Institutions persist by making analogies that make their practices appear natural.
Evidence
The social practices at Öjungsvallen relates to Mary Douglas’s observation (1987) about the way institutions survive if they are able to make analogies. As Douglas understands it, analogies allow institutional arrangements, such as commons, to evolve and persist by correspond to something similar to the particular logic of the institution in question, the point being that in this correspondence the formal structures and practices of a set of social relations appear natural. — Emil Sandström and Ann-Kristin Ekman and Karl-Johan Lindholm, Commoning in the periphery – The role…, 70
Categorization
- XREF: Douglas’s ‘How Institutions Think’ analogy idea could connect to the grafting/tree metaphor in ‘Grafting & Growth’ — institutional persistence as interlocking structures. — connects to: Institutions and traditions persist because they are conspicuous coordination solutions. — Thomas C. Schelling, The Strategy of Conflict, 222; Invented traditions use claims of continuity with the past to inculcate norms. — Saba Mahmood, Politics of Piety: The Islamic Revival…, 810; Modern institutions appear as external structures despite being mere effects of practices — Timothy Mitchell, Colonising Egypt, 28 (+5 more)
- DEEPTHINKING: Not top-5% density — it’s a single thesis attributed to Douglas, worth keeping but not paradigm-shifting.
- corroborated: 5 independent passages support this claim — Emil Sandström and Ann-Kristin Ekman and Karl-Johan Lindholm, Commoning in the periphery – The role…, 70
Broader Connections
- Invented traditions use claims of continuity with the past to inculcate norms.
#exemplifies(0.85) — Saba Mahmood, Politics of Piety, 810 - Institutional fit, not sincerity, makes political conduct feel natural.
#exemplifies(0.85) — Nina Eliasoph, Avoiding politics, 1277 - Institutions fabricate and appropriate symbolic traditions to boost internal cohesion.
#exemplifies(0.82) — Diego Gambetta, The Sicilian Mafia The Business of…, 342 - Cross-colonial analogies built and eroded credibility through administrative restorage.
#exemplifies(0.80) - Institutions and traditions persist because they are conspicuous coordination solutions.
#corroborates(0.78) — Thomas C. Schelling, The Strategy of Conflict, 222 - Modern institutions appear as external structures despite being mere effects of practices
#complicates(0.78) — Timothy Mitchell, Colonising Egypt, 28 - Outdated institutional partitions persist by tradition long after their logic expires
#expands(0.75) — Roderick M. Kramer, Geoffrey J. Leonardelli, Robert W. Livingston, Social Cognition, Social Identity, and…, 1992 - Paradigms are sustained by common will or by a force standing in for it.
#corroborates(0.72) — Wael Hallaq, Restating Orientalism, 67