A return to the enduring features of institutions : A process ontology of reproduction and endurance

Why and how do institutions endure? The most characteristic feature of institutions – their longevity – seems to be a neglected topic in current institutional analysis, which overwhelmingly is conducted as an analysis of institutional change. This paper, in contrast, attempts to answer some basic questions about institutional endurance and reproduction, most notably how institutional reproduction can be distinguished from institutional endurance, how institutions manage to “bind” time and space, and which role structures “out of time and space” play in this. I explore the processual nature of three theories institutionalist authors draw on (Berger and Luckmann’s theory of social construction, Giddens’s structuration theory and Bourdieu’s theory of field and habitus) in order to identify elements and explanations of endurance. I then elaborate on these insights by introducing Roger Friedland’s notion of institutional substance and ideas from the process philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead.