The New Institutionalism(s): A Framework for the Study of Public Policy in Post-conflict and Post-communist Countries
The New Institutionalism(s): A Framework for the Study of Public Policy in Post-conflict and Post-communist Countries

Summary/Abstract: Institutional design for democracy and its functioning in post-communist contexts have been a favourite topic in much of the literature on politics in the past two decades. However, many studies have failed to pay adequate attention to and account for the effects of past legacies and institutions, as well as values and beliefs, many of which have crept, even if disguised, into emerging democratic systems. These processes, as argued in this article, are believed to be best explained by conjoint utilisation of historical and sociological strains of the new institutionalist approach to institutional and policy analysis. In that respect, this article outlines the debate on theoretical approaches within the public policy field and implications from the literature on new institutionalism for the study of much contested concepts of institutions and policy. The reviewed framework enables comprehension and explanation of political action embodied in specific institutional and policy design, its origins, functioning and reproduction as encountered in post-conflict and post-communist states.

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