Name

General Description

Framework

A framework organises diagnostic and prescriptive inquiry. It identifies the most general set of variables to analyse institutional arrangements. The variable set could range from a modest number to a design as extensive as a paradigm. Frameworks are essential in the conduct of preliminary analysis since they offer analysts perspective and generate questions that need to be addressed. Frameworks do not need to identify directions among relationships, although more developed frameworks specify a particular hypothesis. Frameworks cannot, on their own, provide explanations for, or predictions of, behaviour and outcomes. Such matters are best served by theories and models.

Theory

A theory allows analysts to identify and specify elements from the framework that are pertinent in answering particular questions of interest. It enables the formation of general working assumptions about the elements selected. Theories therefore provide a more concentrated and logically coherent evaluation of the set of relationships. In some cases, it even applies values to some of the variables and specifies how the relationships may vary on account of the values of other critical variables.

Model

A model is ideally a mathematical representation of a specific situation. Its scope is much narrower and its assumptions more precise than the underlying theory. Analysis within a model setting usually involves the use of logic, mathematics, game theory, experimentation and simulation.