This project aims at the build-up of a comprehensive, precise and realistic theory of social institutions. Social institutions, like the Bundestag, the city council of Munich, Telecom, Stadtsparkasse München or the garage next door, are the most important factors shaping our social world, but they are poorly understood up to now, and few scientific ressources are devoted to their study.
The dominant scientific view is that institutions are economic systems. The two main economic approaches to the study of institutions are organization theory and game theory. Organization theory investigates institutions which are explicitly structured according to tasks and roles as they are found in the industry. In game theory institutions are modelled as equilibrium points in complex 'games' which means that an institution yields benefit for each of its members.
In our approach institutions are essentially power hierarchies. This is a more realistic view. The economic assumptions are therefore rejected.
An institution is here modelled as a complex and dynamic pattern of power relations which are stabilized by internal representations. The project is to further elaborate, specialize, and apply the theory of institutions.
Furthermore the goal is to compare our theory with rival approaches.
Balzer, W. 1990: A Basic Model for Social Institutions, Journal of
Mathematical Sociology 16, 1-29.
Balzer, W. 1993. Soziale Institutionen, de Gruyter, Berlin.
Balzer, W. 1992. Kriterien für Entstehung und Wandel sozialer Institutionen.
In: Melville, G. (ed.), Institutionen und
Geschichte, Köln-Weimar-Wien, 73-95.
Balzer, W. 1992. A Model of Power in Small Groups. In: H. Westmeyer (ed.), The Structuralist Program in Psychology,
Seattle etc.,
Hogrefe and Huber, 191-210.
Balzer, W. 1992. Game Theory and Power Theory: A Critical Comparison. In: T.Wartenberg (ed.), Rethinking Power,
Albany, 56-78.
Balzer, W. 1994. Exchange versus Influence: A Case of Idealization. In:
B.Hamminga and N.B.de Marchi (eds.), Idealization
VI: Idealization in Economics, Poznan Studies 38, Amsterdam: Rodopi, 189-203.
Balzer, W. 2002. Searle on Social Institutions: A Critique, Dialectica 56, 195-211.
Horster, N. 1997. Principles of Exchange and Power, Peter Lang,Frankfurt/Main.
Sander, J. 1988. Eine strukturalistische Rekonstruktion der Wartenbergschen Machttheorie.
MA-Thesis.
The following subjects are under investigation.
Criteria of Identity: to find structurally precise criteria that allow to determine whether two given
'time cuts' belong to the
same institution or to different ones.
Rotation or Change of the Top Group: to subsume institutions with frequent change of the top
(like party democracies) under the power model.
Norms: to develop a precise formalism for the incorporation of the build-up and the functioning of
norms in the models.
Joint Attitudes: to analyze and incorporate joint attitudes into the models, and to describe the role
they play.
Computer Simulations: to develop programmes for the simulation
of the origin and development of
institutions (see also Munich Simulation Group).