Dissecting Policy Designs: An Application of the Institutional Grammar Tool
Open accessAbstract
An enduring challenge for the policy and political sciences is valid and reliable depiction of policy designs. One emerging approach for dissecting policy designs is the application of Sue Crawford and Elinor Ostrom's institutional grammar tool. The grammar tool offers a method to identify, systematically, the core elements that comprise policies, including target audiences, expected patterns of behavior, and formal modes of sanctioning for noncompliance. This article provides three contributions to the study of policy designs by developing and applying the institutional grammar tool. First, we provide revised guidelines for applying the institutional grammar tool to the study of policy design. Second, an additional component to the grammar, called the oBject, is introduced. Third, we apply the modified grammar tool to four policies that shape Colorado State Aquaculture to demonstrate its effectiveness and utility in illuminating institutional linkages across levels of analysis. The conclusion summarizes the contributions of the article as well as points to future research and applications of the institutional grammar tool.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Claims the paper makes
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
Each institutional statement can be decomposed into Attribute, Deontic, Aim/Object, Conditions, and Or-else components.
“To enable systematic analysis, each institutional statement can be decomposed into syntactic components, commonly summarized as Attribute (actor), Deontic (permission, obligation, or prohibition), Aim/Object (action), Conditions (context), and Or-else (sanction).”
From Governance in Practice: How Open Source Projects Define and Document Roles (2026) · cites this paper as [47]
Cites
Content Analysis in Mass Communication: Assessment and Reporting of Intercoder Reliability
Lombard, M., Snyder-Duch, J., & Bracken, C. C. (2002) · Human Communication Research · doi:10.1111/j.1468-2958.2002.tb00826.x · Cited by 3,068 · see citing works
Crawford, S. E. S., & Ostrom, E. (1995) · American Political Science Review · doi:10.2307/2082975 · Cited by 1,362 · see citing works
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Governance in Practice: How Open Source Projects Define and Document Roles
Oliveira, P., Conte, T., Gerosa, M., & Steinmacher, I. (2026) · Proceedings of the 19th International Conference on Cooperative and Human Aspects of Software Engineering · doi:10.1145/3794860.3794911 · Cited by 2 · see citing works
- Authors
- Siddiki, S., Weible, C. M., Basurto, X., & Calanni, J.
- Affiliations
- Duke University (US)
- Corresponding author
- Siddiki, Saba
- Venue
- Policy Studies Journal
- Publisher
- Wiley
- Published
- 2011-02
- Volume
- 39
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 79-103
- ISSN
- 0190-292X (ISSN-L)
- 1541-0072
- OpenAlex
- W2129413017
- Cited by
- 152
- References
- 2
- Citations by year
- 2026: 5 · 2025: 15 · 2024: 7 · 2023: 12 · 2022: 20 · 2021: 13 · 2020: 12 · 2019: 9 · 2018: 11 · 2017: 6 · 2016: 7 · 2015: 10 · 2014: 12 · 2013: 6 · 2012: 1
- FWCI
- 22.43
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- hdl.handle.net
- Licence
- Locations
- Policy Studies Journal (publishedVersion)
- DukeSpace (Duke University) (submittedVersion)
- DukeSpace (Duke University) (submittedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
- IUScholarWorks (Indiana University) (submittedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Public Administration › Public Policy and Administration Research
- Social Sciences › Political Science and International Relations › Policy Transfer and Learning
- Social Sciences › Political Science and International Relations › Public Administration and Governance
- Keywords
- institutional grammar, policy design, policy analysis, objects, target audience, institutional linkages, aquaculture policy, multi-level governance
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Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
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