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Rather than set out to summarize all the American approaches to public policy analysis, this article’s objective is limited to opening up reflection about one of the most important research programmes that have emerged in the United States over recent years, that of “new institutionalism”. More precisely, by identifying one of the most problematical dimensions of this programme – the relationship between institutions, public policies and change – we underline the conceptual road that still needs travelling before new institutionalists achieve a genuinely integrated approach to political action. Indeed, this theoretical ambition is precisely what justifies attempts to bring together approaches to institutions and public policies developed in France and those mostly used in the United States.