Talk:Institution/Archive 1

Merger with social organisation
It should not be merged, I access this article to know what an institution is and not about society, however involved they may be —Preceding unsigned comment added by 155.48.165.106 (talk • contribs) 03:04, 15 March 2006


 * Oppose merger. The two terms are distinct in meaning, and both need to be articles. Sunray 07:20, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

As the "merge" tag has been on this article since the end of December and the only folks who have spoken have been opposed to the merge, I am removing the tag. Sunray 18:51, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, I'm not sure how to post on this properly, but the second to last paragraph on the article refers to how "sociology" views the reason for emergence of institutions, when i think a more accurate description would be that it is the view of functionalism (one of numerous sociological approaches). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.195.188.70 (talk) 02:54, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

policy wonks
from the article: "Public choice theory, another branch of economics with a close relationship to political science, considers how government policy choices are made, and seeks to determine what the policy outcomes are likely to be, given a particular political decision-making process and context."

Why mention this in an article on social institutions? I'll delete it soon, or rework it into something about governments trying to influence or change institutions through policy decisions, or add it as a see also link  --Meika (talk) 09:48, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

North Reference
Changed year of North's paper in the references from 1990 to 1991. Justification: http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0895-3309%28199124%295%3A1%3C97%3AI%3E2.0.CO%3B2-W —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jamxd (talk • contribs) 12:32, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

Are institutions deliberate and formal, or unintended and emergent?
A question worthy of treatment. In any case, SOMETHING CAN'T BE BOTH DELIBERATE AND EMERGENT (first paragraph of "Aspects of Institutions"). Deliberate things are rules, laws, organizations. Emergent things, eg blind-self-interest-leading-to-organized-capitalism, are NOT deliberate NOR intentional. But i'm probably stumbling onto a debate here between conservatives and liberals. Religious people want to think everything in society, like marriage or morality, was planned on purpose (probably because they'd like to plan it on purpose). Other people don't, and think it's either instinct or spontaneous emergence. Anyway, institutions are either emergent, or they're deliberate. Mention the controversy and delete the self-contradiction. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.38.195.47 (talk) 23:57, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

Wikiproject Prisons
If anyone's interested, I've proposed a new wikiproject for the creation of articles regarding specific prisons here. --Cdogsimmons (talk) 01:28, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

what do you mean by institutions?
what is the exact term for institutions? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 125.60.243.59 (talk) 13:12, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

Major reversion
I reverted the page. Two large sections of the article, with a dense web of links to related topics were wiped out, without any discussion. So, let's discuss. BruceW07 (talk) 05:32, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

Broad improvements
I have added a couple of references (one to a very good article on institutions from the Stamford website, check it out), added a Durkhiem quote, and (most significantly) created a new section listing all types of institution. This will give readers a fighting chance of picking up some comprehensible information.--Tomsega (talk) 18:54, 28 May 2010 (UTC)

Category:institutions
The category linked with this article, category:institutions (deleted history), had been developed into a category for organisations, instead of the subject matter of this article. For this reason it was voted to deletion and the content was merged into category:organisations (see also #1, #2, #3). Is it necessary to recreate (or, alternatively, request to undelete) the category according to the definition in this article? &mdash; Instantnood 12:08, 10 October 2005 (UTC)

wait a moment —Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.221.71.219 (talk) 18:01, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

Institution vs. formal organization
This article begins with a description of formal organizations, and goes on to confound the two concepts. Institutions arise from culturally-based traditions that fulfill 'societal needs' (from a functionalist point of view). Formal organizations are rationally organized around a purpose. Meclee (talk) 05:36, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

British or American spelling?
In the interests of the standard of uniformity and constancy in this article I would like to know what everyone else things about which spelling format should be used for this page? British or American? There seems to be no consistent or predominant spelling type in this article yet; the British spelling of "organisation" is used seven times and American spelling (organization) is used eight times is an example. Additionally there are no strong national ties to this article which might indicate which type should be used. I personally don't care which type is used and maybe I am being a bit hasty in trying to sort this out but it would be nice to resolve this sooner rather than later. --Discott (talk) 10:11, 20 April 2011 (UTC)
 * I was just coming here to post this same observation. The spelling is very British. --Halqh حَلَقَة הלכהሐላቃህ (talk) 14:23, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

This wikipedia page needs a cleanup asap.
Already cleaned up some of the weird stuff that was written, experienced editors please feel free to clean the institution page up. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.49.12.48 (talk) 00:03, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

The section Institutional Rigidity: good, bold effort, some potential problems. Please help!
Based on the history of this article, the creator of this section, User:RespeckKnuckles (apparently a new Wikipedian editor), seems to have created this entire section after assuming that there was an Institutional rigidity article, adding that to See also, and then seeing that it was a red link. The section is based on work by Ian Lustick, with some unreferenced commentary on Lustick's work by a few other experts in the last paragraph.

Is "institutional rigidity" a term used by an entire field, or just one author/researcher?


 * 1) If this phrase is important to any major discussion of institutions, then yes, the content should be here but not focusing on one person's theory.  Even the last paragraph simply gives reactions to Lustick's theory, as far as my sleepy eyes could skim. Also, the concept should be summarized, well referenced, and then explored at length in its own article, perhaps by starting with a stub.
 * 2) If this phrase is only brought up in Lustick's work or in reaction to that work, then while it might be a valid section in the Ian Lustick article, the entire section should be removed from this article. At most, a link to the section in the Ian Lustick article could be made in the See also section.

I'm sure there's some other happy medium between these two options I suggest, but what I've said is the most my real-life limitations will allow. Also, I can't monitor this article nor research this concept, so I'm leaving the article's section as-is rather than taking the responsibility of deleting it. TIA! --Geekdiva (talk) 08:07, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

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Sociology
Shouldn't this be at institution (sociology)? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Inowen (talk • contribs) 10:09, 5 February 2018 (UTC)

British vs American usage of the word
My recollection is that American writers use the word in the sense used here, while British writers only use it in the sense of a formal organisation. Oxford dictionary writes https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/institution while Merria-Webster writes https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/institution.

I feel that a mention of the British-American difference should be mentioned somehow. Star Lord -   星爵 (talk) 08:20, 11 May 2018 (UTC)

Unnecessary political nonsense in example
In the list of examples, next to economic systems, there is a highly opinionated sentence "Capitalist society may encourage the growth of centralization and interdependence under the control of an elite. Socialism encourages democratic, bottom-up control by the people and their communities.", I removed it, but then the edit was reverted without explanation. I thought it was understood that highly biased political opinion doesn't belong on a page like this. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A02:908:181:ECA0:CCBD:3459:E299:2C95 (talk) 09:19, 7 March 2020 (UTC)