Political and Legal Institutions

Institutions concerned with the exercise, formalization or contestation of public power, merged here from four narrower groups because each held only one member: the state as the political institution proper, bureaucracy as Max Weber's own rational-legal authority, the formal, rule-bound exercise of administrative power, law as the legal institution formalizing and enforcing binding rules, and the social movement as collective action that contests or seeks to change existing political or legal arrangements. Belongs here: an institution whose primary function is governing, formalizing rules, or organized contestation of power. Does not belong here: an institution whose primary function is economic or cultural rather than governing, grouped under Economic Institutions or Cultural and Socialization Institutions.