 Social institutions are a central object of study within the social sciences. They represent enduring patterns of organization or structure built up around some social function. Religions, governments and families are all institutions that have stood the test of time because they provide essential structure and serve basic functions within social systems. The concept of a social institution is really very abstract and it's one of the most complex concepts within all of the social sciences. But it's also a very powerful one in that it gives us some kind of unifying concept to all forms of organization within social systems. As such, an institution is really what we'd call in systems theory a subsystem. They are meso level structures between the individual on the micro level and the whole macro system of a society. Thus, institutions are subsystems that perform differentiated functions and provide critical structure. As you may have noticed from this definition, there are really two different interpretations to this concept of an institution. It may be understood with reference to structure or function. For example, in this definition from the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, they define institutions as structures or mechanisms of social order and cooperation governing the behavior of a set of individuals within a given community. We can see in this definition the idea that institutions primarily exist to maintain order and structure. But here's another widely used definition for social institutions as quote, a persistent constellation of status, roles, values and norms that respond to important societal needs. This interpretation places emphasis on the idea of social needs and institutions as mechanisms for performing functions to solve those needs. To give an example of this, we might think about the institution of education from these two different perspectives. We could interpret it as either serving the important function of educating students in the knowledge they need to become working citizens, or equally we can understand the educational system as a mechanism of social order which governs the behavior of a set of individuals within a given community. Both of these different interpretations to institutions are equally valid and prevalent within the literature. Social institutions emerge from and are determined of the actions and relations between agents. Institutions are at the end of the day a type of social system, thus composed of agents and relations through which they are interdependent. All systems perform some function. They take in resources of some kind and process those according to some set of instructions. In order to perform this function, the system needs some form of order or structure to enable the coordination of the elements in performing that process. Systems perform their function only ever to some degree of efficiency. That is to say with any system we can define a simple parameter that maps from a low level of efficiency to a high level of efficiency. This is largely a theoretical construct as with real well complex systems like institutions, efficiency is rarely well defined but this theoretical construct does help us in structuring our reasoning. This degree of efficiency is a very fundamental parameter to a system that really defines its manifest state. When we say that the system is at a low level of efficiency, we mean that more of the resources that are being inputted to the system are being consumed by the components within the system as opposed to being processed into functional outputs. At this low level of efficiency the system is being defined by the consumption of resources. We've already discussed this dynamic when talking about negative interdependencies that resulted in competition or conflict between the components for access to these rival resources. Out of this dynamic emerges relations of dominance within a stratified hierarchical system. At this low level of efficiency we are in a component based regime as described by the area of sociology called conflict theory that we'll be talking about in a minute. Inversely above a certain degree of efficiency when there's more throughput than consumption the system comes to be defined by the function that it performs. Within a functional regime components have to adapt and organize themselves in relation to each other to best facilitate the overall function. This is self-organization and through it we get the emergence of a new level of organization in order to support the collective process. This functional regime to a social system is described within sociology by the theory of functionalism. We'll briefly outline both of these different theories to social institutions starting with functionalism. Functionalism is a theoretical understanding of society that posits social systems are collective means to fulfilling social needs. In order for social life to survive and develop in society there are a number of activities that need to be carried out to ensure that certain needs are fulfilled. In the structural functionalist model individuals produce necessary goods and services in various institutions and roles that correlate with the norms of the society. These institutions, roles, norms and values are interdependent in maintaining a functional equilibrium within the entire system. Within this paradigm order is seen to derive from the interdependencies between the social systems constituent parts within what is called organic solidarity. Organic solidarity is social cohesion based upon the dependencies individuals have on each other in advanced societies. Although individuals perform different tasks and often have different values and interests the order and solidarity of society depends on their reliance on each other to perform their specific and collective tasks. The term organic here is referring to the interdependency of the component parts. In contrast to functionalism conflict theory is a social theory that posits that the distribution of resources between elements within a social system is the primary factor and determinant of the structure to that system. As such it is focused on the unequal distribution of resources arguing that the individuals and groups within society have access to different amounts of material and non-material resources. Thus the social structure that emerges out of this is seen to be essentially a mechanism for more powerful groups to use their resources in order to exploit groups with less power. According to the conflict perspective society is made up of individuals competing for limited resources and this competition over scarce resources is at the heart of all social relations. Conflict theory emphasizes the role of coercion and power in producing social order. This perspective is derived from the work of Karl Marx who saw society as fragmented into groups that compete for social and economic resources. Social order is maintained by dominance with power in the hands of those with the greatest political, economic and social resources. Conflict theory sees society as a dynamic entity constantly undergoing change as a result of competition over scarce resources. Whereas functionalism understands society as a complex system striving for balance and stability the conflict perspective views social life as competition that leads to change. Of course in reality almost all social institutions are a combination of these two. They are both structure and function both cooperation and conflict, static and dynamic but by looking at these two extremes we can better understand the key drivers that make up the complexity of a social institution. This model to social institutions is equally applicable across all types and scales from families to governments. For example if we take the two dominant theories within international politics, structural realism and liberal theory we see this reoccurring pattern. Structural realism posits that states live in an anarchic international system a system where there is no higher authority, where you are vulnerable to attack from any component in the system and due to this states will strive for the greatest power with all components being governed by the structure of the distribution of power within the overall system. The liberal theory of international relations posits that the fundamental ordering force within the international community is what is called complex interdependency. That is the connections and interdependencies between the interests of all forms of groups within different societies. We can see these two different perspectives on international relations combined in people's analysis of the current rise of China as a global power and its relation to the USA. Will the set of complex interdependencies between them prevail to make this a peaceful transition or do we still live in a component based international system where major change in its structure requires conflict as conflict theory might tell us. In summary then we've been taking a very high level view to social institutions through the lens of systems theory. We've tried to use this model of a system and efficiency to present an integrated picture that combines two fundamentally different perspectives on their nature. We talked about what happens when we turn the system's efficiency down giving us a component based regime as described by conflict theory where the system becomes defined by the components access to resources with ensuring relations of dominance that define a stratified structure where order is maintained by a top-down control system. By then turning the efficiency up we get the emergence of global functionality and a new regime as outlined by functionalism that describes social institutions as being primarily defined by the collective function that they perform with different elements in the system adapting their state towards this combined outcome that binds them into a state of interdependency creating social cohesion and order.