Hajer’s institutional void and legitimacy without polity

Maarten Hajer’s “Policy without polity? Policy analysis and the institutional void” (2003) was a harbinger of an age of uncertainty. Instead of a classical-modernist model, where political institutions dominate policy-making structure, regulated actors and provided clear legitimation norms, he outlined a new form of policy-making, devoid of settled norms. This essay provides a summary of the article’s impact on scholarly research over the past 14 years along three lines—ontology, processes and outcomes. In relation to the latter, which has attracted the most research efforts, it argues that recent research on the new design orientation can shed some light on why policy-making in the institutional void can lead to poor outcomes. This completes the ideational turn required by Hajer’s interpretive ambition.