Compare methods

	Institutional Analysis and Development Framework	Multiple Streams Analysis
Field	Public Policy	Public Policy
Family	Process / pipeline	Process / pipeline
Year of origin	2005	1984
Originator	Elinor Ostrom & the Bloomington School	John W. Kingdon
Type	Framework for analysing institutions and collective action	Theory of agenda setting and the policy process
Seminal source	Ostrom, E. (2005). Understanding Institutional Diversity. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. ISBN: 9780691122380	Kingdon, J. W. (1984). Agendas, Alternatives, and Public Policies. New York: Longman. ISBN: 9780321121851
Aliases	IAD, IAD Framework, Ostrom IAD Framework	MSF, Multiple Streams Framework, Kingdon Multiple Streams, Policy Windows Analysis
Related	4	4
Summary	The Institutional Analysis and Development (IAD) framework is a general framework for analysing how institutions — the rules, norms and shared strategies that structure human interaction — shape behaviour and outcomes. Developed by Elinor Ostrom and colleagues at Indiana University's Bloomington School over several decades and synthesised in her 2005 book Understanding Institutional Diversity, it places an 'action situation' at its centre: a structured setting in which actors interact, influenced by biophysical conditions, community attributes and rules-in-use. The framework was central to Ostrom's Nobel-winning work on how communities govern common-pool resources without privatisation or top-down state control.	The Multiple Streams Framework (MSF) is a theory of agenda setting and policy change developed by John Kingdon in his 1984 book Agendas, Alternatives, and Public Policies. It explains why some issues rise to prominence and some solutions are adopted while others languish, by modelling the policy process as three largely independent 'streams' — problems, policies, and politics — that flow through the system. Change becomes possible when these streams are joined together at a fleeting 'policy window', often through the efforts of a 'policy entrepreneur'. The framework emphasises ambiguity, timing and chance over orderly, rational problem-solving.