Digital Library of the Commons

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Constitutional Level of Analysis: Problems and Prospects
(1979) Ostrom, Vincent
From p. 20: "The problems and prospects inherent in using the constitutional level of analysis to inform political inquiry are sufficiently great that they deserve careful consideration in laying the theoretical foundations for empirical investigations of political behavior and policy analyses. The theoretical analysis occurs at the constitutional level where inquiry is oriented to a consideration of alternative institutional arrangements. The conduct of empirical investigation occurs at the operational level within the constraints of given institutional structures. If empirical inquiry is to be informed by an appropriate theoretical analysis we need to proceed at both the constitutional and the operational levels of analysis. If we do so we may discover important links between political theory, political practice, and political science. We would then be in a position to test propositions about whether political structures do make a difference in the way that people are governed and live their lives in human societies. "Considering the nature of human artisanship we need to come to terms with conceptions of political structures as entailing more than words on paper. No one would expect a chemical formula to work by itself. Political institutions entail political artisans as well as political formulas. Then we learn how to treat artisans, and the conceptions they use, as informing conduct in relation to structures we may be in a position to determine the relationship of the structure of institutional arrangements to the consequences that flow for human societies. This requires more than the study of behavior per se. The constitutional level of analysis must accompany the operational level of analysis in the study of political phenomena not as natural phenomena, but as artifactual phenomena."
Urban Bads and the Structure of Institutional Arrangements
(1979) Sproule-Jones, Mark
"This paper will attempt to answer these broad questions. It does so by first outlining what may be called 'the theory of public bads.' Such a theory is necessary to explain the relationships between institutional arrangements and policy initiatives in the context of an urban and interdependent society. And this kind of explanatory knowledge is necessary for an evaluation of past institutional changes and future institutional possibilities. "Part II of the paper contains the theory and an illustrative case study of its empirical warrantability. Part III of the paper argues that the thrust of most changes in institutional arrangements over the last decade may have exacerbated rather than ameliorated the human condition in urban society. This argument is congruent with the theoretical section. It also presents a key institutional reform which could set the agenda for responsive and effective governance of urban society in the immediate future."
Performance Measurement in Practice: A Methodology Gone Amuck!
(1979) Ostrom, Elinor
"'Evaluation research,' 'productivity measurement,' 'Management science,' and "program budgeting are different names given to closely related techniques all of which involve measuring organizational or program performance in one way or another. Much is to be learned from these approaches in any effort to to address the conceptual issues involved in measuring the performance of public agencies such as the police. However, while the early work in these traditions stressed the iterative and learning nature of the enterprise, more recent applications have routinized the process into defined steps. Blind acceptance by evaluation researchers of these reconstituted approach hes to performance measurement can have serious consequences for the quality and usefulness of the work produced."
Productivity in the Urban Public Sector
(1979) Ostrom, Elinor
From page 1: "A critical issue in comparative urban policy research pertains to the productivity of agencies supplying urban public services. Many problems associated with the urban crisis relate to the failure of such urban public services as police, education, welfare, waste collection and disposal, and transportation. Productivity is defined here as the difference between: (1) the value of the output of urban delivery systems and (2) the value of the inputs used by such systems, while (3) controlling for the costs of production under different service conditions.1 Productivity is a more complex phenomenon than many subjects of comparative urban research since it is not an attribute of any specific actor. We cannot simply agree upon a definition and apply a measurement instrument to a single source of data as we can with attributes of citizens, street-level bureaucrats, and public officials-or other actors. (Even this process is difficult as witnessed by the extended debates over such measures as IQ.) Productivity is measured by computing the relationship among three quite complicated concepts: (1) the inputs for an urban delivery system, (2) the outputs produced by that system, and (3) the relevant service conditions."

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