Social Rule System Theory and Complex Institutional Arrangements
On meso- and macro-levels of analysis, social rule system theory is applied to the description and analysis of institutions such as bureaucracy, markets, political systems, and science – major orders in modern societies . This entails more than a study of social structure, or a contribution to neo-institutionalism.
It is a theory that analyses the links between social structure in the form of particular institutional arrangements including role relationships, on the one hand, and social action and social interaction, on the other. The theory shows, for example, in what ways markets and bureaucracies are organized and regulated by social rules at the same time that actors, both inside and outside these institutions, maintain or change the organizing principles and rules through their actions and interactions. The actors involved in a given institution use their institutional knowledge of relationships, roles, norms, and procedures to guide and organize their actions and interactions. But they also use it to understand and interpret what is going on, to plan and simulate scenarios, and to refer to in making commentaries and in giving and asking for accounts. Rule system theory stresses rule-based cognitive processes such as framing, contextualizing, and classifying objects, persons, and actions in a relevant or meaningful way (Carson, 2004).
In general, the cultural complex of rule systems contributes to making social life more or less orderly and predictable and solves problems of "existential uncertainty" within the group, organization, or community bearing and adhering to the rule culture . As suggested earlier, however, there is always a tension and a dynamic between the regulated and the unregulated, order and disorder (this is also pointed up in empirical studies . It also considers the production of appropriate or meaningful accounts, discourses, and commentaries in the context of the given institution.
In line with the new institutionalism, social rule system theory stresses that particular institutions and their organizational instantiations are deeply embedded in cultural, social, and political environments and that particular structures and practices are often reflections of as well as responses to rules, laws, conventions, paradigms built into the wider environment .
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