Institution

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This article is about institutions as social mechanisms. For formal organization
, see Formal organization. For a computer science concept, see Institution (comp
uter science).
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v t e
Institutions are "stable, valued, recurring patterns of behavior."[1] As structu
res or mechanisms of social order, they govern the behaviour of a set of individ
uals within a given community. Institutions are identified with a social purpose
, transcending individuals and intentions by mediating the rules that govern liv
ing behavior.[2]
The term "institution" commonly applies to a custom or behavior pattern importan
t to a society, and to particular formal organizations of the government and pub
lic services. As structures and mechanisms of social order, institutions are a p
rincipal object of study in social sciences such as political science, anthropol
ogy, economics, and sociology (the latter described by mile Durkheim as the "scie
nce of institutions, their genesis and their functioning").[3] Institutions are
also a central concern for law, the formal mechanism for political rule-making a
nd enforcement.
Contents [hide]
1
Examples
2
Aspects
3
Perspectives of the social sciences
4
Perspectives of the social sciences
5
Institutional rigidity
6
Institutionalization
7
See also
8
References
9
Bibliography
10
Further reading
Examples[edit]
This section needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve th
is article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be ch
allenged and removed. (April 2013)

Marriage and the family - sociology of the family

Religion and religious institutions - see sociology of religion; civil religion
Educational institutions - schools (preschool, primary/elementary, secondary, an
d post-secondary/higher - see Sociology of education)
Research community - academia and universities; research institutes - see sociol
ogy of science
Medicine - hospitals and other health care institutions - see sociology of healt
h and illness, medical sociology
Psychiatric hospitals (history)
Law and legal system - courts; judges; the legal profession (bar) - see jurispru
dence, philosophy of law, sociology of law
Criminal justice or penal systems - prisons - see sociology of punishment
Military or paramilitary forces - see military sociology
Police forces
Mass media - including the news media (television, newspapers) and the popular m
edia - see media studies
Industry - businesses, including corporations - see financial institution, facto
ry, capitalism, division of labour, social class, industrial sociology
Civil society or NGOs - charitable organizations; advocacy groups; political par
ties; think tanks; virtual communities
In an extended context:
Art and culture (See also: culture industry, critical theory, cultural studies,
cultural sociology)
Language (See also: linguistics, sociolinguistics, sociology of language)
The nation-state - Social and political scientists often speak of the state as e
mbodying all institutions such as schools, prisons, and so on. However, these in
stitutions may be considered private or autonomous, whilst organised religion an
d family life certainly pre-date the advent of the nation state. In the Neo-Marx
ist thought of Antonio Gramsci, for instance, distinguishes between institutions
of political society (police, the army, legal system, etc.), which dominates di
rectly and coercivelyand civil society (the family, education system, etc.). For
example in Schenck v. United States, the circumstance of which made that speech
case special
In some circumstances, individuals can be considered institutions if they have c
reated motifs or worldwide phenomena. Examples of this include Stanley Kubrick,
Nelson Mandela, and Gandhi.
Aspects[edit]
People may deliberately create individual, formal organizations commonly identif
ied as "institutions"but the development and function of institutions in society
in general may be regarded as an instance of emergence. That is, institutions ar
ise, develop and function in a pattern of social self-organization beyond consci
ous intentions of the individuals involved.
As mechanisms of social interaction, institutions manifest in both formal organi
zations, such as the U.S. Congress, or the Roman Catholic Church, and, also, in
informal social order and organization, reflecting human psychology, culture, ha
bits and customs, and encompassing subjective experience of meaningful enactment
s. Most important institutions, considered abstractly, have both objective and s
ubjective aspects: examples include money and marriage. The institution of money
encompasses many formal organizations, including banks and government treasury
departments and stock exchanges, which may be termed, "institutions," as well as
subjective experiences, which guide people in their pursuit of personal well-be
ing. Powerful institutions are able to imbue a paper currency with certain value
, and to induce millions into production and trade in pursuit of economic ends a
bstractly denominated in that currency's units.[citation needed] The subjective
experience of money is so pervasive and persuasive that economists talk of the "
money illusion" and try to disabuse their students of it, in preparation for lea
rning economic analysis.[citation needed]

Perspectives of the social sciences[edit]

While institutions tend to appear to people in society as part of the natural, u
nchanging landscape of their lives, study of institutions by the social sciences
tends to reveal the nature of institutions as social constructions, artifacts o
f a particular time, culture and society, produced by collective human choice, t
hough not directly by individual intention. Sociology traditionally analyzed soc
ial institutions in terms of interlocking social roles and expectations. Social
institutions created and were composed of groups of roles, or expected behaviors
. The social function of the institution was executed by the fulfillment of role
s. Basic biological requirements, for reproduction and care of the young, are se
rved by the institutions of marriage and family, for example, by creating, elabo
rating and prescribing the behaviors expected for husband/father, wife/mother, c
hild, etc.
The relationship of institutions to human nature is a foundational question for
the social sciences. Institutions can be seen as "naturally" arising from, and c
onforming to, human naturea fundamentally conservative viewor institutions can be
seen as artificial, almost accidental, and in need of architectural redesign, in
formed by expert social analysis, to better serve human needsa fundamentally prog
ressive view. Adam Smith anchored his economics in the supposed human "propensit
y to truck, barter and exchange". Modern feminists have criticized traditional m
arriage and other institutions as element of an oppressive and obsolete patriarc
hy. The Marxist viewwhich sees human nature as historically 'evolving' towards vo
luntary social cooperation, shared by some anarchistsis that supra-individual ins
titutions such as the market and the state are incompatible with the individual
liberty of a truly free society.
Economics, in recent years, has used game theory to study institutions from two
perspectives. Firstly, how do institutions survive and evolve? In this perspecti
ve, institutions arise from Nash equilibria of games. For example, whenever peop
le pass each other in a corridor or thoroughfare, there is a need for customs, w
hich avoid collisions. Such a custom might call for each party to keep to their
own right (or leftsuch a choice is arbitrary, it is only necessary that the choic
e be uniform and consistent). Such customs may be supposed to be the origin of r
ules, such as the rule, adopted in many countries, which requires driving automo
biles on the right side of the road.
Secondly, how do institutions affect behaviour? In this perspective, the focus i
s on behaviour arising from a given set of institutional rules. In these models,
institutions determine the rules (i.e. strategy sets and utility functions) of
games, rather than arise as equilibria out of games. For example, the Cournot du
opoly model is based on an institution involving an auctioneer who sells all goo
ds at the market-clearing price. While it is always possible to analyse behaviou
r with the institutions-as-equilibria approach instead, it is much more complica
ted.
In political science, the effect of institutions on behavior has also been consi
dered from a meme perspective, like game theory borrowed from biology. A "memeti
c institutionalism" has been proposed, suggesting that institutions provide sele
ction environments for political action, whereby differentiated retention arises
and thereby a Darwinian evolution of institutions over time. Public choice theo
ry, another branch of economics with a close relationship to political science,
considers how government policy choices are made, and seeks to determine what th
e policy outputs are likely to be, given a particular political decision-making
process and context.
In history, a distinction between eras or periods, implies a major and fundament
al change in the system of institutions governing a society. Political and milit
ary events are judged to be of historical significance to the extent that they a
re associated with changes in institutions. In European history, particular sign

ificance is attached to the long transition from the feudal institutions of the
Middle Ages to the modern institutions, which govern contemporary life.
Perspectives of the social sciences[edit]
Informal institutions have been largely overlooked in comparative politics, but
in many countries it is the informal institutions and rules that govern the poli
tical landscape. To understand the political behaviour in a country it is import
ant to look at how that behaviour is enabled or constrained by informal institut
ions, and how this affects how formal institutions are run. For example, if ther
e are high levels of extra judicial killings in a country, it might be that whil
e it is prohibited by the state the police are actually enabled to carry out suc
h killings and informally encouraged to prop up an inefficient formal state poli
ce institution. An informal institution tends to have socially shared rules, whi
ch are unwritten and yet are often known by all inhabitants of a certain country
, as such they are often referred to as being an inherent part of the culture of
a given country. Informal practices are often referred to as "cultural", for ex
ample clientelism or corruption is sometimes stated as a part of the political c
ulture in a certain place, but an informal institution itself is not cultural, i
t may be shaped by culture or behaviour of a given political landscape, but they
should be looked at in the same way as formal institutions to understand their
role in a given country. Informal institutions might be particularly used to pur
sue a political agenda, or a course of action that might not be publicly popular
, or even legal, and can be seen as an effective way of making up for lack of ef
ficiency in a formal institution. For example, in countries where formal institu
tions are particularly inefficient, an informal institution may be the most cost
effective way or actually carrying out a given task, and this ensures that ther
e is little pressure on the formal institutions to become more efficient. The re
lationship between formal and informal institutions is often closely aligned and
informal institutions step in to prop up inefficient institutions. However, bec
ause they do not have a centre, which directs and coordinates their actions, cha
nging informal institutions is a slow and lengthy process.<Helmke, G, ><Levitsky
, S> It is as such important to look at any given country and note the presence
of informal institutions when looking at the political landscape, and note that
they are not necessarily a rejection of the state, but an integral part of it an
d broadening the scope of the role of the state in a given country.
Institutional rigidity[edit]
Ian Lustick suggests that the social sciences, particularly those with the insti
tution as a central concept, can benefit by applying the concept of natural sele
ction to the study of how institutions change over time.[4] By viewing instituti
ons as existing within a fitness landscape, Lustick argues that the gradual impr
ovements typical of many institutions can be seen as analogous to hill-climbing
within one of these fitness landscapes. This can eventually lead to institutions
becoming stuck on local maxima, such that for the institution to improve any fu
rther, it would first need to decrease its overall fitness score (e.g., adopt po
licies that may cause short-term harm to the institution's members). The tendenc
y to get stuck on local maxima can explain why certain types of institutions may
continue to have policies that are harmful to its members or to the institution
itself, even when members and leadership are all aware of the faults of these p
olicies.
As an example, Lustick cites Amyx's analysis of the gradual rise of the Japanese
economy and its seemingly sudden reversal in the so-called "Lost Decade". Accor
ding to Amyx, Japanese experts were not unaware of the possible causes of Japan'
s economic decline. Rather, to return Japan's economy back to the path to econom
ic prosperity, policymakers would have had to adopt policies that would first ca
use short-term harm to the Japanese people and government. [17] Under this analy
sis, says Ian Lustick, Japan was stuck on a "local maxima," which it arrived at
through gradual increases in its fitness level, set by the economic landscape of
the 1970s and 80s. Without an accompanying change in institutional flexibility,

Japan was unable to adapt to changing conditions, and even though experts may h
ave known which changes the country needed, they would have been virtually power
less to enact those changes without instituting unpopular policies that would ha
ve been harmful in the short-term.[4][5]
The lessons from Lustick's analysis applied to Sweden's economic situation can s
imilarly apply to the political gridlock that often characterizes politics in th
e United States. For example, Lustick observes that any politician who hopes to
run for elected office stands very little to no chance if they enact policies th
at show no short-term results. Unfortunately, there is a mismatch between polici
es that bring about short-term benefits with minimal sacrifice, and those that b
ring about long-lasting change by encouraging institution-level adaptations.
There are some criticisms to Lustick's application of natural selection theory t
o institutional change. Lustick himself notes that identifying the inability of
institutions to adapt as a symptom of being stuck on a local maxima within a fit
ness landscape does nothing to solve the problem. At the very least, however, it
might add credibility to the idea that truly beneficial change might require sh
ort-term harm to institutions and their members. David Sloan Wilson notes that L
ustick needs to more carefully distinguish between two concepts: multilevel sele
ction theory and evolution on multi-peaked landscapes.[4] Bradley Thayer points
out that the concept of a fitness landscape and local maxima only makes sense if
one institution can be said to be "better" than another, and this in turn only
makes sense insofar as there exists some objective measure of an institution's q
uality. This may be relatively simple in evaluating the economic prosperity of a
society, for example, but it is difficult to see how objectively a measure can
be applied to the amount of freedom of a society, or the quality of life of the
individuals within.[4]
Institutionalization[edit]
Main article: Institutionalisation
The term "institutionalization" is widely used in social theory to refer to the
process of embedding something (for example a concept, a social role, a particul
ar value or mode of behavior) within an organization, social system, or society
as a whole. The term may also be used to refer to committing a particular indivi
dual to an institution, such as a mental institution. To this extent, "instituti
onalization" may carry negative connotations regarding the treatment of, and dam
age caused to, vulnerable human beings by the oppressive or corrupt application
of inflexible systems of social, medical, or legal controls by publicly owned, p
rivate or not-for-profit organizations.
The term "institutionalization" may also be used in a political sense to apply t
o the creation or organization of governmental institutions or particular bodies
responsible for overseeing or implementing policy, for example in welfare or de
velopment.
See also[edit]
Look up institution in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.
Actor analysis
Academic institution
Base and superstructure
Cultural reproduction
state, Nation, country, Sovereign state
Historical institutionalism
Ideological state apparatus
Institute
Institutional abuse
Institutional economics
Institutional logic
Institutional memory

Institutional racism
Linkage institution
References[edit]
Jump up ^ Huntington 1965, p. 394.
Jump up ^ "Social Institutions". Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Retrieved
30 January 2015.
Jump up ^ Durkheim, mile [1895] "The Rules of Sociological Method" 8th edition, t
rans. Sarah A. Solovay and John M. Mueller, ed. George E. G. Catlin (1938, 1964
edition), pp. 45
^ Jump up to: a b c d Lustick, Ian (2011). "Institutional Rigidity and Evolution
ary Theory: Trapped on a Local Maximum". Cliodynamics 2 (2).
Jump up ^ Amyx, Jennifer (2004). Japan's Financial Crisis: Institutional Rigidit
y and Reluctant Change. Princeton University Press. pp. 1718.
Bibliography[edit]
Berger, P. L. and T. Luckmann (1966), The Social Construction of Reality: A Trea
tise in the Sociology of Knowledge, Anchor Books, Garden City, NY.
Chang, Ha-Joon (ed.) (2007), Institutional Change and Economic Development, Anth
em Press.
Greif, Avner (2006), Institutions and the Path to the Modern Economy: Lessons fr
om Medieval Trade, Cambridge University Press, ISBN 978-0-521-67134-7
Helmke, G, Levitsky, S. (2004) Informal Institutions and Comparative Politics: A
Research Agenda. Cambridge journals online
Huntington, Samuel P. (1965). "Political Development and Political Decay" (PDF).
World Politics 17 (3): 386430. JSTOR 2009286.
North, D. C. (1990), Institutions, Institutional Change and Economic Performance
. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Schotter, A. (1981), The Economic Theory of Social Institutions. Cambridge Unive
rsity Press, Cambridge.
Gielen, P. (ed. - 2013), Institutional Attitudes. Instituting Art in a Flat Worl
d. Valiz: Amsterdam.
Further reading[edit]
Report of the Committee of Inquiry into allegations of ill-treatment of patients
and other irregularities at the Ely Hospital, Cardiff, HMSO 1969
Extracts of the Report of the Committee of Inquiry into Normansfield Hospital British Medical Journal, 1978, 2, 15601563
Whyte, William H., The Organization Man, Doubleday Publishing, 1956. (excerpts f
rom Whyte's book)
The Production and Reproduction of Scandals in Chronic Sector Hospitals Amy Muns
on- Barkshire 1981
"Social Institutions," Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Authority control
GND: 4113393-6
Categories: Economics terminologyPolitical science termsSocial institutions
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