Affecting a Societal Institution: PH'5Q4t

Limits of Social Change

Societal institutions. start to emerge just as soon as a country unequivocally moves beyond governing via the authoritarianism of privileged pluralism-Φ1 and seeks to respond to the needs of the people. Institutions slowly emerge and strengthen as legitimist-μ2, individualist-μ3 and rationalist-μ4 modes of governing become fully embedded in political life.

However, there seems to be little knowledge on how to actively produce desirable change in institutions. Texts discussing change usually focus on macro events like industrialization, demographics and war. It looks like there is a confusion between institutional change and broader social change.
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Influences in the channels linking the moral context to the personal context of politics and to government solutions.

On the largest scale, change involves the culture assimilating new values: something that requires a social movement (see below). On a smaller scale, institutional change gets confused with governmental political choice as presented in the PH'6CHK framework—mouseover thumbnail to see.

It is somewhat misleading to talk about "developing" institutions as if they were unitary organizations. Given institutional complexity, people can only seek to deal with a specific issue and hope that chosen changes will ramify leading to the institution and related institutions to mysteriously evolve in a beneficial way.

Limits of Leadership

Institutions are intrinsically imperfect and unevenly developed. Politically-developed societies differ in the unevenness and degree of sophistication of their institutions.

Institutions-Q4 have features akin to Disciplines-Q3 and distinct from Families-Q1 and Organisations-Q2 as tabulated below.

  Families-Q1
Organizations-Q2		 Disciplines-Q3
Institutions-Q4
Leadership Defined & singular Variable & multi-polar
Content & Borders Well-defined & explicit Ill-defined & diffuse
Size Small & manageable Large & unmanageable
Complexity Limited Extreme & ever-increasing
Evolution Disliked & resisted Inevitable & welcomed

With good leadership, it is possible to improve and develop a family or an organisation given consensus, planning and determination. But the nature of institutions preclude change on this rational basis. Growth of an institution is an evolutionary process, and this means allowing innovation and depending on accumulated knowledge and trial-and-error. The end-effect is unavoidably haphazard and uncertain.

Although there can be no institutional leadership (as understood in lower Arenas), any organisation can innovate that in a way that shapes evolution; and any motivated person with a deep interest in a particular communal need and the corresponding societal institution can work to foster change in respect of a selected issue.

It takes Work to make an Impact

«Work» is important but it cannot be performed as if a Q4-institution is a Q2-organisation. Attempts at systematic development by governments, that is to say «management control» of the institution, invariably fail.

Example: ClosedUSA Healthcare

The USA has an unsustainable health care system poorly serving its population. However, the attempt at a comprehensive reform in the USA led by Hilary Clinton in the 1990's failed totally: see Wikipedia. She learned the hard way about how to change institutions.

Subsequently she stated: "I think that both the process and the plan were flawed. We were trying to do something that was very hard to do, and we made a lot of mistakes." She also came to recognize: "the importance of bipartisan cooperation and the wisdom of taking small steps to get a big job done."

Machiavelli's advice to leaders:Closed "It must be remembered that there is nothing more difficult to plan, more doubtful of success, nor more dangerous to manage than a new system. For the initiator has the enmity of all who would profit by the preservation of the old institution and merely lukewarm defenders in those who gain by the new one.” 

Every organisation within an institution sees its own contribution as valuable and essential. So changes to a social institution that impact on the self-interest of powerful participants will be difficult to pursue.

Groups and organisations benefiting from the existing system are notorious for obstructing change that benefits the public. But, paradoxically, pursuit of self-interest must be viewed as work on the institution. As will be explained in what follows, self-interest is the foundation for institutional existence.

How it Goes Wrong:Closed Unfortunately, pursuit of self-interest by powerful entities too often extends to harassing, smearing, abusing or killing activists so as to discredit or silence them. 

Higher level work is therefore required to move from solely pursuing self-interest to simultaneously serving the public interest. This requires sustained efforts by societally-oriented individuals with a sense of civic duty.

In fleshing out this seemingly simple notion, we will build on what we know of the nature of societal institutions and suggest how their evolution may be enabled.

Movements (PsH6G53) are a form of autonomous entity that brings new values into society. The other two embodiments of autonomy are regulatory authorities (G52) that stabilize society by checking accepted values are being upheld, and enterprises (G51) that actively pursue the realization of current values to generate tangible benefits.

Societal institutions encompass relevant authorities and enterprises. Those involved in movements have considerable interest in how certain societal institutions evolve and will seek to shape these. However, any impact will depend on the degree to which the movement's new ideas have been understood and assimilated by the public.

While social movements-PsH6G53 are intrinsically ideological and depend on intellectual arguments for justification, societal institutions-PH'5Q4 are intrinsically practical and require no justification. Because both are dealing with values, institutions can benefit from the focus, energy and intensity that characterizes movements.

Originally posted: 22-Nov-2022. Last updated: 30-Apr-2023.