12. SOCIAL INSTITUTES

Social institute (from lat. Institutum - device, establishment) - relatively stable types and forms of social practice, through which social life is organized, ensured the stability of relations and relationships within the social organization of society. The activity of social institutions is determined, firstly, by a set of specific social norms and regulations governing the respective types of behavior; secondly, by integrating it into the sociopolitical, ideological, and value structure of society, which makes it possible to legitimize the formal legal basis of the activities of the institute and to exercise social control over the institutional types of actions; thirdly, the availability of material means and conditions that ensure the successful implementation of regulatory requirements and the implementation of social control. In this regard, social institutions can be characterized from the point of view of their external, formal (material) structure, and from the position of a meaningful analysis of their activities.

Social institutions are not only a collection of persons, beliefs, supplied with certain material means and performing a specific social function. The successful implementation of this function is due to the presence within the framework of the relevant social institution of an integral system of standards of behavior that are mandatory for the function of this institution. On the content side, social institutions are a set of appropriately oriented standards of behavior for specific individuals in typical situations. These standards of conduct are regulated by regulation. They are enshrined in the norms of law and other social norms. In the course of social practice, certain types of social activity arise, and the legal and social norms that regulate this activity are concentrated and grouped into a certain system that ensures this type of social activity. Such a system is a social institution.

Each social institution is characterized by the presence of the goal of its activities, specific functions that ensure the achievement of such a goal, a set of social positions and roles typical of this institution. Social institutions provide an opportunity for members of society and social groups to meet their needs, stabilize social relations, bring coherence, integration into the actions of society.

Each institution performs its own social function. The totality of these social functions is formed in the general social functions of social institutions as certain types of social system. These functions are very diverse. Sociologists of different directions tried to somehow classify them, to present them in the form of a certain ordered system. The most comprehensive, interesting classification presented the "institutional school". Representatives of the institutional school in sociology (S. Lipset, D. Landberg, and others) identified four main functions of social institutions:

1. Reproduction of members of society. The main institution that performs this function is the family, but other social institutions, such as the state, are also involved in it.

2. Socialization - the transfer to individuals of the patterns of behavior and methods of activity established in a given society — the institutions of family, education, religion, etc.

3. Production and distribution. Provided by economic and social institutions of management and control - the authorities.

4. Management and control functions are carried out through a system of social norms and regulations that implement the appropriate types of behavior: moral and legal norms, customs, administrative decisions, etc. Social institutions govern the behavior of an individual through a system of rewards and sanctions.

Social institutions differ from each other in their functional qualities:

1. Economic and social institutions - property, exchange, money, banks, economic associations of various types - provide the entire set of production and distribution of social wealth, combining, at the same time, economic life with other spheres of social life.

2. Political institutions - the state, parties, trade unions and other types of public organizations that pursue political goals aimed at establishing and maintaining a certain form of political power. Their aggregate constitutes the political system of a given society. Political institutions ensure the reproduction and sustainable preservation of ideological values, stabilize the social-class structures that dominate society.

3. Socio-cultural and educational institutions aim at the development and subsequent reproduction of cultural and social values, the inclusion of individuals in a certain subculture, and the socialization of individuals through the assimilation of sustainable socio-cultural standards of behavior and, finally, the protection of certain values ​​and norms.

4. Regulatory-orienting - mechanisms of moral and ethical orientation and regulation of the behavior of individuals. Their goal is to give behavior and motivation a moral argument, an ethical basis. These institutions claim imperative universal human values, special codes and ethical behavior in the community.

5. Regulatory authorizing the social regulation of behavior based on the norms, rules and regulations enshrined in legal and administrative acts. The obligation of norms is ensured by the coercive power of the state and the system of corresponding sanctions.

6. Ceremonial-symbolic and situational-conventional institutions. These institutions are based on more or less long-term adoption of conventional (under the treaty) norms, their formal and informal consolidation. These norms regulate everyday contacts, various acts of group and intergroup behavior. They determine the order and method of mutual behavior, regulate the methods of transmitting and exchanging information, greetings, appeals, etc., the rules of meetings, meetings, the activities of some associations.

Violation of the normative interaction with the social environment, which is a society or community, is called a dysfunction of a social institution. As noted earlier, the basis for the formation and functioning of a particular social institution is the satisfaction of a particular social need. In conditions of intensive social processes, accelerating the pace of social change, a situation may arise when the changed social needs are not adequately reflected in the structure and functions of the corresponding social institutions. As a result, dysfunction may occur in their activities. From the substantive point of view, dysfunction is expressed in the ambiguity of the goals of the institution, the uncertainty of functions, the fall of its social prestige and authority, the degeneration of its individual functions into a "symbolic" ritual activity, that is, an activity not aimed at achieving a rational goal.

One of the explicit expressions of social institution dysfunction is the personalization of its activities. The social institute, as it is known, functions according to its own, objectively operating mechanisms, where each person, based on norms and patterns of behavior, in accordance with his status, plays certain roles. Personalization of a social institution means that it has ceased to act in accordance with objective needs and objectively established goals, changing its functions depending on the interests of individuals, their personal qualities and properties.

Unmet social need can bring to life the spontaneous emergence of normatively unregulated activities that seek to compensate for the dysfunction of the institution, but at the expense of violating the existing rules and regulations. In their extreme forms, this kind of activity can be expressed in illegal activities. Thus, the dysfunction of some economic institutions is the reason for the existence of the so-called "shadow economy", resulting in speculation, bribery, theft, etc. Correction of dysfunction can be achieved by changing the social institution itself or by creating a new social institution that satisfies a given social need.

Researchers identify two forms of existence of social institutions: simple and complex. Simple social institutions are organized associations of people who perform certain socially significant functions that ensure the joint achievement of goals based on the fulfillment by members of the institute of their social roles determined by social values, ideals, and norms. At this level, the control system was not allocated to an independent system. Social values, ideals, norms themselves ensure the sustainability of the existence and functioning of a social institution.