Compare methods

	Institutional Analysis and Development Framework	Policy Network Analysis
Field	Public Policy	Public Policy
Family	Process / pipeline	Process / pipeline
Year of origin	2005	1992
Originator	Elinor Ostrom & the Bloomington School	R. A. W. Rhodes & David Marsh (British school); broader governance-network tradition
Type	Framework for analysing institutions and collective action	Analysis of inter-organisational policy relationships
Seminal source	Ostrom, E. (2005). Understanding Institutional Diversity. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. ISBN: 9780691122380	Marsh, D., & Rhodes, R. A. W. (Eds.) (1992). Policy Networks in British Government. Oxford: Clarendon Press. ISBN: 9780198278528
Aliases	IAD, IAD Framework, Ostrom IAD Framework	Policy Networks, Governance Network Analysis, Policy Network Approach
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.	Policy network analysis examines policymaking as the product of relationships among interdependent actors — government agencies, interest groups, experts and others — who exchange resources such as information, money, legitimacy and authority. In the influential British tradition associated with R. A. W. Rhodes and David Marsh, policy networks range along a continuum from tightly knit, exclusive 'policy communities' to loose, open 'issue networks', and the type of network is held to shape policy outcomes. More broadly, the approach applies the concepts and tools of social-network analysis to governance, treating the structure of ties among actors as a key explanatory variable.