Actor-centered institutionalism in public policy

Abstract

Actor-centered institutionalism is a theoretical framework for the study of public policy and political economy that provides a bridge between theories of (formal) institutional arrangements and their constraining effects over political outcomes, on the one hand, and approaches that foreground the role of boundedly rational actors and their strategic motivations, on the other. It provides conceptual tools for interaction-oriented policy research by theorizing how constellations of individual and composite actors, their action orientations (cognitive, normative and interactive) and modes of interaction (unilateral action, negotiations, voting and hierarchy) influence choices of policy and their implementation.