Abstract
The dynamics of institutional domains inhere in the processes of inter- and intra-institutional differentiation and the structural and cultural mechanisms by which these nodes of differentiation are integrated. To phrase the matter in a way that takes us back to older functionalist theories (Spencer 1874–1896; Durkheim1893[1963]), the evolution of human societies has involved increasing complexity, with much of this complexity the result of institutional differentiation. For all of the problems with these functional theories, they were on the right track in trying to understand how institutions operate. The first human society contained only one institution – kinship – with all other institutional activities folded into the division of labor of nuclear families in hunting and gathering bands. From the initial institutional base, economy, polity, and religion differentiated; and then from this base, additional domains such as law, education, science, medicine, sport, and art began to evolve.
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Notes
- 1.
See Table 4.1 Generalized symbolic media are markers of value that are both the medium by which exchanges occur among actors as well as the valued resources that are unequally distributed by corporate units in a domain.
- 2.
Values are generalized standards of what is right and proper, good and bad.
- 3.
Meta-ideologies are composites of all institutional ideologies, with some ideologies more dominant than others.
- 4.
One way to visual authority in corporate units within domains is as an “allocation” by polity. As the center of consolidated power for a society, polity allows other units to mobilize certain levels and kinds of power, mostly as authority within corporate units within institutional domains. Such allocation is necessary as corporate units become large, and as segmentation and differentiation of corporate units within a domain increases, some corporate units in non-political domains are often allowed to possess more power than others. However, when this allocation of power goes against the interests of centers of polity, the allocation of power can be pulled back, if polity still has sufficient power to do so.
- 5.
It is this legitimization of exchange relations inhering in the ideologies forged from symbolic media that makes these exchanges resistant to change and to mobilization by actors espousing counter ideologies. Only when exchanges begin to violate basal notions of fairness will actors be receptive to mobilization by counter ideologies.
- 6.
Unless there is high intersection of parameters marking categoric unit memberships and corporate unit positions (Friedkin n.d.). When the incumbents of a position are from diverse categoric units and when their status-sets (in diverse corporate units) vary, the power of structural equivalence to produce common beliefs and outlooks declines.
- 7.
Parameters are the criteria used to classify individuals as “different” and, thereby, to place them in distinctive categoric units. See Blau (1977, 1994).
- 8.
Nominal parameters place individuals into discrete categories like gender and ethnicity.
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Turner, J.H. (2010). The Dynamics of Institutional Domains. In: Theoretical Principles of Sociology, Volume 1. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-6228-7_4
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