Policy, Governance and Democracy: International Perspectives

Running head: POLICY, GOVERNANCE AND DEMOCRACY
Policy, Governance and Democracy: International Perspectives
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1POLICY, GOVERNANCE AND DEMOCRACY
Introduction
The term neo-institutionalism or new institutionalism is referred to the school of thought
that focuses on developing a sociological view of institutions, the methods used by them to
interact as well as the way they affects the society. This school of thought provides the policy
makers a unique way of viewing institutions that is outside the traditional views of economy by
explaining how as well as why institutions emerge in a certain way within a provided context.
According to researches institutions shapes public policies and public policies shapes
institutions. Institutions are responsible for the flow information as well as ideas from the
environment along with their own perspectives about what comprises of a good policy.
Institution also helps to provide stability when it comes to the public policies along with a
credible commitment on the behalf of the government (Boyd, Crowson and Mawhinney 2015).
The policies that are being administered by an institution are also responsible for defining its
pattern of functioning along with its relationships with other organizations as well as actors in its
environment. In this policy brief selection of policy options to show recognition of pertinent
normative issues concerning governance and policy-making will be performed. Along with that,
the key strengths as well as weaknesses of the policy options will also be discussed in this report.
Three major approaches of new institutionalism
Among the three approaches to normative institutionalism, rational choice institutionalism and
historical institutionalism can be differentiated.
i. Normative Institutionalism
When it comes to normative institutionalism, it can be defined as the sociological
interpretation of institutions. According to this theory, logic of appropriateness should guide

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the behavior of the actors within the institution. Policies associated with normative
institutionalism, predicts that the norms as well as formal rules of institutions is responsible
for shaping the action of those acting within them. According to the normative
institutionalism, majority of the behavior of institutional actors depends upon the recognized
situation that are being encountered by the same, the identity of the actor in that particular
situation and the analysis of the rules by the actor that govern behavior for that actor at that
particular scenario. One of the chief proposals of the normative institutionalism approach
includes the decisions of the individuals are shaped by the memberships of the institutions.
According to this approach “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 idiosyncratic
preferences and expectations of individuals and changing external circumstances.”
Researchers supporting the normative institutionalism approach argued against considering
politics solely the refection of the society or micro aggregate consequences of an individual
actor. Instead the claimed that the purpose of politics as well as its direction should not be
considered as being only comprised of policy making as well as allocation of resources
(Scharpf 2018). They took an interest within the approaches in which institutionalized
regulations, norms and trendy working procedures impacted political behavior and argued
towards seeing political movement entirely as the result of calculation and self-involved
behavior.
When it comes to the concept of “logic of Appropriateness”, it has been argued that
decision making in politics is always guided by the logic of appropriateness, where
intentional are considered to be intentional but not willful. This logic can be understood in a

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better way by considering the logic of consenquality, where behaviors are driven by prefaces.
According to the “Logic of Appropriateness”, individual possess the habit of selecting
subject to themselves according to the ruling framework and act accordingly within the limits
(Alasuutari 2015). For instance, firemen willingly enter buildings that are on fire since it is
an action they are supposed to take in relation to their profession.
Weakness of the normative institutionalism approach
As argued by Diermeier (2015), the concept of the Narrative institutionalism has received
severe criticism from several researchers, especially from the rational choice Institutionalism
theorists. They pointed out that this concept lacks explicit argument about the human
behavior. Along with that, it has also been argued that the human component has been left
out of their explanation of decision-making.
ii. Rational Choice Institutionalism
In comparison to Normative or Sociological Institutionalism, in RCI, actors are central to the
motives. Under this approach, institutions are visible as sets of tremendous and terrible
motivations for individuals, with character maximization presenting the dynamic for behavior.
RCI applies theoretical tools originated in economics. Its principal functions are methodological
individualism and the assumption that people react rationally, this is, based totally on
preferences, that can be classified ordinarily (Wiarda 2018). Thus, instead of self-interest, these
rankings of options provide guidance to the decisions under RCI. This technique is primarily
based on the premises that (a) each choice-making state of affairs provides specific incentives for