process of decision-making. Thus only if rules and procedures are ‘‘legitimized,’’ so to
speak, by an organization whose ‘‘authority’’ the individual is prepared to recognize
can they be also recognized. Economics does indeed need such a blessing by an
authority: This is why economists declare that the state has to impose the rules which
economics needs, but they do so sometimes with a degree of superior nonchalance as
if ‘‘politics simply had to do its job.’’ D. C. North is more ‘‘generous:’’ he notes that
‘‘[b]roadly speaking, political rules in place lead to economic rules, though the
causality runs both ways’’ ( 1990 , 48 ). The same occurs in the socialWeld, but not
always: Many social organizations are very small and can operate, at least ostensibly
and so long as there is no major conXict, without having to call on the ‘‘authority’’ of
the state. Only in politics is the recourse to authority continuous and universal; only
in politics are organizations always on the front line: Rules and procedures, however
important, have to be defended and supported by organizations.
In the political context, institutions are therefore primarily organizations. This is
so whether these organizations are ‘‘fully’’ political, so to speak, as legislatures or
parties, or ‘‘intermittently’’ political, as groups. Behaviorists were right to intro-
duce these social bodies in the political process, but being intermittently in politics,
these share the characteristics of both political and social organizations. This is
indeed also the case of such economic organizations as, for instance, large com-
panies and in particular multinational corporations.
AdeWnition of institutions cannot therefore be applicable uniformly to all social
sciences, as it then becomes a common denominator without much real sign-
iWcance. In the political science context, the search for a deWnition has to be around
the concept of bodies able to take authoritative decisions, these bodies being in a
position to develop practices—that is to say, procedures and rules—which those
who recognize these bodies have to accept as being, so to speak, the ‘‘arms and legs’’
of these organizations. Much further research is needed in this context: But only in
this direction can one expect to solve the key puzzle of political institutions. The
puzzle is that institutions have been perceived as clear and distinct for generations,
but there are uncertainties about what these cover in terms of both the organiza-
tions concerned and the manner in which organizations express the decisions
which they take.
3 Institutionalization and its Great
Role in Politics
.........................................................................................................................................................................................
Do political, social, or economic ‘‘arrangements’’ come to be institutions automa-
tically and immediately? Or do they become institutions after time passes? Is there,
about institutions, mainly, but not exclusively, political 723