Unit 4
Institutions and Policy: State-centred Theories

Unit 4 introduces institutionalist theories of public policy. This will require familiarity with the concept of ‘institutions’ and the notion of ‘institutional causation’. There is a considerable literature on these matters, but only a fraction of it is self-consciously theoretical. The readings that have been selected for this unit aim to explain, review and apply institutionalist perspectives on public policy.

The reading by Leslie Pal is an examination of the origins of Canadian Unemployment Insurance (UI) in the 1930s and 1940s. The reading by Banting focuses more broadly on the character of Canadian social policy in this era of globalization. Both readings employ the insights of institutionalist analysis. Pal advances a state-centred institutionalism as a challenge to Marxist class analysis, while Banting stresses the impact of political and state institutions as a theoretical ‘corrective’ to the now common tendency to overstate the policy significance of Canada’s position in the global economy.

Learning Objectives

When you have completed Unit 4 you should be able to achieve the following learning objectives.

1. Define what institutions are and discuss the notion of ‘institutional causation’.
2. Discuss how the following theoretical perspectives approach the tasks of explaining and understanding public policy: structuralist institutionalism, state as an actor theory, and institutional rational choice theory.
3. Identify which theoretical perspective is being used when reading an article based on one of the state-centred perspectives on public policy.
4. Reflecting on Unit 3 as well as Unit 4, form some (perhaps tentative) opinion on which of the society-centred or state-centred theories of public policy you find to be most convincing and useful.