Toward Making Power more Explicit in the IADF: A Review and Diagnostic Approach to Power Theories

Abstract

Power theories rooted in critical epistemologies that address broader societal structures are generally deemed incompatible with the underlying rationalist assumptions of neo-institutionalist frameworks. However, embracing these epistemological tensions and engaging with a broader variety of ways to approach power could greatly enrich institutional analysis and enhance interdisciplinary dialogue on the exploration of social situations and phenomena. The Institutional Analysis and Development Framework (IADF) is extremely effective in guiding researchers through the process of understanding complex socio-environmental problem contexts. Yet, while power is understood to be present in the different elements of the IADF, it is neither specifically conceptualized within the framework, nor sufficiently reflected from post-structural, feminist, or decolonial epistemologies. Turning perspective, critical scholarship often engages at a level of theoretical complexity that to empirical minds can appear challenging to apply. As such, we believe that the IADF holds potential to help operationalize critical perspectives on power and visualize how they may play out. This paper discusses existing proposals to integrate power into the study of institutions, reflects on how to productively navigate epistemological tensions, and discusses additional insights that may be gained by such an integrated approach. We further develop empirical questions based on reviewed literature on power theories and situate them within and between the elements of the IADF, presenting our advances on building an integrated diagnostic tool as a guide for institutional scholars to explicitly turn to power in their empirical work.