Institutional analysis is that part of the social sciences which studies how institutions—i.e., structures and mechanisms of social order and cooperation governing the behavior of two or more individuals—behave and function according to both empirical rules (informal rules-in-use and norms) and also theoretical rules (formal rules and law). This field deals with how individuals and groups construct institutions, how institutions function in practice, and the effects of institutions on society.
Since institutional analysis is focused on the systematic study of people's collective behaviour in institutions, its ability to explain major political, social, or historical events is sometimes contrasted with the use of conspiracy theory to explain such events, since the latter focuses on explaining such events by a secret, and often deceptive, plot by a covert coalition of small numbers of powerful or influential individuals rather than by the systematic, regular, publicly documented behaviour of the institutions.
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Famous quotes containing the word analysis:
“Whatever else American thinkers do, they psychologize, often brilliantly. The trouble is that psychology only takes us so far. The new interest in families has its merits, but it will have done us all a disservice if it turns us away from public issues to private matters. A vision of things that has no room for the inner life is bankrupt, but a psychology without social analysis or politics is both powerless and very lonely.”
—Joseph Featherstone (20th century)