You have entered the Pathfinder's decision tree for choosing approaches to institutional analysis.

Generally, institution analysis tasks and methods are appropriate in situations in which there are many actors facing many different interconnected decisions. Institutional analysis is carried out using a variety of methods in order to understand how institutions emerge from the actions of individuals and groups, and to predict the effect of institutions on behaviour and outcomes. Institutions are understood as the “rules of the game” (North, 1990: 3) or “…the prescriptions that humans use to organize all forms of repetitive and structured interactions” (Ostrom, 2005: 3). Understood in this broad sense, institutions include both informal norms, customs and shared strategies as well as formal laws, policies and policy regimes. Data used in institutional analysis are collected through a variety of methods, e.g. interviews, surveys, document analysis, field observations and field experiments. Insights gained in institutional analysis may then be employed to explain the emergence of institutions in other context, or to craft effective policies, e.g. for sustainable management of natural resources. We present criteria for identifying critical institutional analysis tasks and methods in the currently selcted decision tree. These methods are discussed in more detail in the Toolbox section on institutional analysis.

Similar to other fields in social science, theoretical assumptions form the top-level criteria for identifying tasks and selecting methods, as these determine what kind of questions may be addressed. If it is assumed that a description of relevant actors and institutions will significantly advance adaptation then governance description must be addressed (see Toolbox section on institutional analysis).