The process through which shared civilisation elements are durably embedded in institutions and thereby made less dependent on their original bearers.
- Explanation. Institutionalisation may arise without planning, without anyone having designed or pursued the eventual result, but it may also be promoted purposively.
- Through institutionalisation, ideas may persist longer than the persons who originally formulated them and may be repeated and transmitted through roles, rules, procedures, customs and organisations.
Occurs in Propositions
- Proposition 025 – Institutionalisation creates social givens
- Proposition 041 – Planned and unplanned institutionalisation
- Proposition 043 – Politics without institutionalisation
- Proposition 089 – Movement elites and institutionalisation
- Proposition 090 – Internal institutionalisation
- Proposition 094 – Legitimation of state coercion
- Proposition 099 – Common mechanisms of social change
Last updated: 3 October 2026