Ideas and Institutions: The Epistemology of the Institutional Analysis and Development Framework with a focus on Language, Information Framing, and Policy Analysis

A social theory informs the research agenda and tools of the Ostrom Workshop such as the IAD and SES frameworks. A core of that theory emphasizes human fallibility, the subsequent uncertainties, errant perceptions, inadequate understandings, mistaken diagnoses of problems, flawed policies, and failed institutions. Learning and amendment are central features of ongoing, iterative decision making in the action arenas at all levels of IAD analysis. As such, information, particularly the framing of information, plays a critical role in choices and our effort to understand their rationale and effects. Using current research on policies aimed at bolstering the supply of adequate affordable housing in the EU-15, Norway, Switzerland, and the USA, this paper examines the frames used to explain housing markets and their consequences for diverse communities as well as the policies that these frames promote as ways to address housing inequality.