Institutions and Collective Intentionality (original) (raw)

Individual action, institutions, and social change An approach in terms of convention

This anthology consists of a collection of articles that address two common questions: how institutions emerge from individual actions and how individual actions are shaped by institutions? What unifies these contributions is the search of a theoretical explanation that overcomes the shortcomings of the rational choice explanations of social institutions. The approach developed here deals with two methodological problems that are pervasive in social sciences: that of the relationship between agency and structures and that of role of rationality and norms in explaining individual social behavior. Individuals are seen to be acting according to "conventions" that structure their interaction and that are cognitive and interpretative schemes that allow them to understand social reality and to give meaning to their actions. In addition individuals do not act either rationally or normatively but are conceived as acting within a "conventional" context that gives meaning to their action but also constrains them. They are supposed to be moved both by normative considerations and by self-interest that can conflict.

Collective Intentionality, Norms and Institutions

2014

Cooperation is a fundamental characteristic of the intelligent beings. It makes them able to evolve complex social behaviors and to better resolve practical issues. Humans have evolved a very powerful form of cooperation, which is spread anywhere in the everyday life: norms, institutions, states, hierarchies, ordinary relationships, etc., are deeply determined by the original notion of cooperation. This book addresses the conditions of the human cooperative activities in order to focus on their common roots and to bring them back to an unitary origin. It is profoundly animated by the task of understanding how cooperative skills are able to evolve the plurality of the cooperative activities from the spontaneous to the institutional ones and to find a common denominator for joint actions. It deals also with socio-political aspects of the collective intentionality and considers intersubjective freedom as the most developed form of cooperation.

Institutions, social norms, and decision-theoretic norms

Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 2009

This article attempts to contribute to the debate on how to define and theorize institutions, particularly regarding normativity and explanations for conformity. Firstly, it proposes some distinctions and concepts: it separates moral from epistemic values, leading to different types of legitimacy and social norms; then it distinguishes different meanings of the term 'normative' and introduces the concept of decision-theoretic norm. Secondly, the article defends a broad concept of institutions by arguing that some institutions are neither social norms nor decision-theoretic ones, a point that matters for institutional change and stability. Some conventions from which innovators break are highlighted as an example.

The arbitrariness and normativity of social conventions

This paper investigates a puzzling feature of social conventions: the fact that they are both arbitrary and normative. We examine how this tension is addressed in sociological accounts of conventional phenomena. Traditional approaches tend to generate either synchronic accounts that fail to consider the arbitrariness of conventions , or diachronic accounts that miss central aspects of their normativity. As a remedy, we propose a processual conception that considers conventions as both the outcome and material cause of much human activity. This conceptualization, which borrows from the économie des conventions as well as critical realism, provides a novel perspective on how conventions are nested and defined, and on how they are established, maintained and challenged.

Norms that Make a Difference: Social Practices and Institutions

2019

Institutions are norm-governed social practices, or so I propose. But what does it mean for a norm to govern a social practice? Theories that analyze institutions as equilibria equate norms with sanctions and model them as costs. The idea is that the sanctions change preferences and thereby behavior. This view fails to capture the fact that people are often motivated by social norms as such, when they regard them as legitimate. I argue that, in order for a social norm to be perceived as legitimate, agents have to acknowledge reasons for conforming to it other than the sanctions they might incur for violating it. In light of this, I defend a theory of institutions that does not only invoke equilibria, but also nor-mative rules that are supported by normative expectations and, in some cases, normative beliefs.

Institutions and Social Structures 1

Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour, 2008

This paper clarifies the terms "institutions" and "social structures" and related terms "rules", "conventions", "norms", "values" and "customs". Part one explores the similarities between institutions and social structures whilst the second and third parts explore differences. Part two considers institutions, rules, habits or habitus and habituation, whilst part three critically reflects on three common conceptions of social structures. The conclusion comments upon reflexive deliberation via the internal conversation. 2 The term "institution" is often used to refer to things like: gender, money, the family, religion, property, markets, the state, education, sport and medicine, language, law, systems of weights and measures and table manners. This ignores important differences in the nature of these things. The institution of money, for example, does not contain human beings, whereas the institution of the family clearly does. Are money and families different kinds of institution, or is one of them not really an institution at all? For Schmid (1994: 3-5) "early retirement, further education, retraining and regulation of working hours, trade unions, labour and social security laws, labour market programs, codetermination and collective bargaining" are all institutions. The problem here is that the term "institution" becomes a "catch all" term to refer to all kinds of social phenomena. Portes (2005) refers to this as the "institutions are everything approach". The term "social structure" is also used in many ways and, as Porpora (2007: 195) notes: "there continues to be a certain blurriness in the way we speak of social structure". The term can be used negatively, to refer to phenomena like "rules, relations, positions, processes, systems, values, meanings and the like that do not reduce to human behaviour" (Lawson 2003: 181, emphasis added). But because there are many things that do not reduce to human behaviour, this meaning is impractically broad. Moreover, even if social structures and institutions are irreducible to human behaviour, this tells us nothing of the differences between them. In a similar vein, and by emphasising the first word of the pair, "social structure" can be used to refer to anything that is the result of human action, as opposed to some naturally occurring phenomenon, once again making the meaning impractically broad. The term "social structure" can be used in an "architectural" sense where we refer to the structure of a bridge, market, industry or organisation; or to the way a bridge, market, industry or organisation is structured. It can be used to refer to specific phenomenon like the structure of social class or gender; or to general phenomena, where it acts as a place-holder for a series of un-named "structural" phenomena. It can also be used to refer to society as a whole, or perhaps in a general sense to mean anything that is external to an organisation or an individual which, once again, makes the meaning impractically broad. Incidentally, my argument is not that all of these ways of using the term are exactly wrong; it is that there is simply far too much ambiguity. Finally, discussion of social structures and institutions, often involves the use of terms like habits, habitus, rules, conventions, norms, values, roles, customs, laws, regulations, practices, routines, procedures and precedents, not to mention less commonly used terms like mores, scripts, obligations, rituals, codes and agreements. Once again, there is often confusion about what each of these terms mean, how they relate to one another, and how they relate to social structures and institutions. Consider two examples. In considering "habits, routines, social conventions, social norms" as types of rules, (1999: 92) conflates properties that should be associated with human agency, (i.e. habits) with properties that should be associated with institutions (i.e. conventions and norms). He also makes the

Institutionalism – A different perception of human behavior and social organization

Academia Letters, 2021

In everyday life we witness different phenomena. They are of a social, political, organizational, economic, and other nature. Over time, researchers have come up with different theories in order to explain these phenomena. In this way, institutionalism appeared as a theory meant to help us understand reality. The institutionalist theory focuses on the impact of the institutions over the human behavior and the behavioral outcomes they generate. The main actor of the institutionalist theory, the institutions, is defined as a set of formal and informal rules that guide the behavior of its members (Steinmo, 2001). In general, the definitions brought to institutions are complex. For example, Bell's definition highlights that the institutions are "formal rules, compliance procedures and standard operating practices that structure the relationship between individuals in various units in the polity and economy" (Bell, 2002). As we can see from the above definition, the institutions are something more than we think they are; we will call institutions not only the obvious ones such as the state institutions (parliament, government), or profile institutions (economic and research institutions) but also those constructions that operate based on formal or informal rules, procedures and practices, like the family institution, the institution of marriage, etc. Now that we have understood what the institutions are about, we will focus on the ideas that this theory promotes.