Institution

Institutions are "stable, valued, recurring patterns of behavior." As structures or mechanisms of social order, they govern the behaviour of a set of individuals within a given community. Institutions are identified with a social purpose, transcending individuals and intentions by mediating the rules that govern living behavior.

The term "institution" commonly applies to a custom or behavior pattern important to a society, and to particular formal organizations of the government and public services. As structures and mechanisms of social order, institutions are a principal object of study in social sciences such as political science, anthropology, economics, and sociology (the latter described by Émile Durkheim as the "science of institutions, their genesis and their functioning"). Institutions are also a central concern for law, the formal mechanism for political rule-making and enforcement.

Examples

Institution (disambiguation)

Institutions are social constructs, both cultural and organizational.

Institution or institutions may also refer to:

See also

Institution (computer science)

The notion of institution has been created by Joseph Goguen and Rod Burstall in the late 1970s in order to deal with the "population explosion among the logical systems used in computer science". The notion tries to capture the essence of the concept of "logical system".

The use of institutions makes it possible to develop concepts of specification languages (like structuring of specifications, parameterization, implementation, refinement, development), proof calculi and even tools in a way completely independent of the underlying logical system. There are also morphisms that allow to relate and translate logical systems. Important applications of this are re-use of logical structure (also called borrowing), heterogeneous specification and combination of logics.

The spread of institutional model theory has generalized various notions and results of model theory and institutions themselves have impacted the progress of universal logic.

Definition