Machine coding of policy texts with the Institutional Grammar
| Published date | 01 June 2021 |
| Author | Douglas Rice,Saba Siddiki,Seth Frey,Jay H. Kwon,Adam Sawyer |
| Date | 01 June 2021 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/padm.12711 |
SYMPOSIUM ARTICLE
Machine coding of policy texts
with the Institutional Grammar
Douglas Rice
1
| Saba Siddiki
2
| Seth Frey
3
|
Jay H. Kwon
2
| Adam Sawyer
4
1
Department of Political Science, UMass
Amherst, USA
2
Department of Public Administration &
International Affairs, Syracuse University, USA
3
Department of Communication, University of
California Davis, USA
4
Migration Research Division, International
Organization for Migration, Switzerland
Correspondence
Douglas Rice, Department of Political Science,
UMass Amherst, 200 Hicks Way, Thompson
Hall, Amherst, MA 01003, USA.
Email: drrice@umass.edu
Funding information
National Science Foundation, Grant/Award
Number: SES-1917908
Abstract
The Institutional Grammar (IG) is used to analyse the syn-
tactic structure of statements constituting institutions
(e.g., policies, regulations, and norms) that indicate behav-
ioural constraints and parameterize features of institution-
ally governed domains. Policy and administration scholars
have made considerable progress in methodologically devel-
oping the IG, offering increasingly clear guidelines for IG-
based coding, identifying unique considerations for applying
the IG to different types of institutions, and expanding its
syntactic scope. However, while validated as a robust insti-
tutional analysis approach, the resource and time commit-
ment associated with its application has precipitated
concerns over whether the IG might ever enjoy widespread
use. Needed now in the methodological development of the
IG are reliable and accessible (i.e., open source) approaches
that reduce the costs associated with its application. We
propose an automated approach leveraging computational
text analysis and natural language processing. We then pre-
sent results from an evaluation in the context of food sys-
tem regulations.
1|INTRODUCTION
In 1995, Sue Crawford and Elinor Ostrom introduced an approach for analysing the language of institutions
(e.g., public policies and social norms) that govern behaviour, called ‘A Grammar of Institutions’(Crawford and
Ostrom 1995). A primary motivation for the Grammar of Institutions, referred to hereafter as the Institutional Gram-
mar, was to offer a systematic basis for defining different types of institutions (strategies, norms and rules) that insti-
tutional analysts had been investigating in the context of laboratory (e.g., game theoretic) and field settings
Received: 30 January 2020 Revised: 7 September 2020 Accepted: 14 November 2020
DOI: 10.1111/padm.12711
248 © 2020 John Wiley & Sons Ltd Public Admin. 2021;99:248–262.wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/padm
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