A Return to the Enduring Features of Institutions

Abstract

Why and how do institutions endure? The most characteristic feature of institutions-their longevity-seems to be a neglected topic in current institutional analysis, which overwhelmingly is conducted as an analysis of institutional change. This article, in contrast, attempts to answer some basic questions about institutional endurance and reproduction, most notably how institutional reproduction can be distinguished from institutional endurance, how institutions manage to "bind" time and space, and which role structures "out of time and space" play in this. I explore the processual nature of three theories institutionalist authors draw on (Berger and Luckmann's theory of social construction, Giddens's structuration theory, and Bourdieu's theory of field and habitus) to identify elements and explanations of endurance. I then elaborate on these insights by introducing Roger Friedland's notion of institutional substance and ideas from the process philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead.

Practice, Substance, and History: Reframing Institutional Logics

“…Much of the literature examines how what are termed institutions come to be reproduced, challenged or fall from taken-for-granted status. This emphasis tends to rather underplay the enduring status of institutions and places considerable stress, as discussed below, on the active role of actors in processes of change (Weik, 2015). What this focus also tends to elide is the different pace of change at different scales of action (Spicer & Sewell, 2010).…”

Rethinking representative democracy in Croatia

“…The concept of critical juncture plays a pivotal role in the historical institutionalist approach. It represents the moment of the "punctuated equilibrium" of the institutional order, allowing for the institutional framework to change (Weik, 2015). Critical junctures increase the causal role of agency and reduce the degree of social embeddedness.…”

“…Under such conditions, the agents can adopt a calculating position concerning the previously existing rules (Emmenegger, 2021, p. 615). Another important concept in the framework of historical institutionalism is path dependency, which suggests that what has occurred in the past persists because of resistance to change (Weik, 2015).…”