A discursive institutional approach and its analytical implications.

Abstract

The objectives of this chapter are, first, to develop a framework for capturing and understanding institutional change and, second, to construct an analytical strategy that prepares the study of institutional change within the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). These objectives are pursued by means of a discursive institutional approach. First, a number of particularities of a discursive institutional approach to the study of institutional change are outlined and situated in the context of comparable concepts and conceptions within the rational choice, historical and sociological institutionalisms. It is also argued how a discursive institutional optic may deal with some of the shortcomings of rational choice, historical and sociological institutional approaches to the study of institutional change: in particular in regard to the type of institutional change that is ideational in nature. In conclusion, a discursive institutional analytic strategy is drawn up, with the objective of capturing and conceptualizing institutional change within the CAP with a particular focus on the articulation and institutionalization of organic farming within the CAP.