Institutions

Institutions are social structures and social mechanisms of social order and cooperation governing the behavior of two or more individuals. Institutions are identified with a social purpose and permanence,individual human lives and intentions, and with the making and enforcing of rules governing cooperative human behavior. The term, institution, is commonly applied to customs and behavior patterns important to a society, as well as to particular formal organizations of government and public service. As structures and mechanisms of social order among humans,institutions are one of the principal objects of study in the social sciences, including sociology, political science and economics. Institutions are a central concern for law, the formal signs for political rule-making and enforcement. The creation and evolution of institutions is a primary topic for history.

Although individual, formal organizations, commonly identified as "institutions," may be deliberately and intentionally created by people, the development and functioning of institutions in society in general may be regarded as an instance of emergence; that is, institutions arise, develop and function in a pattern of social self-organization, which goes beyond the conscious intentions of the individual humans involved.The mechanisms of social cooperation, institutions are manifest in both objectively real, formal organizations, such as the U.S. Congress and the Roman Catholic Church or the Bank of England, and, also, in informal social order and organization, reflecting human psychology, culture, habits and customs. Most important institutions, considered abstractly, have both objective and subjective aspects: examples include money and marriage.