Institutional Coherence as a Condition for Policy Sustainability: Extending the OECD Input–Process–Output Model in the Context of Pakistan’s Transgender Policy

Driven by global human rights movements, states increasingly adopt reforms centered on rights to address the marginalization of vulnerable groups. However, transplanting international normative frameworks into deeply embedded social and legal systems without rigorous contextualization can generate significant policy friction. This article addresses this theoretical gap by extending the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) Input-Process-Output (IPO) evaluation logic, introducing institutional coherence as a critical precondition for long term policy sustainability. Using the Transgender Persons Protection of Rights Act 2018 in Pakistan as a Global South test case, this qualitative study evaluates the viability of unverified selfperceived gender identity as a policy instrument. Data were collected through systematic document analysis including the 2023 Federal Shariat Court judgment and Council of Islamic Ideology recommendations and guided elite interviews (n = 14) mapped across a Quadruple Helix stakeholder model. Thematic analysis was conducted using NVivo 12. Findings indicate that while the Act maximized administrative efficiency and immediate outputs, as reflected in a rapid increase in legal gender registrations, it generated substantial institutional tensions. Uncontextualized policy inputs intersected with constitutional and religious frameworks, producing normative incoherence. This misalignment contributed to systemic consequences, including inheritance disputes, the marginalization of biological intersex individuals, and institutional contestation. This article extends the OECD IPO evaluation framework by reconceptualizing institutional coherence as a structural precondition for policy sustainability. It introduces the Institutional Sustainability Threshold to explain how institutional alignment determines whether policy outputs can transition into durable outcomes in constitutionally layered governance systems.