Understanding Institutional Diversity

Elinor Ostronr s Understanding Institutional Diversity draws an analogy between genetic rules of biological organisms and social rules of communities of humans. Just as natural scientists accumulated knowledge in the human genome project, the institutional analysis and development (IAD) framework is presented as the scaffolding for accumulation of knowledge on institutions. It is a framework that many social scientists will appreciate, because of its notion that knowledge about institutions can only be attained in real-life action situations. For Ostrom, social scientists are like engineers facing complex technologies: the recognition of rules does not solve a dilemma but opens up chances for tinkering with…