makers cannot employ their
rationality freely to seek the maximal solutions for the
policy problems at hand. As Herbert Simon has aptly
reminded us that policy-makers' rationalities are
"bounded" by the relational networks and the
institutional environment, in which they reside.
Boundedness and Embeddedness
of Public Policy
 In the field of policy-implementation studies, it has
become conventional wisdom that the state cannot
omni-potently impose a policy directive onto the policy
field and expects it to be carried out to the full because
individuals as well as organizations responsible for
the implementation are not operate in social vacuum
but are heavily embedded in relational networks and
institutional environments.
Boundedness and Embeddedness
of Public Policy
 These conceptions of boundedness and
embeddedness emerged from policy studies can be
put against the theoretical framework of new
institutionalism and construe them as enduring
patterns found in institutions, organizations,
interpersonal relationship, or even personal habitual
actions and perceptions.
Concept of Institution: The Contextual
Embeddedness of Public Policy
 Douglass C. North stipulates that “institutions are
rules of the game in a society or more formally, are
the humanly devised constraint that shape human
interaction. In consequence they structure incentives
in human exchange, whether political, social or
economic.” (North, 1990, p. 3)
Concept of Institution: The Contextual
Embeddedness of Public Policy
 Elinor Ostrom writes, “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 government at all scales. Individuals
interacting within rule-structured situations face
choices regarding the actions and strategies they take,
leading to consequences for themselves and for
others." (Ostrom, 2005, P.3)
Concept of Institution: The Contextual
Embeddedness of Public Policy
 James March and Johan Olsen’s conception:
“An institution is a relatively enduring collection of
rules and organized practices, embedded in structures
of meaning and resources that are relatively invariant
in the face of turnover of individuals and relatively
resilient to the idiosyncratic preferences and
expectations of individuals and changing external
circumstances.” (March and Olsen, 2006, p.1)
Concept of Institution: The Contextual
Embeddedness of Public Policy
 James March and Johan Olsen’s conception:
According, in institutions
 “There are constitutive rules and practices prescribing
appropriate behavior for specific actors in specific situations.
 There are structures of meaning, embedded in identities and
belongings: common purposes and accounts that give
direction and meaning to behavior, and explain, justify and
legitimate behavioral codes.
 There are structures of resources that create capabilities for
action.” (ibid)
Concept of Institution: The Contextual
Embeddedness of Public Policy
 John Campbell’s conception:
“Institutions …consist of formal and informal rules,
monitoring and enforcing mechanisms, and systems of
meaning that define the context within which individuals,
corporations, labor unions, nation-states and other
organizations operate and interact with each other.
Institutions are settlements born from struggle and
bargaining. They reflect the resources and power of those
who made them and, in turn, affect the distribution of
resources and power in society. Once created, institutions
are powerful external forces that help determine how people
make sense of their world and act in it. They channel and
regulate conflict and thus ensure stability in society.”
(Campbell, 2004, p. 1)
Concept of Institution: The Contextual
Embeddedness of Public Policy
 Richard Scott’s conception
“Institutions consist of cognitive, normative, and
regulative structures and activities that provide stability
and meaning to social behavior. Institutions are
transported by various carries ── cultures, structures,
and routines── and they operate at multiple levels of
jurisdiction.” (Scott, 1995, p.33)
Concept of Institution: The Contextual
Embeddedness of Public Policy
 Peter Berger and Thomas Luckmann indicate that
“institutionalization occurs whenever there is a
reciprocal typiifcation of habitualized actions by types
of actors. Put differently, any such typification is an
institution. What must be stressed is the reciprocity of
institutional typifications and the typicality of not only
the actions but the actors in institution. The
typifications of habitualized actions that constitute
institutions are always shared ones. They are available
to all members of the particular social group in question,
and the institution itself typifies individual actors as well
as individual actions.” (1966, p. 72)
Academic Origins of
New Institutionalism
 One of initiative of the new institutionalist perspective is
the reaction to prevailing perspectives in political
sciences in the 1960s. One is the “old institutionalism”,
which focuses their studies of the political institutions
on formal-legal structure of the government, e.g. the
legislative, executive and juridical structures. The other
is the political behavior approach, which applies the
behaviorism in psychology and concentrate o analyzing
the political behaviors of individual political actors, such
as voters. In reaction to them, new institutionalism
focuses on the political meanings, symbols and cultures
that constitute the regularity and durability underwriting
the political institution and its structures.
Academic Origins of
New Institutionalism
 Another initiative of the new institutionalist perspective
is the reaction to the methodological individualism found
in economics, which manifest in theories of rational
choice and preference. In reaction to these, new
institutionalism put its emphasis on meanings and
cultures, i.e. the logic of appropriateness, underlying
human behaviors and choice. Hence, the new
institutionalism reinstates the methodological
collectivism (or more specifically methodological
institutionalism) in economics by accounting for
economic actions with social units such as firms,
classes, status groups, ethnic groups, nation, the
commons, and so on rather than individuals’ preferences
and choices.
Ronald Coase
Nobel Lareate in
Economic Science in 1991
Douglas North
Nobel Lareate in
Economic Science in 1993
Nobel Lareate in
Economic Science in 1993
Nobel Lareate in Economic Science in 2009
Oliver E. Williamson & Elinor Ostrom
(1932(1933-2012)
Academic Origins of
New Institutionalism
 In sociology, the rise of new institutionalism is mainly
in reaction to the legal-rational system model prevailing
in organization studies and the structural-functionalism
dominating the marco-sociological studies, such as
development studies. Based on the social
phenomenological perspective made popular by Berger
and Luckmann in their work The Social Construction of
Reality (1967), new institutionalists emphasize the
informal structure of organization and the subjective
elements underlying patterned actions and enduring
practices.
The Perspectives in New Institutionalism
 Peter Hall and R.C.R. Taylor have distinguished three
perspectives in new institutionalism in political science:
 Historical Institutionalism:
 This perspective tends to see enduring human behavior-patterns
as outcomes evolve from specific historical and socio-economic
contexts. Hence “historical institutionalists tend to view have a
view of institutional development that emphasizes path
dependence and unintended consequences.” (P. 938)
 “Historical institutionalists define institution the formal or
informal procedures, routines, norms and conventions
embedded in the organizational structure of the polity or political
economy. They can range from the rules of a conventional order
or the standard operating procedures of a bureaucracy to the
conventional governing trade union behaviour or bank-firm
relations.” (P. 938)
The Perspectives in New Institutionalism
 Peter Hall and R.C.R. Taylor …
 Historical Institutionalism: …
 “In this perspective, the individual is seen as an entity deeply
embedded in a world of institutions, composed of symbols,
scripts and routines, which provide the filters for interpretation,
of both the situation and oneself, out of which a course of action
is constructed. Not only do institutions provide strategicallyuseful information, they also affect the very identities, selfimages and preferences of the actions.” (p. 939)\
The Perspectives in New Institutionalism
 Peter Hall and R.C.R. Taylor …
 Rational-choice institutionalism:
 “The rational choice institutionalists in political science drew
fruitful analytical tools from the ‘new economics of organization’,
which emphasizes the importance of property rights, rentseeking, and transactions costs, to the operation and
development of institutions. Especially influential was
Willamson’s argument that the particular organizational form can
be explained as the result of an effort to reduce the transaction
cost of undertaking the same activity without such as
institutions.” (P. 943)
 Rational-choice institutionalists “posit that the relevant actors
have a fixed set of preferences or tastes, …behave entirely
instrumentally so to maximize the attainment of these
preferences and do so in a highly strategic manner that
presumes extensive calculation.” (Pp. 944-945)
The Perspectives in New Institutionalism
 Peter Hall and R.C.R. Taylor …
 Rational-choice institutionalism:…
 “Rational-choice institutionalist tend to see politics as a series of
collective action dilemmas. The latter can be defined as
instances when individuals acting to maximizing the attainment
of their own preferences are likely to produce an outcome that is
collectively suboptimal. …Typically, what prevents the actors
from taking a collectively-superior course of action is absence of
institutional arrangements that would guarantee complementary
behaviour by others. Classic examples includes the ‘prisoner’s
dilemma’ and the ‘tragedy of the commons’ and the political
situations present a varieties of such problems.” (P. 945)
The Perspectives in New Institutionalism
 Peter Hall and R.C.R. Taylor …
 Sociological institutionalism:
 "The sociological institutionalists tend to define
institutions …not just formal rules, procedures or norms, but the
symbol systems, cognitive scripts, and moral templates that
provide the 'frames of meaning' guiding human action." (p. 948)
Accordingly, they "argue that many of the institutional forms and
procedures used by organizations were not adopted simply
because they were most efficient for the tasks at hand. …Instead,
they argued that many forms and procedures should be seen as
culturally-specific practices, akin to the myths and ceremonies
derived by many societies." (p. 947)
The Perspectives in New Institutionalism
 Peter Hall and R.C.R. Taylor …
 Sociological institutionalism: …
 To some sociologists of new institutionalism, individual actions
are construed as role performances or prescriptive norms of
behavior attached in particular institutional contexts. "In this
view, individuals who have been socialized into particular
institutional roles internalize the norms associated with these
roles, and in this way institutions are said to affect behaviour." (P.
948) Furthermore, some sociological institutionalists "emphasize
the way in which institutions influence behaviour by providing
the cognitive scripts, categories and models that are
indispensable for action, not least because without them the
world and the behaviour of others cannot be interpreted.
Institutions influence behaviour not simply by specifying what
one should do but also by specifying what one can imagine
oneself in a given context." (p. 948)
The Perspectives in New Institutionalism
 Peter Hall and R.C.R. Taylor …
 Sociological institutionalism: …
 One of the distinctive features of the sociological institutionalism
is the explanation it offered for the endurance of institutional
practices. Instead of accounting them for rational-choices out of
game situations or traditional "dependent paths" inherited from
the past, sociologists in new institutionalism strive to reveal the
legitimate bases from which reciprocal practices among social
actors derived and consensual arrangements among reasonable
agents endure.
Conceptual Apparatuses in the Studies of
Institutional Effects: Why Institutions Endure?
 The conception of institutional elements: Richard Scott
suggests that “institution are viewed as made up of
three component elements” (1994, p.56) or as he later
called three pillars (1995)
 The regulative pillar: The effect or order of institutions is
accounted for by ways of emphasizing the prominence of
explicit regulative processes prevailing in institutions. They
consist of “rule-setting, monitoring, and sanctioning activities”
undertaken in institutions. Hence, the institutional effects, i.e.
the institutional order, depend on “the capacity to establish
rules, inspect or review others’ conformity to them, and as
necessary, manipulate sanctions ──rewards or
punishments── in an attempt to influence future behavior.”
(Scotts, 1995, p. 35)
Conceptual Apparatuses in the Studies of
Institutional Effects: Why Institutions Endure?
 The conception of institutional elements: Richard Scott
suggests that “institution are viewed as made up of
three component elements” (1994, p.56) or as he later
called three pillars (1995)
 The normative pillar: Theorists emphasize the normative pillar
in accounting for institutional effects by focusing on the
“prescriptive, evaluative, and obligatory dimensions” of social
life. “Normative systems include both values and norms.
Values are conceptions of the preferred or the desirable
together with the construction of the standards to which
existing structures or behavior can be compared and assessed.
Norms specify how things should be done; they define
legitimate means to pursue value ends.” (p. 37)
Conceptual Apparatuses in the Studies of
Institutional Effects: Why Institutions Endure?
 The conception of institutional elements: Richard Scott
suggests that “institution are viewed as made up of
three component elements” (1994, p.56) or as he later
called three pillars (1995)
 The cognitive pillar: The institutional effects can also be
accounted for by emphasizing cognitive elements in
institutions, which refer to “the rules that constitute the nature
of reality and the frames through which meaning is made.” (p.
40) Constitutive rules have been identified as the foremost
cognitive elements in this perspective. By constitutive rules, it
refers “rules involve the creation of categories and the
construction of typifications: processes by which ‘concrete
and subjectively unique experiences… are ongoingly
subsumed under general orders of meaning that are both
objectively and subjectively real.” (p.41)
Conceptual Apparatuses in the Studies of
Institutional Effects: Why Institutions Endure?
Conceptual Apparatuses in the Studies of
Institutional Effects: Why Institutions Endure?
 Levels of institutional analysis: “Institutional
arrangements (i.e. elements) can be found at a variety of
levels in social system – in societies, in organizational
fields, in individual organizations, and in primary and
small groups” (Rowan & Miskel, 1999, p. 359; Scott,
1995, p. 55-60)
 System level – The conception of Institutional environment
 Institutional environment: “Institutional environments are, by
definition, those characterized by the elaboration of rules and
requirements to which individual organizations must conform if
they are to receive support and legitimacy” (Scott and Meyer,
1991, p.123)
 Two of the most prominent institutional environments in modern
society are the nation-state and market, both of which share one
of the most salient features of modernity, namely, rationality.
Conceptual Apparatuses in the Studies of
Institutional Effects: Why Institutions Endure?
 Levels of institutional analysis:
 Sector level – The conception of organizational fields
 Organizational field: It refers to “a community of
organizations that partakes of a common meanings
system and whose participants interact more frequently
and fatefully with one another than with actors outside of
the field.” Hence, “fields are defined in terms of shared
cognitive or normative frameworks or a common
regulative system.” (Scott, 1995, p. 56)
Conceptual Apparatuses in the Studies of
Institutional Effects: Why Institutions Endure?
 Levels of institutional analysis:
 Sector level – The conception of organizational fields
 Isomorphism: Organizations in an a organization field
tends to become homogenous in terms of cognitive,
normative and regulative aspects of the organizations. The
concept best captures this process is isomorphism.
“Isomorphism is a constraining process that forces one
unit in a population to resemble other units that face the
same set of environmental conditions.
 Two of the forces at work in modern society are efficiency
and legitimacy. The former is more likely to be related to
the competitiveness of the market, while the latter to the
state.
Conceptual Apparatuses in the Studies of
Institutional Effects: Why Institutions Endure?
 Levels of institutional analysis:
 Organization level – The formal structure of the
organization
 To comply with the isomorphic constraints of the
organizational field and institutional environment,
individual organizations have to structure themselves in
regulative, normative and cognitive aspects to meet with
the institutional elements of the filed and environment.
 As a result, two of the ideal types of formal structure of the
organizations have constituted in modern society, the firm
and the bureaucracy of government agencies.
Conceptual Apparatuses in the Studies of
Institutional Effects: Why Institutions Endure?
 Levels of institutional analysis:
 Human interaction level – “reciprocal typifications and
interpretations of habitualized actions”
 Members of an individual organization, organizational field,
or institutional environment will share many
commonalities in meanings, interpretations, and
typifications, i.e. common cognitive elements.
 They will institutionalize common languages, interacting
and communicating patterns, and routines in practices.
 They will also institute common “logic of appropriateness
and normative elements.
 Their interactions are also subjected to the regulative
elements of the institution in which they find themselves.
Conceptual Apparatuses in the Studies of
Institutional Effects: Why Institutions Endure?
 Levels of institutional analysis:
 Individual level - Internalization and Identity
 In reaction to rational choice theory, new institutionalism
perceives individuals not simply as actors governed by rational
calculus of preferences and self-interest, i.e. logic of
consequences (James, 1994, p.3) but as agent having
internalized set of norms, values and rules and their agency is
governed by the logic of appropriateness of particular
institutional settings.
 “When individuals and organizations fulfill identities, they follow
rules or procedures that they see as appropriate to the situation
in which they find themselves. Neither preference as they are
normally conceived nor expectations of future consequences
enter directly into the calculus.” (March, 1994, p. 57)
Conceptual Apparatuses in the Studies of
Institutional Effects: Why Institutions Endure?
 The concept of isomorphism: New Institutionalism at
organizational level
 Conception of isomorphism: New institutionalists stipulate that
organizations in modern rational institutional environment
and/or organizational field tend to develop similar structures,
procedures and practices (organizational elements in Meyer &
Rowan's terminology). They term this process of
homogenization of organization isomorphism. "Isomorphism is
a constraining process that forces one unit in a population to
resemble other units that face the same set of environmental
conditions." (DiMaggio & Powell, 1991, p.66)
Conceptual Apparatuses in the Studies of
Institutional Effects: Why Institutions Endure?
 The concept of isomorphism …
 Distinction between competitive and institutional isomorphism:
DiMaggio & Powell (1991) and Meyer & Rowan (1991) have
made similar distinctions between competitive and institutional
isomorphism.
 By competitive isomorphism, it refers to the process of
homogenization of organizations taken place in "those field
which free and open competition exists." (DiMaggio & Powell,
1991, p.66) Organizations in these fields usually possess "clearly
defined technologies to produce outputs" and therefore those
"outputs can be easily evaluated" (Meyer & Rowan, 1991, p. 54)
As a result, development of common organizational elements, i.e.
isomorphism, can be attained through market competition,
competitive niche, standardized output performance and
organizational efficiency. (DiMaggio & Powell, 1991, p. 66)
Conceptual Apparatuses in the Studies of
Institutional Effects: Why Institutions Endure?
 The concept of isomorphism…
 Distinction between competitive and institutional isomorphism:
 By institutional isomorphism, it refers to the process of
homogenization of organizations invoked in the context of
"collective organized society" (Meyer & Rowan, 1991, p. 49) in
which institutional environment of modern bureaucratic states
have replaced market mechanism to act as institutional rules of
the field. As a result, in institutional organizations, the
development of common organizational elements can not be
attain by market competition and internal efficiency, instead
"they incorporate elements which are legitimated externally" and
"they employ external or ceremonial assessment criteria to
define the value of structural elements." (Meyer & Rowan, 1991, p.
49)
Conceptual Apparatuses in the Studies of
Institutional Effects: Why Institutions Endure?
 The concept of isomorphism…
 Mechanism of institutional isomorphism
DiMaggio & Powell identify three mechanism through which
institutional isomorphism are achieved, maintained or changed.
The thesis can be taken as analysis apparatus to study how
schools, as institutional organization, adopt to education
policy changes.
Conceptual Apparatuses in the Studies of
Institutional Effects: Why Institutions Endure?
 The concept of isomorphism…
 Mechanism of institutional isomorphism
 Coercive isomorphism: "Coercive isomorphism results from
both formal and informal pressures exerted on organizations by
other organizations upon which they are dependent and by
cultural expectations in the society within which organizations
function. Such pressures may be felt as force, as persuasion, or
as invitations to join in collusion." (DiMaggio & Powell, 1991, p.
67)
Organizational restructures undertaken by HK schools in
response to Quality-Assurance Inspection, School Self
Evaluation, External School Review, Senior-Secondary
Curriculum reform, School-based Management and Incorporated
Management Committee, etc. may be analyze in light of the
concept of coercive isomorphism.
Conceptual Apparatuses in the Studies of
Institutional Effects: Why Institutions Endure?
 The concept of isomorphism…
 Mechanism of institutional isomorphism
 Mimetic isomorphism: Apart from coercive authority,
"uncertainty is also a powerful force that encourages imitation.
When organizational technologies are poorly understood, when
goals are ambiguous, or when the environment creates symbolic
uncertainty, organizations may model themselves on other
organization." (DiMaggio & Powell, 1991, p. 69)
Confronted by collective puzzlement in policy implementation,
such as those initiated by Senior-Secondary curriculum reform
or more specifically the teaching of Liberal Studies, or SchoolSelf Evaluation, most HK schools could only imitate, model or
simply copy from other schools.
Conceptual Apparatuses in the Studies of
Institutional Effects: Why Institutions Endure?
 The concept of isomorphism…
 Mechanism of institutional isomorphism
 Normative isomorphism: Instead of compliance with modern
institutional environments of competitive market or bureaucraticrational state, isomorphism may take the form of
professionalization. Organizations and their operations, which
are predominately identified with a profession, such as hospitals
with doctors and schools with teachers, can incorporate
cognitive, normative and regulative bases of that profession into
their organizations and apply them as criteria in assessing the
performance as well and legitimation bases of their organization.
Conceptual Apparatuses in the Studies of
Institutional Effects: Why Institutions Endure?
 The concept of social capital: New institutionalism at
interpersonal level:
 According to Berger and Luckmann, institution embeds in
individuals and groups of individuals in the form of "reciprocal
typifications" and "habitualized actions." In recent years
sociologists have initiated concepts such as social network
and social capital to depict the enduring interpersonal
relationship in institutional context. For example Lin
conceptualizes that "social capital as …is rooted in social
network and social relations, and must be measured relative to
its roots. Therefore social capital can be defined as resources
embedded in a social structure which are accessed and/or
mobilized in purposive action." (Lin, 2001, p.12)
Conceptual Apparatuses in the Studies of
Institutional Effects: Why Institutions Endure?
 The concept of social capital:
 Portes and Sensenbrenner (1998) have specified four sources
from which enduring interpersonal co-operations, i.e. social
capitals, are constituted.
 Value introjection: It refers to "moral character" and "value
imperatives" individuals learned in the process of socialization.
(Portes and Sensenbrenner, 1998, p. 129) This resource is
basically in congruent with Beger and Luckmann's conception of
internalization in the process of institutionalization at individual
level.
 Reciprocity transactions: It "consists of an accumulation of
'chits' earned through previous good deeds to others, backed by
the norm of reciprocity." In comparison with value introjection, in
this type of social capital "individuals are not expected to behave
according to a higher group morality but rather to pure selfish
end." (p. 130)
Conceptual Apparatuses in the Studies of
Institutional Effects: Why Institutions Endure?
 The concept of social capital:
 Portes and Sensenbrenner (1998) have specified four sources
from which enduring interpersonal co-operations, i.e. social
capitals, are constituted.
 Bounded solidarity: It refers to social capitals invoke from
"situational circumstances leading to the emergence of
principled group-orientated behavior. …Its classic sources are
best exemplified by Marx and Engels's analysis of the rise of
proletarian consciousness and the transformation of workers
into class for themselves." (p. 130)
This type of collective sentiments grown out of common (usually
socially inferior) situations can also be found in unions, minority
groups, etc.
Conceptual Apparatuses in the Studies of
Institutional Effects: Why Institutions Endure?
 The concept of social capital:
 Portes and Sensenbrenner (1998) have specified four sources
from which enduring interpersonal co-operations, i.e. social
capitals, are constituted.
 Enforceable trust: It refers of social capitals grown out of
community, in which "particularistic rewards and sanctions" are
enforceable on its members in the form of collective expectation
and trusts. This type of social capitals may manifest in informal
institutional settings such as peer group pressures or solidarity
within new immigrant communities or in formal institutional
setting such as community sanction in professional associations.
Conceptual Apparatuses in the Studies of
Institutional Changes
Identifying types of institutional changes
Categorization of institutional changes
Evolutionary or incremental changes: It has been signified
within the perspective that "Institutions are sticky and prone
to inertia and, as a result, change quite gradually." Hence,
changes undertaken by institutions have commonly been
characterized as evolutionary changes. By evolutionary
changes, it refers to "continuous change that proceeds in
small, incremental steps along a single path in certain
direction." (Campbell, 2004, p. 33)
Conceptual Apparatuses in the Studies of
Institutional Changes
Identifying types of institutional changes
Categorization of institutional changes…
Revolutionary changes or punctuated equilibrium: Despite
the institutional inertia and resistance to change, "some
scholars recognize, nonetheless, that relatively rapid and
profound institutional change does occur sometimes. They
often describe this discontinuous pattern of change as
punctuated equilibrium." (Campbell, 2004, p. 34)
Conceptual Apparatuses in the Studies of
Institutional Changes
Identifying types of institutional changes
Categorization of institutional changes…
Punctuated evolution: Some scholars further specify that
"The periods of equilibrium occurring between punctuations
are better characterized as evolutionary rather than static."
Hence, they prefer to characterize change in institutions as
punctuated evolution. That is, there are evolutionary changes
in terms of self reflection and social learning within periods of
equilibrium and equilibrium may be "punctuated occasionally
by crises that involve open struggle over the very core of the
institutional status quo and the eventually result in truly
fundamental institutional transformation." (p. 34)
Conceptual Apparatuses in the Studies of
Institutional Changes
Identifying types of institutional changes
Identifying the dimensions of changes
Scott’s conception of three pillars
• Changes in regulative dimension of pillars
• Changes in normative dimension of institutions
• Changes in cognitive dimension of institutions
Levels of abstraction
•
•
•
•
•
•
World systemic level
Societal level
Discursive level
Organizational level
Interactive level
Individual cognitive level
Conceptual Apparatuses in the Studies of
Institutional Changes
Identifying types of institutional changes
Identifying the time frame: Time frame refers to the
duration of time within which institutional changes are
set against for investigation.
Conceptual Apparatuses in the Studies of
Institutional Changes
 Explaining institutional changes: John Campbell (2004)
has stipulated the causal mechanism accounting for
institutional changes as follows
 Negative feedbacks and critical junctures on dependence path:
As indicated above the maintaining and sustaining of
institutional patterns depends on the continuous feedbacks
from the prevailing "dependence path" of the institution.
(Pierson, 2004) However, as negative feedbacks from the
dependence path appear and subsequently accumulated to a
critical point. It may then trigger fundamental changes in
institution. (Campbell, 2004, p.65-68)
Conceptual Apparatuses in the Studies of
Institutional Effects: Why Institutions Endure?
 Explaining institutional changes:
 Bricolage: It refers to innovations in combining existing
repertoire of institutional principles and practices so as to
solve crises or dilemma confronting an institution. (Campbell,
2004, p. 69) According to March and Olsen's conception,
bricolage can be categorized into
 Substantive bricolage: It refers to innovative combination of wellestablished technical principles or practices within an institution
in order to bring about adjustment or fundamental change.
 Symbolic bricolage: It refers to innovative combination of
normative and cognitive principles and practices so as to
reconcile normative or cognitive conflicts invoked by changes.
Conceptual Apparatuses in the Studies of
Institutional Effects: Why Institutions Endure?
 Explaining institutional changes:
 The role of institutional entrepreneurs or bricoleurs: The
conception of institutional entrepreneurs or bricoleurs can
specify the agent of change in the causal explanation of
institutional changes. The performance entrepreneurs depend
basically on two factors, namely their connectivity within the
institution and the availability of repertoires to be combined.
As Campbell indicates "entrepreneurs with more diverse social,
organizational, and institutional connections tends to have
more expansive repertoires with which to work. In turn, the
broader their repertoire, the more likely they are to create a
bricolage that is very creative and revolutionary rather than
one that is less creative and evolutionary, (Campbell, 2004,
p.75)
Conceptual Apparatuses in the Studies of
Institutional Effects: Why Institutions Endure?
 Explaining institutional changes:
 Diffusion, translation and enactment:
 Changes in punctuated equilibrium may not be invoked by
bricoleurs from within an institution. It may be triggered by input
from other institutions. In other words, institutional innovation or
changes may diffuse and circulated among institutions. Hence,
institutional changes can be copies and learnt.
 However, input of changes or innovations from outside will not
be copied automatically and totally by a given institution. They
must be translated and innovatively combined with existing
principles and practice.
 Finally, in order for any principles and practice input from
without to substantiate within a given institution, they must be
internalized cognitively or normatively by members of the
institution to become part of their daily routines and practice. In
other words, changes have to be enacted by members on daily
basis.
Conceptual Tools in the
Perspective New Institutionalism
 Explaining institutional changes:
 Normative and cognitive ideas about institutional changes
 In accounting for institutional changes, new institutionalists play
particular attentions to how agents accept (interpret, identify,
internalize, enact, etc.) new ideas and in turn make changes in
their practices, i.e. agencies.
 Typology of ideas about institutional change: Campbell has
constructed a framework to classify ideas into paradigms, public
sentiments, programs and frames.
Conceptual Tools in the
Perspective New Institutionalism
 Explaining institutional changes:
 Normative and cognitive ideas about institutional changes
 Typology of actors and their ideational roles: According to the
classification of ideas, Campbell has further differentiated actors
within an institution into five ideational roles
Education Policy Changes as
Education Institutional Changes
 Policy changes at the level institutional environment:
Policy changes can be conceived as changes in the
institutional environments of modern societies.
 The transformation of monarchical state to formal-rational
bureaucratic state in the 18th to 19th centuries have brought
fundamental changes to the institutional environment to the
educational sector, i.e. organizational field of schooling. As a
result, education policy assumed the role of part of the
apparatus of modern-state formation. It in turn triggered global
education reform which changed schooling into statecontrolled, bureaucratic organized, specialized and
standardized, universal and compulsory schooling systems.
(Boli and Ranirz, 1986; Boli and Meyer, 1985; Meyer and
Ramirez, 2000; Ramirz and Boli 1982 & 1987)
Education Policy Changes as
Education Institutional Changes
 Policy changes at the level institutional environment:
Policy changes can be conceived as changes in the
institutional environments of modern societies.
 The recent education reform undertaken by governments in
most of the developed countries in the last two decades, can
be account for as the another waves of changes in the
technological and institutional environments of the rise of
network society and information age and subsequent
transformations of Keynesian Welfare National State (KWNS)
to Schumpterian Worlfare Postnation Regime (SWPR)
(Campbell and Pederson, 2001; Rowan, 2006; Harvey, 2005)
Education Policy Changes as
Education Institutional Changes
 Policy changes at the level of societal sector and
organizational field: In response to the changes in
institutional environments, different organizational
fields, such as those of basic education and/or higher
education, have to undertake correspondent changes in
their regulative, normative and cognitive
elements/pillars.
 The institutionalization of modern education system taken
place since the 18th century in the forms of (i) standardization
of examination and certification system; (ii) formalization of
curriculum and instructional practices, and (iii) legalrationalization of school management can all be construed as
responses to the institutionalization of the rational imperatives
of institutional environments of modern state as well as
industrial-capital economy.
Education Policy Changes as
Education Institutional Changes
 Policy changes at the level of societal sector and
organizational field:
 Recent education reforms in the forms of (i) modularization
and flexiblization of curriculum and instructional practice, (ii)
deregualtion, devolution, performance-based evaluation of
school management, (iii) privatization and liberalization of
school place supply can all be understood in the institutional
contexts of competition state and global-informational
economy.
Education Policy Changes as
Education Institutional Changes
 Policy changes at the level of organization: In
responses to the changes in institutional environments,
societal sectors, and organization fields, individual
organizations have to re-institutionalization their
regulative, normative and cognitive elements. As a
result, isomorphism among organizations, such as
schools, began to take shape.
 The school organizations, which take the forms of centralized,
bureaucratized, standardized and publicly funded, can be
understood as the result of isomorphic changes in the societal
sector or organizational field of education.
Education Policy Changes as
Education Institutional Changes
 Policy changes at the level of organization:
 The school re-structuring reforms, which take the directions of
decentralization, de-bureaucratization, and privatization, can
also be account for as responses to the isomorphic pressures
from the organizational field of education in the network
society.
Education Policy Changes as
Education Institutional Changes
 Policy changes at the level of human interaction level:
The fundamental effects of any policy and institutional
changes have to be institutionalized into patterns of
human interactions. They will affect the “reciprocal
typifications and interpretations of habitualized actions”
among members of a given organization and institution.
 Since the 19th century, the “reciprocal typification and
interpretation of habitualized interactions” between role
occupants of teachers and students, teachers and school
management staffs, teachers and government official have
been institutionalized according to the centralized and
bureaucratized organizational structure in industrial society.
Education Policy Changes as
Education Institutional Changes
 Policy changes at the level of human interaction level:
 In response to the rise of the network society and network
organization in the new millennium, the interaction patterns
including its respective cognitive, normative and regulative
bases, have to undertake correspondent changes, which can
be characterized as compatible, flexible, dispensable,
deleteable and even virtual.
11
Meso Context of Policy Studies:
The Institution
END