Concept in Definition ABC
Miscellanea / / July 04, 2021
By Cecilia Bembibre, on Feb. 2011
The concept of institution has several references in sample language. On the one hand, the foundation or establishment of something is called in this way and also what is founded. On the other hand, the body that performs a function of public interest, whether for charitable or educational purposes, is designated as an institution. For example, an institution that assists and supports homeless people.
It supposes a social concept that refers to all those structures that suppose a certain control mechanism or social order that are created precisely to facilitate the coexistence human and have to do with the development of group ties and ties in different circumstances or moments of life.
Structures developed by man to exercise social control
Although the idea of institution refers us in many cases to specific establishments such as a school, a hospital, a church, the concept of institution is much broader than that and also applies to abstract social structures in which the human bond is always represented but that may not be visually represented by a building, as happens for example with the family, with marriage.
Main institutions
The idea of social institution is one of the most important in regard to the social history of the human being. This is so since the institutions understood as transcendent social structures and superior to the individual himself have existed since ancient times. immemorial, from the moment in which the human being began to live in community and needed some type of arrangement to favor the coexistence. Thus, the family is considered one of the first institutions since it is the family that orders and structures blood ties, establishing hierarchies and particular roles for each individual. As with the others, the idea of family transcends the individuals that compose it.
Other important institutions for today's society besides the family are, for example, the government, whatever its form, religion, marriage, education, science, hospitals, justice, prisons, factories and other productive institutions, the army, the media, organizations different types of social activities that abound today and that have to do with the resolution of situations not taken into account by official governmental. In addition, other broader but always present institutions can also be art, language, the idea of nation.
And in the strict field of politics we must cite as very important institutions for social order and government management the division of powers, in those cases of democracies, the Constitution national, among the most relevant.
In the case of constitutions, for example, most date from the time when the nation in question freed itself from any external dependency, in other words, it ceased to be a colony to become a state formal.
Although many have undergone reforms throughout their history, especially linked to the wishes of the current rulers, it is important that Let's say that many times these modifications can threaten the social order and allow some situations that generate severe complications for the life of the community, for example, enabling the indefinite reelection of a ruler, with the dire consequences that this can have for the democracy and the alternation politics that always demands a good democratic system.
Likewise, the word is used to refer to behaviors, uses and traditions that are deeply rooted in certain cultures, laws or regulations that have the mission of regulating a given organization or community.
Institutions exist in all societies and it would be impossible for them to function without them. Most of those that exist today are the product of the past, that is, they existed in the most remote times, and were being renewed, but almost all of them come from certainly ancient times.
Be an institution in something
And there is a very popular expression that contains this word and that we use it a lot in our language: to be someone an institution in some field, which implies that that person has a relevant prestige in a certain area or social group.
Topics in Institution