Journal of Iranian Public Administration Studies

Journal of Iranian Public Administration Studies

The Institutional Grammar of Public Policies: Understanding Institutional Silences in the Context of Policymaking in Iran

Editor-in-Chief Lecture

Author
Professor at Public Administration Department, Faculty of Management and Economics, Tarbiat Modares University, Tehran, Iran
10.22034/jipas.2026.255883
Abstract
Public policies shape institutional arrangements not only through what they explicitly state but also through what they leave unspecified, which may have significant implications for implementation, accountability, discretion, and institutional coordination. In other words, public policies sometimes speak and sometimes remain silent. By introducing the concept of institutional silence, this article extends the institutional grammar approach beyond its predominant focus on identifying and coding institutional presence to examine institutional incompleteness in policy design. First, the article distinguishes institutional silence from ordinary omissions and conceptualizes it as the consequential failure to specify essential elements of institutional arrangements. It then draws on developments in institutional grammar, particularly Institutional Grammar 2.0, to develop a diagnostic framework for identifying different forms of institutional silence, including silences concerning responsibilities, authority, coordination, resources, and enforcement mechanisms. Finally, the article examines the Iranian policymaking context as a setting for demonstrating the analytical significance of this concept. The article argues that understanding what policies leave unsaid is an essential complement to analyzing what they explicitly state.
Keywords

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