Dynamics of Public Administration

One of the most important theoretical explanations to analyse public policy is the institutional theory. The main goal of this paper is to analyse how institutional theory helps to understand the two most important stages in policy cycle in a government setting, which are agenda setting and policy implementation. The purpose of this paper is to shed light on how the various institutions including the government itself play their role in public policy making process especially in agenda-setting stage and in policy implementation. Methodologically, the paper is a content analysis involving literature review of vast secondary materials on the books, journals and websites regarding public policy process and institutional theory which has been used, interpreted and reinterpreted to validate the arguments. The finding of the study is that there is always the tendency of the executive part of the government to maximise their benefits from any policy which the main argument of rational choice institutionalism (RCI). However, in order to ensure that policies are formulated for public consumption keeping in mind the sociological need and for implementation to be effective through proper use of public resources there is the need of taking into account the sociological institutionalism perspective of policy in the policy cycle. The study adds a new value by finding out that the government in developing and developed countries does inherently depend upon institutionalism to formulate and implement the policies to ensure its commitment for an effective policy.