Using what you have learned in this course unpack the key INSTITUTIONS and ORGANISATIONS underpinning criminology from a given time period. Apply your analysis to the problem of SOCIAL ORDER. 2000 words

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Family is NOT an institution: distinguishing institutions from organisations in social science and social theory

Peter Rogers

To cite this article: Peter Rogers (2017) Family is NOT an institution: distinguishing institutions from organisations in social science and social theory, International Review of Sociology, 27:1, 126-141, DOI: 10.1080/03906701.2016.1235214

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Family is NOT an institution: distinguishing institutions from organisations in social science and social theory Peter Rogers

Sociology Department, Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia

ABSTRACT This paper addresses the use, and potential misuse, of the ‘institution’ as a key concept in sociology. The concept of the ‘institution’ is interrogated using ‘family’ as an example and new institutional economics (NIE) as a crucible. The sociological understanding of family as an ‘institution’ is challenged by the distinction between ‘institutions’ and ‘organisations’ in NIE. The blurring of generic non-sociological terms with critical sociological concepts causes confusion between institutions and organisations. This is highly problematic for understanding social change in increasingly complex systems. I conclude that the contextual embedding of sociological concepts remains important to the appropriate use of the term ‘institution’ in the social sciences.

ARTICLE HISTORY Received 4 March 2016 Accepted 6 August 2016

KEYWORDS New institutionalism; social theory; institution; organisation; political economy; complex interplay theory

Introduction

In the preface to the second edition of Emile Durkheim’s ‘Rules of Sociological Method’ he offers a much-cited claim, that ‘sociology can … be defined as the science of institutions, their genesis and their functioning’ (Durkheim 1895 [1982], p. 45). However, this is a too often used as a truncated statement. The full quote reads:

In fact, without doing violence to the meaning of the word, one may term an institution all the beliefs and modes of behaviour instituted by the collectivity; sociology can then be defined as the science of institutions, their genesis and their functioning. (Durkheim 1895 [1982], p. 45)

In this classical treatment of institutions we must take note of beliefs and of modes of behaviour; these are significant. The treatment of institutions in contemporary social the- ory has lost this focal point, confused it even, by muddling the purpose of key sociologi- cal concepts – neither reducing nor processing the manifold into clear and concise singularities (as Kantian logic might require) nor escaping the fixity of meaning through polysemic interpretation to explore reflexive experience as it changes, as it emerges, as it – and therefore we – become that which we might be (as modern pragmatism would desire).

Hereafter, I explore the resurgence of interest in the neo-institutionalism of sociology, its commonalities and contestations. The argument offered here departs from institutions

© 2016 University of Rome ‘La Sapienza’

CONTACT Peter Rogers [email protected] Macquarie University, 800, W6A, North Ryde, Sydney, Australia

INTERNATIONAL REVIEW OF SOCIOLOGY—REVUE INTERNATIONALE DE SOCIOLOGIE, 2017 VOL. 27, NO. 1, 126–141 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03906701.2016.1235214

as treated by classical sociology to one drawn from New Institutional Economics (hereafter NIE). I am seeking to shift focus and increase the rigour by which social theory explores and uses key critical concepts. It should be noted that I am not a sociologist of the family. Family is not really my interest in this paper. I could easy have used the church or the state as a key concept which is not an institution. Family is the foil for exploring the misuse of a core concept so in reading this please do not get caught up in the sociology of the family. By exploring the problem of language and institutions using the foil of the family as a means to demonstrate my point – that institutions is a concept abused by loose lipped social theorists – I will look to move beyond the meta-narrative to critique of theory itself. This is in some sense pragmatic, a theory is only as good as the use to which it is put. I will draw on several in a (re)assemblage of the useful parts to make my point as clearly as I can in an article of this size. To do so the language will be a touch more dense that I would choose, but since the use of language is central to my case I will not apologise for using the right words to make the right point. The end goal of this article is therefore to apply a fledgling form of complex interplay theory (Rogers 2012) aligned with elements of political economics (hereafter PE) and thus clarify the correct usage of institutions as a critical concept in social theory.

Exploring the problem

The challenge I have set here is not small, nor simple, especially as I have little intellectual or professional concern for aligning my critique with the established tropes and tired argu- mentation surrounding the minutiae of rational economics. My critique is aligned with sociological interests and the obfuscation that occurs when social theory is subsumed within economic rationalism. This problem is implicit in much of the interplay between NIE and other branches of the social sciences. It is of growing concern for social scientists who seek to influence professional audiences, particularly in government, as the apparent ‘head-space’ between sociology and government grows wider. One cannot ignore this trend; where post-ideological emergence of rationalism as the dominant logic of contem- porary governance creates a drift away from critical, and often ‘leftist’, logics held by many sociologists. For many in both the civil and private sectors the lessons of theory, ideology and critique are not high priorities. Many are bound by institutionalised workplace prac- tices to which individuals must conform in their daily routines. Many are exposed to tar- get-driven service delivery requirements, to a perpetual drive for efficiency optimisation and also to the Janus-faced hydra of innovative decentralised process improvement, sim- ultaneously contradictory to standards-driven operational conformance requirements. These are pervasive features of many workplace cultures affecting the contextual embed- ding of cognitive practice, decision-making and even well-being for many people. This reappears in the private sector, in charitable agencies, in the civil service and, yes, in the academy. One can easily argue that there is now a consensus in political organisations that free-markets, and the organisations which drive them, are better than governments at delivering both services and broader freedoms to the citizenry. This view has incremen- tally altered the structure, form and function of government, the relationships between citizens, elected representatives and the wider public sphere of civil servants as well as non-governmental agency operations and influence. The saturation of popular culture with ‘market oriented mentalities’ (McGuigan 2005) has further encouraged forms of

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hyper-individualisation undermining both collective agency and collective action; informed by an information revolution where the beliefs, values, practices of everyday life are increasingly disparate, further individualised, monitored and surveilled – often with consequences not yet fully known.

Sociology seeks the patterns in this process of ongoing change, seeking to understand the institutions through which potential becomes the norm, interpreting change and offer- ing criticism. Sociology, and sociologists, seek influence, seek the credibility required to establish access to governance agencies. In order to do so one must distinguish clearly between a specialised concept (with its philosophical distinctions) and the general language meaning (which one might find in the dictionary), or we are speaking across each other not to each other. The art of political rhetoric is such that a lack of clarity can be fatal to a theory, to a policy initiative and in some cases to individual careers. Con- cepts are carefully managed, categorised, tested against empirical evidence and quality standards, before delivering an impact metric to establish if they are fit for purpose. It is no small coincidence that gaining sufficient traction to effect change requires not only a high quality of rigour, as it should, but also an unprecedented level of alignment with the dominant rationalist ethos. One may wish to prevent the purposive rhetoric of political discourse from subverting the meaning and intent of sociological endeavours, but this is rarely possible; where it is achieved such theories have little influence on gov- ernance policy or practice. Making the challenge all the more complicated, scholars are increasingly pressured to demonstrate impact by finding meaningful articulations between these various spheres of activity using metrics that defy the value of critique. In advancing a critical agenda scholars risk exacerbating the emergent comprehension gaps between theory and practice or risk disappearing into a disgruntled irrelevance. Where the latter takes hold scholars remain relevant, but only to the navel-gazing insiders arguing between their specialised intellectual canons, each fighting for recognition of their own paradigm. Such contestations create fractures, becoming wide spaces, the distances between the players seeming, at times, all but insurmountable. This in turn reduces the enthusiasm, buy-in and therefore the apparent relevance of sociology in spheres of policy and practice. If sociology wishes to remain relevant, as a discipline but also as a science, then when theoretically informed, empirically grounded research reaches its end user that research must remain translatable into implementable, and all too often metrically measurable, out- puts. If not our work becomes perceived as so much hot air and is likely to be dismissed as ‘academic’, the perpetual curse of social theory faced by the neo-liberalisation of everything.

Such broad polemical assertions are made here partially to grab your attention, but one cannot understate the importance of a rigorous and consistent use of key concepts in as diverse and changeable a discipline as sociology; nor for aligning the values and beliefs that such terminology frames or underpins in the evolution of our social order. Insti- tutions are vital to this work and all will benefit from a clearer understanding of what, how and when the term is used, can be used and should be used. This done we can speak more forcefully using a clear and consistent vocabulary, avoiding confusion amongst scholars and students but also curtailing the misuse of social theory in other spheres of influence. In this sense it is important to first unpack the distinction within the meaning of institutions that is most problematic, that of the double meaning of institutions as both, and at once, a process and a group.

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Problematising institutions and organisations

Institutions, when treated uncritically by the general parlance of our time (glibly referred to as the common tongue) can have many variations in meaning.1 For our purposes there are two general groupings that grab our attention. The first treats institutions as a broad process. It is an act of creation, of beginning, even becoming. It is also within this an act that institutions bring order to a thing. They become seen as an arrangement or regulation; more so institutions inform the established order by which anything is regulated. It is widely known and accepted, it is common-place and assumed, it underwrites social order as an established principle – e.g. a law, custom, usage, or practice. However, this is where the cross-over between generic meanings emerge. As a part of this established principal institutions are also seen as an organisation or an establishment with some form of charge or position. The institution can thus also be defined in its general meaning as an association of people coming together as a group; but more than that, a grouping created for the promotion of some common object or collective outcome – a church, a school, college, reformatory, asylum or even a guild, a bank, a trade union, a corporation, a charity or non-governmental organisation (NGO). I do not mean here to imply that all sociologists do not know, or ever acknowledged, to which they refer. However, there is often an apparent lack of clarity in the use of these two variations – appearing at some- times to drift from the former latter interchangeably. The very fact that the word is used as such renders the distinction of meaning difficult to unpack. It also creates an uncritical conceptual aggregation of two semantic groups emergent from the philosophical treatment of the term institution. The first being processual and of relationships between individuals which are commonly known – i.e. institutionalised ideas and/or behavioural norms. The second being of groups treated as a coming together of individuals into a coalition – i.e. organisational in formal structure. Meanings therefore become opaque where scholars do not lay out a clear genealogical or etymological framework for their usage of the core concept. This has significant consequences for the clarity of discourse and the interpretation of general discussion regarding institutions in social theory, but also for broader social critique and evidence-based policy recommendations where the end goal is to affect change in the alignment of a social order towards a particular type set of beliefs, customs, traditions, values and concomitant ways of thinking, doing and acting.

The example of family

One good example of the lack of clarity I am pointing at here is the treatment of ‘family’ as an institution by sociologists. The role of the family, the structure of the family, the com- ponents of the family and its importance as both a formative and normative influence on civilisation have posed, arguably, one of the greatest challenges for sociology as a scientific endeavour. It has long been suggested that family is no longer an institution in the modern world; rather that the role of family has changed over time leaving a varied and complex series of companionship oriented social relations (Burgess and Locke 1945). Influential contributions to the debate by R.D. Laing (1967 [1990]) challenged the acceptance of family as a normative instrument of social reproduction through a psychological appro- priation of rational choice. Ulrich Beck later claimed that the inner globalisation of

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transnationally networked families, the institutionalised individualism of reflexive moder- nity, the economy of insecurity and the intertwining of nature and society render obsolete the self-images and models of modern family life (Beck and Beck-Gernsheim 2003). Socio- logical heavyweights such as Anthony Giddens have also written on family suggesting both family and marriage have become ‘shell institutions’ (Giddens 2002, p. 58), as such pro- blematic and potentially empty but still maintained in the social imaginary by the anima of its own internal relations – for example ‘coupling’ and corresponding economic contracts or emotional commitments, as formal or informal exchanges between those individuals thus connected. Yet alongside this series of critical challenges there is a norma- tive sociological trope that treats family as a ‘social institution’ with an ideational and a behavioural sub-set of relations:

Classic examples of social institutions are: political institutions like the government, courts and parliament; financial institutions like banks and credit bureaus; and cultural institutions like schools and churches. (Amoateng 2007, p. 27)

This is a net cast wide indeed, incorporating a number of organisational forms with specific functions but not offering any analytical distinction between the normative function of the ideational and the behavioural aspects of agency within the grouping. In this open treatment of social institutions the function or purpose of the organis- ational grouping in ‘time-space-place’2 are conflated with its normative influence on human agency – i.e. cognitive processing and decision-making of the individuals within the grouping (politicians, bankers, teachers, priests) as well as disregarding symbolic and actual influences emergent or contingent upon geographic location (parliament house, stock exchange, classroom, confessional). It is an approach that makes the normative dimensions of everyday life, as played out in real time (i.e. experience), disappear. Dis- tinctions between the ideological and behavioural relations of active decision-making agents cannot be adequately explained or interrogated by this empirical abstraction. These relations are supposed to condition the structural variations of family. They are also implied to formalise the cognitive assumptions individuals make about family members, establishing norms for behavioural activity which one might also establish as each member having reasonable expectations appertaining to the conduct of others. Such expectations are founded as much on beliefs (i.e. mythos) as they are on values (i.e. ethos) and thus combined offer structural guidance for informal codification as norms (i.e. acceptable behaviour) and formal codification as rules (i.e. laws or nomos). Thus the interplay of these variables lends a weighted meaning to the social institution, which itself is subject to realignment over time depending on the dominant weighting towards particular variables or dominant influence of particular powerful coalitions sup- porting a particular set of interests at that time. Notably the emphasis in many classical sociological approaches seems to emphasise such contestations, but often in a limited way, for example: the contested balance of ideas and behaviours against structure and function in Durkheim (1888 [1978]), the conflation of household and family authority through kinship in Weber (1922 [1968]). Such variations socially construct particular cognitive frameworks for mediating social relationships idiosyncratically, individual action ends up balanced against a vaguely cooperative collectivisation of mutual expec- tations, the individual and group are co-constituted. Veblen framed further frames this as habitual:

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The growth and mutations of the institutional fabric are an outcome of the conduct of the individual members of the group, since it is out of the experience of the individuals, through the habituation of individuals, that institutions arise; and it is in the same experience that these institutions act to direct and define the aims and end of conduct. (Veblen 1919, p. 249)3

One might therefore suppose institutions are not structural in terms of membership or grouping beyond rather linear structural-functions inherent in the analysis of the habitual conduct binding each coalition. Such coalitions are organised around particular habitu- ated interests specific to that group at that time in history, they are contextually embedded in statu nascendi to social action. Using the example of family one need therefore under- stand the common bonds binding family and the expected customs, habits or traditions as adherent though simultaneously co-constituting each other through the interplay of indi- viduals and collective over time. The purposive output and goal is mutually agreed upon and predictable behaviour replicated through common interests and expectations. One can also suggest that the structure-function dichotomy seems capable only of determining what the normal family structure IS (generating typology) and thus assumes its institutio- nalised functions. Family, in conception as a social institution, can only be categorised into normal or abnormal types to show the dominant trend of structural formations. Typolo- gical abstraction is the limit of analysis beyond this it becomes a victim of abstract empiri- cism used to verify a census of distinct types aligned with nascent morality underpinning what the analyst conceives to be normal or not, sociology is reduced to demography. Throughout this to-and-fro belief and interest get muddled and subsumed within the implicit normative dimensions of both logic and method; an important feature of the defi- nition to which we will return.

One can argue that family does appear to have ephemeral ideational and concrete behavioural dimensions. Traditional (or ‘classical’) sociological approaches have been lim- ited in their ability to clearly explain these as institutional, or to show how social insti- tutions operate differently at multiple levels, nor how they co-constitute the ideas and interests which motivate collective as well as individual action. One needs a clearer frame- work for breaking down the interplay of ideas and interests as co-constitutive; as informed by changing beliefs, values, norms, rules as they are contested, reconstituted and realigned.

It is clear from the muddy water discussed so far that institutions can be defined more clearly; the uncritical addition of a conceptual modifier such as ‘social’, ‘political’, ‘cultural’ (etc.) does not help. In the above examples adding ‘social’ to the ‘institution’ is simply add- ing a layer of grammatical vagueness to the conceptual complexity as an adjunct to theor- etical meaning. The lack of consistency across these approaches pushes meaning as attached to the modifier, serving only to muddy the water further. Institution thus remains, perhaps intentionally, ‘blurry’ around the edges; nothing can be completely ruled out. When this lack of clarity is not acknowledged it compounds a perceived inter- changeability in the use of ‘institutions’ between the specific ‘social’ institution and the common noun treating institution as an organisation – i.e. ‘an establishment, foundation, society, or the like, devoted to the promotion of a particular cause or program, especially one of a public, educational, or charitable character’ (Murray et al. 1970). Scholars regu- larly present either no clear definition, assuming everyone knows what they mean, or com- pound the obfuscation of institutions and organisations with generic platitudes. One good example of this is ‘institutions’ conceived as ‘the more enduring features of social life’ (Giddens 1984, p. 24). I believe we can do better, that we must do better. Conceptual

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clarity between the relational concept of social institutions as social processes indicative of behavioural functions – i.e. with normative dimensions affecting both ideational and behavioural agency – must be rendered distinct from institution as organisational struc- ture or form – with a specific membership, constituency and purpose for the disposition of its socially ascribed identity to achieve this.

Separating institutions and organisations

Certain thematics do emerge from the above discussion; however, one must dig deeper to start clearing the mud. The next step is to clarify the three more modern views of the inter- play between institutions and organisations in social sciences (Scott 2014). The first of these effective elides the distinction between institutions and organisations. Emerging from a seminal article by Meyer and Rowan (1977) institutional myths, environment and organisational relationships are treated as ‘isomorphic’ – i.e. of equal ratio of influence or (in mathematical terminology) of a structure preserving a one-to-one formal corre- spondence. This ‘organisational sociology’ has been criticised for oversimplifying institu- tionalisation and treating the ‘organization-as-institution’ (Zucker 1987, p. 444) where the actions of individuals within the organisation are deemed legitimate by mimetic routinisa- tion in highly formalised environments – i.e. the workplace. It also fails to include an assessment of contradictory agency, where the values and formal institutions are not pre- scriptive, for example people may disregard or subvert the formal rules in favour of expe- diency – as occurred in the ‘gaming of the system’ within the British National Health Service during the New Labour period of government. This was typified by target-driven performance incentive reforms that were regularly obviated by innovations such as the ‘Hello Nurse’.4 Nor does it adequately address the contradiction between values as held by individual actors and those embedded in the actions of the organisation (i.e. I vote Green but I work for Exxon). Here institutions and organisation are confused by conflat- ing the conduct of actors (within the formal micro-organisational environment – as form) with macro-institutional environments (an implied equilibrium of commonly held values in a wider social order). A number of assumptions are implied. Most problematic of these is the assumed latency of a bounded instrumental rationality in our broader democratic-capitalist social order. This is implied to be a dominant constituent of the broader alignment of myths, ethics and normative behaviours in the mid-late twentieth century.5

A second approach focuses on economic institutions of capitalism. Again this conflates the institution and organisation, but here the focus in on transaction economics and organisational form (Williamson 2008). Organisations are a form of institutionalised gov- ernance structures generating distinctive ways of doing with a specific character reflecting the basic values of the firm. This again appropriates elements of the micro-analysis of organisations but here emphasises the social context within which transactions occur as embedded in the customs, mores, habits of individual actors. In this sense the second view supposes that ‘organisations are relatively distinct institutions that are either designed by or evolve out of the choices made by organisational agents’ (Scott 2014, p. 183). It is clear that neither the first nor the second of these approaches leaves room for the exploration or explanation of interplay between myths, ethics and laws. Debate is bound by a conflation of institutions and organisations we have already shown to be problematic.

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The third variation offers a challenge to some of these previous approaches and the assumptions underpinning them. It is also, perhaps, the most clearly developed in making a distinction between institutions and organisations. The work of Douglas North, in par- ticular, offers a useful definition of institutions from which to distinguish between our gen- eral meaning and a more focussed sociological concept:

Institutions are the rules of the game in a society or, more formally, are the humanly devised constraints that shape human interaction. (North 1990, p. 3, original emphasis)

This is a far more concise definition than those offered by both classical and contemporary sociology. However it is linear and this present new problems. Before addressing those it will serve us, for now, to explore its advantages. One can achieve this through a foray into genealogy and social order in the work of North, Wallis and Weingast (2009) where insti- tutional analysis using NIE methods are aligned to social scientific topics of social order. North et al. position NIE as an alternative ontological framework for social science, cross- ing the epistemological divide between economics and critical social theory in ways we have, arguably, not seen since the classical economic and juridical philosophy of Adam Smith (see for example, Smith 1896). Building on the above definition institutions are trea- ted as inclusive of ‘formal rules, written laws, formal social conventions, informal norms of behaviour, and shared beliefs about the world’ (North et al. 2009, p. 15). The difference from organisations becomes clear, for ‘organisations consist of specific groups of individuals pursuing a mix of common and individual goals through partially coordinated behaviour’ (North 1990, p. 3, original emphasis). An organisation serves to add some commonality to the action of its members, operating as a mechanism for the coordination of activity and becoming more than the action of each individual by virtue of this common purpose. The repetition of action and interaction reinforces the commonality of shared interest and thus reinforces shared beliefs, in turn informing the particular alignment of institutions served or contested by organisation behaviour as a composite of the individual actors. Organis- ational forms are varied but the logic underpinning the distinction allows for a clearer schematisation of distinction between overlapping semantic groups as well as contextually embedding habits as only partially coordinated, thus not universalised whilst still allowing for individual affective interpretations in situ.

Despite the improved definitional clarity the focus of organisations is still very much limited in scope to a narrow conception of an organisation as corporation, i.e. employer of people in a wage-labour exchange. Organisations can be far more malleable if we include ANY grouping that is oriented around a specific membership with a common pur- pose embedded in its form or function. This transcends the political economic implications of organisational sociology and applies the framework to groupings that are not strictly tied to work or employment as institutionalised functions of the democratic capitalism (as social order). The following treatment of family as an organisation rather than an insti- tution allows us to refocus on the SOCIOLOGY rather than the organisational politicking of homo economicus. The example of the family is but one of many potential examples, it serves here to show the utility of this distinction between institutions and organisations in adding clarity to the debate. My hope is that this will generate a more rigorous discussion of institutions and organisations – as distinct, separate phenomena – and generate clearer parameters on the use of the specific theoretical term distinct from the generic common vernacular. This discussion can be reinvigorated to a constructive end. Much that

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seems missing from the explanation of family, but also many other organised groups with specific common purpose and recognisable structure, how their actions can be mapped and given meaning in advanced modernity, may be readdressed through a more nuanced understanding of institutions and organisations in the social sciences.

So is family an institution, an organisation or both

At the outset of this piece I made sure not that family is here only used as an exemplar, but to offer sufficient rigour to the example I must delve into it a little further. Whilst it does not serve here to offer a comprehensive review of family sociology it would be remiss to offer this framing without contextualising some dominant tropes in the sociology of the family, albeit in brief. Family appears consistently in social enquiry as a key topic, but since the classicists and before there has been little agreement on the normative structure or role that it plays. Darwin spoke of the inconsistencies of family structure when he spoke of authors who

suppose that man primevally lived in single families; but at the present day, though single families, or only two or three together, roam the solitudes of some savage lands, they always as far as I can discover, hold friendly relations with other families inhabiting the same district. (Darwin 1871, p. 310)

Many of the classicists were locked into a comparative framing of family in terms of the normative influences of monogamy, polygamy, polyandry, as founds in ‘primitive’ cultures cast against civilised forms, content and culture (Adams and Steinmetz 1993, pp. 78–81). Twentieth-century developments have often been more bound to the traditional factions of theoretical doctrine particular to that period. Modern social theory has addressed the ‘relational institutions’ underpinning industrial families using the doctrine of structural functionalism, perhaps best found in the works George Murdock (1949) and Talcott Par- sons (1951 [2013]). Elsewhere a stringent critique of the accepted normative view of family as a fundamental building block of social life emerged from the psychiatric explorations of R.D. Laing, best exemplified by ‘politics of experience’ (1967 [1990]). Laing attempted to explode the myth of family as socially cohesive, rather regarding the family as a pressure cooker of neuroses used to create normative relationships more akin to a ‘straight-jacket of conformity’. In such environments the individual was stymied, constrained and coerced by the weight of expectations levied against them by other rational players inside the family unit, each playing logical games against each other for the pursuit of their own personal goals. More sociological – and perhaps amongst the most influential approaches to this day – is the ‘family practices’ logic instigated by David Morgan. Seeking to bridge the divide between outdated sociological theory and the lived experience of family, whilst offering a critique of Laing, dominant feminist perspective on the family and a more nuanced treatment of sex and sexuality (Morgan 1975). Morgan’s work over the next 30 years applied, extended, revised and revisited the dominant sociological tropes of work, class, gender (and so on) but also applying postmodernism, citizenship, risk, con- sumption (Morgan 1996) and also more recently emotion and intimate spheres of every- day life to show the relevance of family practices as a sociological approach to the fluidity and everyday life, to the active character of lived family experiences attempting to bridge biography and history (Morgan 2014), in the finest sociological tradition of C.W. Mills.

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Despite the influence of such approaches it can also be argued that the sociology of the family has had a rough run in the late-twentieth century. One can certainly, at least in part, critique the waning veracity of sociological explanations of family in the light of a rising influence for psychological individualism as the dominant explanatory framework. The rational choice theory made explicit by Laing may not be an attractive model to sociol- ogists, but it is hard to deny that it is a better match to the conceptual framing of citizens inherent in the globalising economic neo-liberalism in Western democracies (Edgar 2004, p. 3). Laing however is a radical on the fringes of psychiatry. His work is poorly suited to be aligned with the economic rationalism of neoclassical and neo-institutionalist economics. To explore this connection to social scientific economic rationalist applications we have to look elsewhere, and in this we can see a connection between the framework outlined ear- lier and the work of Avner Grief. In his work on collectivist and individualist societies Grief explores the role of belief in the creation and perpetuation of institutions, suggesting that

cultural beliefs are the ideas and thoughts common to several individuals that govern interaction – between these people, and between them, their gods, and other groups- and differ from knowledge in that they are not empirically discovered or analytically proved. (Greif 1994, p. 915)

This is relevant to the structuration of the family as a normative influence that allows us to logically divide, whilst allowing for permeable interplay of the institutional and the organisational. Beliefs are inherently relational, emergent from myths, stories, and tales. They are collectivised in ethical framings as normative expectations that thus govern inter- action but in this sense they are not cohesive, nor solid, nor hermetically sealed or concrete, for they are changing in perpetuity according the contextual membership of those people in situ. It is through the membership of the group at any given time that we are able to abstract from them an analytical framing of agreement into praxis, but it is manifest through inter- actions in statu nascendi (in the process of becoming) (Rogers 2012). As such the member- ship of the group is a key element to better understanding the alignment of the constituent elements. The separation of these amorphous and relational institutions from the formal structure of groups allows us to categorise groups by type, by the alignment of institutions with which they interplay. The structure of the group is co-constituted by the agreement over commonly held institutions. There is an assumption here of constancy that is not empirically established. Greif suggests that cultural beliefs are identical and commonly known; however, this denies the articulation of interplay as a complex coalescence of vari- ables centred on individuals. Each individual in each moment will draw composite of their values in the context within which they find themselves. This distinction is important at two levels. At the level of the individual it is suggested that whilst there are correlations between commonly held beliefs they are rarely, if ever, identical, being subject to the idio- syncrasies of interpretation, experience and affective emotion. At the level of the abstracted collective there are perhaps common themes and threads but these operate at such a level of abstraction from the situationally embedded context in which actors interact that they have the empirical relevance of Asimov’s psycho-history to our current analytical capabilities – we simply have no metrics capable of measuring such a complex interplay.

The treatment of relational institutions is not inimical to that of the institution as ‘rules of the game’ in the emergent new institutionalist economics, however the NIE does not

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have a framework for the permeable reframing of co-constituting social processes as a complex process of becoming something else. The structural functionalism and NIE models try to synthesise an optimum analytical process and hold particular topics in stasis within their optimised grand theoretical framework. The family practices of Morgan and others come closer to the treatment of family as a nuanced, reflexive and malleable thing, but do not address the distinction of institutions as directly as one might like, especially if one seeks to unpick the confusion of general and sociological applications problematised above. Through a treatment of permeable and complex interplay between institutions and organisations we are able to bring a more critical and nuanced frame for the grounding of theory in research to the fore. Using family as but one of many potential examples we might then break down this overlap using a typological treatment of the composite vari- ables which constitute each form, albeit loosely framed at this stage of exploration (see Table 1).

This paper goes some small way towards addressing a complex and hotly contesting reframing of a core sociological topic (remember this is a discussion of institutions rather than family per se, family is but the exemplar); it is far from being a ‘final word’. This challenge to the status quo in social theory is intended only to open up opportunities for thinking through these concepts in a different way; a way more grounded in our con- temporary habitus, in our contemporary framing of the sociological imagination. It’s pur- pose is not to contest nor deride grand theory or abstract empiricism; nor do I seek to uncritically debunk any effort made by other scholars to engage with the complicated nuances of experience, regardless how deeply they are embedded in long standing scho- larly traditions long since in need of updating and review. Rather it is to place the con- temporary moment of transformation at the locus of a different approach. This approach can clear some of the mist over the critical concept of institutions, it can help reframe values and add a more nuanced appreciation of time-space-place to the complexity of a rapidly changing world. We may consider that:

Family is a ‘nice’ term, one with which we all want to be associated in some way, and therein lies a problem. The term has become a sponge concept, with multiple meanings that can include two friends who live together, the people who work in an office, a local unit of the Mafia, and the family of man. I wish to restrict the term to its most common meaning of a domestic group – a group in which people typically live together in a household and func- tion as a cooperative unit, particularly through the sharing of economic resources, in the pur- suit of domestic activities. (Popenoe 2008, p. 529)

I agree with this element of Popenoe, and that by treating this vital and vibrant sociological concept through a treatment of complexity we can renew the concept of family, but we can also begin to develop a more contemporary sociological framing of institutions and organisations.

Table 1. Distinguishing between institutions and organisations by constituent variables. Institution Organisation

KINSHIP – Marriage – Parenthood – Sorority – Fraternity – Storge (?) (store-gae)7

‘blood is thicker than water’

FAMILY – Mother – Father – Child – Sibling – Pet (dog/cat/rock etc.) ‘The family was not only the social unit, but also the unit of government.’

136 P. ROGERS

Towards a critically pragmatic theory of complexity

This paper raises more questions than answers. It is intended to do so. Perhaps the second most important question to its author is to ask if one can credibly argue that sociologists should to stop romanticising family and look at the reality of its role; not as a formative or as a normative institutional framework for social relationships but as a standard organis- ational unit protected in many ways by its own inertia in the social imaginary (beliefs/ mythos) as by any legacy of particular normative techniques or mechanisms of governing. It is through the ill-advised leap of faith that we fall foul of romanticised assumptions about family and thus the state is able to add normative regulation of prescribed family units (laws/nomos) reinforced by the normative inertia in the population (norms/ethos) free from the competition that acts in terms of the same logic. There are a multiplicity of forms of ‘family’ but the implicit regulative confusion of its institutionalised ordering influence on everyday life is a source of conflict not cohesion in the quality of life experi- enced by the general populace. The confusion of institutions and organisations is a signifi- cant factor in this, as too many of those who seek to regulate the normative aspects of culture in law through the rule of law do not understand the distinction, compounded by our own complicity in this farcical lack of clarity. It is through the normative regulation of family that such constraints as marriage and civil union become divisive, for they are not framed coherently as the composite elements of organisational units they are. Equally such alternative commitment paradigms – from civil unions for same-sex couples or poly- amorous ‘families’ – are seen as a threat to a way of life when they are in the lives of those engaged in them sources of great joy, social stability and personal fulfilment. Families in a traditional Judeo-Christian and Western cultural sense are no more than economic units of taxation, much more significant to the social order of the modern world than any nor- mative moral institutional influence they may hold, but they are also both things at once. To critique this we need to frame the most important question raised by this paper more clearly. How can institutions and organisations be better understood?

One can argue that traditional PE has focused on the interplay of individuals and gov- ernments, using ‘institutions’ as an able foil for understanding social change. One can also argue that over time sociological debates (e.g. of structure and agency) have come to be dominated by the interplay of economic (e.g. financial) and political (e.g. governance) pro- cesses, themselves dominated by problematic assumptions of rationality and unconvincing game theoretic treatments of human nature. This has adversely affected the consistency, clarity and use of the concept of institutions. In addressing this tension I have discussed the problem of definitions, distinguishing between the general language and a more socio- logical or ideological language. It has been argued above that many of the established or canonised approaches to institutions fall in a trap of indistinction – i.e. generalising and not clearly defining the usage of this critical concept. I have identified the common the- matics and broken down the composition of institutions to suggest that overly economic approaches have encouraged this. However, perhaps ironically, the seeds of solving the problem are also emerging from the organisational approach to institutions within NIE. Using the work of Avner Greif (1994) and Douglas North (1990, North et al. 2009) we can separate institutions from organisations to trip this trap, repurposing elements of NIE complimentary to the treatment of social change as an ongoing and complex inter- play. Doing so addresses the coupling and decoupling of institutions and organisations

International Review of Sociology—Revue Internationale de Sociologie 137

from a critical sociological perspective.6 This then led us to the sociology of family as an applied example of the distinction being made; suggesting family is not an institution, rather it is an organisation. Again this is not about family, this paper is bout institutions. One could if one so wished – and I hope others will attempt – to use the example of church, state or even education just as effectively to illustrate these tensions. What we can see using any of these examples is that the organisational form is predicated upon dis- tinct institutionalised beliefs and institutional processes, this creates a permeable feedback loop between the two where the normative interplay of institutions and organisations are played out through variegated interactions between members. These can be commonly and collectively understood, replicated and thus with the frequency of such replication appear more or less normal by virtue of comparison, more or less desirable by virtue of how common they are, thus informing reasonable expectations of both rights and respon- sibilities for all actors in the contextually embedded frame with which they are most fam- iliar. The complexity of the interplay is increased by virtue of access. Understanding who has access to which frame of reference and the process by which particular configurations become commonplace and thus accepted as normal by coalitions of common interest who then replicate, often unintentionally, the same alignments over and over again, thus creat- ing what we see as normal in our everyday lives.

It is my hope that this offering will have a number of outcomes. It challenges the current orthodoxy of PE in sociology – but also in other disciplines. It highlights some flaws in an overly economic treatment of organisations for organisational sociologists in particular. More so it demonstrates how important it is to ensure the clarity of our terminology – though given the density of my own language I must be aware that I can have some of these same accusations levelled at me as I have cast at others, a flaw in my logic of which I am well aware. In this sense what has been began here can be much improved, in part by adopting a broader application of complex interplay theory as complimentary to NIE in other examples, but also by raising our awareness that casual use of language in the pursuit of accessibility on social theory can only go so far. By using the right language in the right way to espouse theoretical ideas we enable a more rigorous framework for the application of social theory. Our foundations must remain strong, there is no need to do it all at once all the time, even where public intellectualism and public sociology are desirable and essential for the survival of the discipline. Finally, this approach to theory itself opens up belief systems/modes of behaviour to a fresh treatment through the use of interplay as a medium of analysis. It shifts our focus away from what we have been or even what we are to what we are becoming. It positions cultural beliefs and normative values as equal to, if not more important than, economic and political considerations. I see this as both critical and as pragmatic, for without a sensibility of what we are doing and reflexivity of a higher order the social sciences are unbalanced and lose focus and we risk ourselves becoming dispersed and increasingly irrelevant to broader more practical and empirical fields.

Conclusions

I have offered an introduction to a different way of thinking that separates the institution and organisation, but does not seek to seal them away from each other. They coexist, they are co-constitutive, they are permeable and the influence our everyday lives in manifold forms through an ongoing process of interplay. The interplay of these factors across

138 P. ROGERS

micro/meso/macro scales sets up a challenge to the theory of the family as an institution and requires a response from researchers. By doing so it may be that sociologists can reclaim some of the intellectual territory ceded to politics and to economics over the last century. We can use this to revitalise the sociological PE of experience in a number of areas, for a number of themes and major topics. One can easily argue that, across mani- fold interpretations, a consistent lack of conceptual clarity in the framing of institutions is a recurring problem. This problem repeats and reappears precisely because it is at the core of many of the great social scientific debates. Scholars seek a meaning that will allow them to formulate a precise theoretical interpretation and simultaneously mobilise empirical datum to make great claims, forge grand narratives, offer micro analyses of wicked pro- blems and, where possible in the age of information, find a way to render this endless com- plexity palatable to lay persons in the parlance of the common tongue. However, this final bridge, of a public sociological view rendered in the general language (or ‘common ton- gue’) is perhaps a bridge too far, for as social scientists we face a unique problem. Our specific theoretical framing does not neatly map into the general language and sociological terms are not – though they may oft be treated as such – easily interchangeable with every- day spoken word. In the case of institutions one can argue that the attempt to popularise a publicly accessible variation of social theory one, even with the best of intentions, effec- tively blurs the conceptual idealisations that are required to establish specific contextually embedded sociological meaning. Blurring the distinctions between specialised concepts and the non-specialised language from which they are created can, and does, cause pro- blems. I have seen it myself in the classroom when trying to drum up distinctions between the general meaning of a word – too often garnered by the blunt instrument of an online search engine to which students often refer for first principles – and that of specific the- orists with which I am trying to get my classroom to engage. I am confident that I am not alone in encountering this problem.

One might suggest that such issues of language and specificity are less significant in forms of ‘public sociology’ (Burawoy 2005) which can and do pay an important role in the future of our discipline. I do not seek to repudiate the need for a public sociology, I am an advocate of seeking a broader audience for our work and raising the profile of its significance in an age lacking in ideological diversity, especially at the centre of govern- ment and in political discourse. However, not wanting to be drawn back into the navel gazing habits of disciplinary specificity I prefer to focus on the challenge of translating theoretically informed conceptual frameworks into empirically grounded research and thus into evidence-based policy recommendations accessible by the end user. In exploring this effort to ‘bridge the gap’, so to speak, the clarity of meaning that sits beneath our understanding of key terms is vital to ensuring they are not misused and misinterpreted for ends other than those we imply or intend. Indeed, this is vital for demonstrating the wider value of our work to audiences that have disengaged with some of the major socio- logical problems. To this end my aim here is, rather ambitiously, to direct our collective attention towards the need for staging a rescue mission. This rescue mission will bring back to us the soul of our civilisation; saving it, perhaps in the long run, from the depreda- tions of a mathematically aligned reformulation of bounded rationality into the commonly acknowledged mechanistic treatment of homo economicus, which rests like a canker in mouth of capitalist democracies. This view has become an institutionalised fait accompli in the minds of our governors, our rulers, our representatives. What makes this worse is

International Review of Sociology—Revue Internationale de Sociologie 139

that it does not even reflect the values and beliefs of the wider electorate in most democ- racies, nor does it accurately reflect their everyday behaviour. In directing attention towards this a revisitation to institutions and its meaning is only one of many important issues. In this article I have attempted to do so by using the example of family, as but one of many possible examples – though a useful exemplar – of the challenge we face as well as the risks we take if we do not meet this challenge head on.

Notes

1. It is worth noting that the Oxford English Dictionary offers up to eight but with more vari- ations (i.e. nouns, verbs, adjectives, etc. not to mention time periods) this is by no means exhaustive. The general language is inconclusive on this definition.

2. For a detailed explanation of ‘time-space-place’ see Rogers 2012. 3. For a useful comparison of Weber and Veblen, in particular in the early institutional econ-

omics but also on the process of rationalisation see Hedoin 2009. 4. The ‘Hello Nurse’ was introduced by hospitals during this time of key performance indicators

as set by targets to reduce hospital waiting times. The nurse was employed to greet the patients, conducting an informal 5 minutes exam – sometimes but not always – as a way to show that staff had consulted a patient and therefore removing them from the waiting list. This effectively reduced waiting times to within the guidelines set by the targets but undermined standard clinical standards for triage in accident and emergency departments nationwide. See for more Mathieson 2001.

5. A rather crude form of ‘Sie wissen das nicht, aber sie tun es’ (‘they do not know it, but they are doing it’) as drawn from Marx (1867 [2004]).

6. See for an interesting treatment of this from within economic theory, Meyer and Rowan 1977.

7. From Greek, seen as one of the four forms of love in the Christian bible loosely defined as ‘Parental affection; the instinctive affection which animals have for their young’.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Peter Rogers is at Department of Sociology, Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia.

ORCiD

Peter Rogers http://orcid.org/0000-0001-7851-7083

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