Institutions may have thus prevailed in political science, but what might be termed‘‘clariWcation’’ endeavors with respect to the concept were rare. There is indeed more
interest in the determination of what institutions are in economics or sociology
than in political science: moreover, bizarrely, there appears to have been no
concern in political science for the vagueness, to say the least, of what should
come under the umbrella of the concept. It was as if the meaning of that concept
was self-evident and we should immediately recognize an institution when we
saw one. This is strange since, outside political science, deWnitions are complex,
for instance those given by sociologists. Talcott Parsons thus said that institutions
are ‘‘those patterns which deWne the essentials of the legitimately expected
behaviour of persons insofar as they perform structurally important roles in
the social system’’ ( 1954 , 239 ). W. R. Scott, almost half a century later, was only a
little more concrete: ‘‘institutions consist of cognitive, normative and regulative
structures and activities that provide stability and meaning to social behavior’’
( 1995 , 33 ). These deWnitions suggest that major problems need to be clariWed: in
the case of the second one, for instance, alongside ‘‘cognitive, normative and,
regulative’’ structures, we have also to consider ‘‘activities.’’ If applied to politics,
what this deWnition would exclude would be small and indeed debatable.
Yet, in the political context at least, the deWnition problem is not the only one in
need of ‘‘clariWcation:’’ ‘‘institutionalization’’ raises diYculties as well, although the
expression has been in great use since the Second World War. In his 1968 Political
Order in Changing Societies, Huntington gave a broad deWnition as well when he said
that institutionalization is ‘‘the process by which organisations and procedures
acquire value and stability’’ ( 1968 , 12 ) and that four characteristics aVected it:
‘‘adaptability, complexity, autonomy and coherence.’’ The scope of the concept is
somewhat narrowed, since the reference here is to ‘‘procedures’’ and not to ‘‘activ-
ities,’’ but the question of the development of institutions over time now arises. Time
itself becomes a variable, although other reasons why institutionalization has
to ‘‘develop’’ are added, which means that institutions can also decay (Huntington
1968 , 13 – 14 ). Institutions are not regarded as automatically eYcient; their eYciency
seems ostensibly to depend, not just oninternalcharacteristics, as on the way the
actors use them, but onexternalaspects, as on the way the broader society reacts to
them: The strength of institutions, at any rate in the political realm, appears linked in
part to the support these may enjoy outside their ‘‘borders.’’ The institutionalization
process thus needs to be explored alongside the concept of institution: It provides a
key to understanding why and how new institutions might have to be ‘‘designed’’ to
cope with problems hitherto not handled satisfactorily. These problems are only
beginning to be considered and are in great need of systematic examination.
A chapter such as this can explore these matters only generally. What can be
done, under the guidance of the literature, is,Wrst, to come closer to a satisfactory
deWnition of the concept of institution by looking at its components and, second,
to examine the way in which institutionalization can increase (or decrease). The
about institutions, mainly, but not exclusively, political 717