Knowledge of a civilisation element does not necessarily mean that it has become part of someone’s personal civilisation. An individual may know which norm prevails in a particular environment and comply with it without personally regarding that norm as right. A rule may be obeyed for fear of punishment or because of dependence on others.
Internalisation occurs when externally presented civilisation elements become part of personal civilisation to such an extent that they help direct the individual’s own thinking, judgement, volition and conduct. What was initially experienced as an external expectation or constraint may thereby come to appear self-evident. The person then no longer acts in accordance with an external norm solely because others demand it, but also because that person has come to regard the norm as right, normal or appropriate.
At the level of a social circle, elements of a circle civilisation may be embedded in institutions. Through institutionalisation, such civilisation elements are socially embedded and become less dependent on their original bearers.
Within this theory, an institution is an enduring system of roles, rules, norms and expectations in which elements of a circle civilisation are socially embedded. This concept must be understood broadly. An institution need not be a building or formal organisation with a governing body and staff. Property may be an institution, as may marriage or the socially shared expectation that agreements ought to be honoured. Its social operation rests on people having sufficiently shared expectations concerning roles, rights, obligations and appropriate conduct.
Through institutionalisation, civilisation elements may continue to operate after their original bearers have disappeared. Roles, rules, procedures and socially recognised expectations make their social operation less dependent on particular persons. They may thereby come to function as social givens, even when individual persons do not repeatedly reassess the civilisation elements on which they rest.
Shared ideas may also acquire sufficient coherence to form a system of ideas. A system of ideas connects conceptions of reality, norms and values, possible courses of action, and goals and ideals worth pursuing. It thereby constitutes more than a collection of separate positions. The individual ideas may come to explain, support and legitimate one another.
Such a system of ideas may subsequently be expressed and legitimated in a narrative in a comprehensible and as simple as possible a form. The narrative makes comprehensible how reality is structured according to that system of ideas, what conduct is appropriate or right, and why particular norms, goals and institutions should be regarded as justified or necessary. By endorsing, using or repeating a narrative, individuals and social circles may also become recognisable as adherents of the system of ideas concerned.
Narratives have an important practical function. Without such coherence, a complete individual assessment would have to be made anew in every social situation. A socially available narrative provides already familiar categories and standards through which people can interpret and assess situations. It thereby helps not only to transmit ideas, but also to structure conduct.
When shared ideas are institutionalised, their social significance also changes. Their embedding in positions, powers, rules and expectations may constitute a power base for actors who act within or in accordance with the institution. When they make use of that power base, they may influence, constrain or direct the thinking, judgement, volition and conduct of other individuals and social circles.
This is a central mechanism of the theory. Ideas do not exercise power independently. Institutionalisation makes it possible for shared ideas to acquire social power because individuals act in accordance with institutionalised roles, rules, norms and expectations. Institutionalisation is therefore the process through which ideas can become social power.
Power is understood here as an actor’s capacity to influence, constrain or direct the thinking, judgement, volition or conduct of other individuals or social circles. That capacity rests on one or more power bases, such as property, position, knowledge, prestige, rights, numbers, access to resources or relations of dependency. The realised effect that the exercise or presence of that power has on others is distinguished as influence.
Institutions, however, are not independently acting entities. Their operation remains dependent on people. Individuals must perform the roles that exist within the institution, apply rules, implement decisions, comply with expectations and, where applicable, promote or enforce compliance by others. A judge must adjudicate, a civil servant must implement decisions, a teacher must teach, and parties to an agreement must act sufficiently in accordance with its institutional expectations.
Such conduct need not arise from conviction. People may perform institutional roles because of habit, dependence, social pressure or coercion. What is decisive for the institution’s actual operation is that the required conduct occurs.
When sufficient numbers of individuals cease to perform the conduct required for an institution to function, its social operation may diminish, and the power resting on it may likewise diminish or disappear. Institutionalisation therefore makes social operation less dependent on original bearers, but never independent of human conduct.
When individuals or social circles support an actor’s purposive action, that support base may constitute a power base for the actor. The more closely the justification of the actor’s goals and conduct corresponds to the personal civilisation of others, the more likely they are to support that conduct and to belong or be added to the actor’s support base.