Outdated institutional partitions persist by tradition long after their logic expires

Evidence

Partition focus can be an especially insidious problem when the partitioning logic reflects idiosyncratic factors that no longer “map” onto current realities or needs (e.g., organizational divisions or norms that may no longer be relevant yet have the weight of tradition, precedent, and history behind them). For example, although the separation of national security threats as a function of their domestic versus foreign origins may have made considerable sense during the Second World War and again during the Cold War, these distinctions may no longer make sense in the global commons. — Roderick M. Kramer, Geoffrey J. Leonardelli, Robert W. Livingston, Social Cognition, Social Identity, and…, 1992

Categorization

• DEEPTHINKING: The claim that partitioning logic ossifies by tradition — the domestic/foreign intelligence split outliving its Cold War rationale — is a genuinely dense observation about institutional path dependence worth reflecting on across domains.
• XREF: Connects to institutional inertia literatures and to the general observation that organizational categories persist via precedent even when the world they mapped has changed. — connects to: Hyperspecialized institutions cease being functional and become deterrence nuclei — Jean Baudrillard, Simulacra and Simulation, 264; Ossified party institutions function as memory devices keeping revolutionary tradition alive — Fredric Jameson, Marxism and Form, 538; Attempted revivals of past traditions accelerate their decay — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 1454 (+7 more)