POLITICAL INSTITUTIONS: OBJECTIVES, CHARACTERISTICS AND FUNCTIONS - CULTURE VOCABULARY - 2025

Political institutions are the bodies that design, regulate and monitor the norms of political coexistence in a country or region. The public service that derives from these institutions is aimed at ensuring basic behaviors and customs for a society.

An institution is an entity that regulates fundamental aspects of collective life. The institution survives the men who inhabit it at any given time. It is an autonomous entity, by means of which the human aggregate becomes an acting community.

Among the main functions of political institutions is to create structures and mechanisms that regulate social order. These are nourished by approaches and theories from the social sciences such as anthropology, sociology, philosophy, psychology, political science and economics.

Political institutions are characterized by being transcendent, durable, stable and provide legal continuity in a society. They are an individuality of the collective expression of a population that superimposes the interests of the territory and the citizens above everything else.

It is an elementary subject of study for legal sciences, since the law intervenes in the elaboration of rules of a society.

For Jaime Eyzaguirre, one of the most important achievements of “homo sapiens” is having built a political system that manages the coexistence of human beings through institutions of order.

Objective of political institutions

Social order and justice are one of the goals that these institutions pursue in every society. Every political regime, be it democratic or dictatorial, seeks to preserve order through its political, coercive and legal institutions. However, its operating mechanism is modified in each society.

According to Unesco in 1948 "political institutions are related to aspects of orientation and pursuit of the social stability of society in order to preserve its evolution"

The new constitutionalism defines political institutions as the legal-political scaffolding on which the life of a country is supported. These, in turn, are made up of a set of norms and values ​​that are laws of the political system.

Characteristics of political institutions

Effective participation

One of the functions of contemporary political institutions is to guarantee that the citizens they guardian participate effectively in decisions, whatever their form. This aspect gives legitimacy to any institution.

Freedom of expression

The institutions ensure that citizens can express their opinion freely by any means. However, this freedom is penalized in some countries when freedom of expression is used to instigate hatred, war, racism or xenophobia.

Alternative information

Freedom of information is the right of the media to broadcast news freely without restrictions or threats. The fact of journalistic investigation seeks to have informed citizens, a substantiated public opinion and achieve a more transparent society.

Autonomy to associate

Free association for political, social, professional or other purposes is one of the essential conditions that political institutions must guarantee.

As long as they comply with the laws and do not seek to promote profound changes through violent actions.

Citizen inclusion

All actors in society are equal by law, no one can be excluded from their rights for thinking differently. The political institutions ensure the establishment of a regime that guarantees equality and justice for all inhabitants.

The characteristics of modern political institutions are closely linked to the notions of democracy, since the democratic order is the one that provides a society with the highest levels of tolerance and regulation of political life.

Features

Condition and regulate political life

Starting from the precepts of equality, equity and justice, the main function of political institutions is to condition the political life of a country in order to achieve an increasingly stable, plural and democratic order.

Meet the proposed objectives

To draw up the master plans in the development of coexistence, the economy, politics, the social and guarantee their effective fulfillment in time.

Meet social needs

In every society there are vulnerable sectors, it is the function of public institutions to seek a mechanism so that all the inhabitants of a country or region can satisfy basic needs and, thus, have a decent life.

Exercise social control

Social control is understood as the system of norms that regulate the life of a nation and the institutions that are empowered to restore order under any circumstance.

The French philosopher Michel Foucault in his masterpiece "Watch and Punish" says that the one in charge of exercising social control is the State, and compares the work of the State with a "panopticon" that guarantees the effective punishment of those who violate the norms of coexistence.

Examples of institutions

• Head of State: can be the president of the republic or the king, depending on the form of government.
• Head of Government: The president. This is known as the executive branch.
• Cortes Generales: This is made up of the deputies and senators of the congress. It is known as the legislative branch.
• Courts of justice: Whose main representatives are the judges and magistrates. This is the judiciary.

Balance of public institutions

In Spain these four institutions are the main regulators of national life. However, from country to country the conformation of public institutions varies, although the purpose is the same: to preserve the social order and democratic coexistence.

For Thomas Hobbes, the state is a "leviathan" that man created to preserve peace and voluntarily submit to the control of his self-destructive nature. Public institutions have avoided civil wars, confrontations, and major problems in all societies.

In any case, political institutions are the body that reduces social risk and seeks to maintain order for a harmonious development of the different components of society.

References

1. Araujo, j. (2016) Political institutions. Recovered from: monografias.com.
2. Wikipedia contributors (2017) Political institutions. Recovered from: wikipedia.org.
3. Virtual Encyclopedia (2015) Glossary of Usual Political Concepts: Political Institution. Recovered from: eumed.net.
4. Eyzaguirre, J. (2004) History of Political and Social Institutions. University Publishing House. Santiago de Chile.
5. Foucault, M. (1975) Watch and punish. Editorial Siglo XXI. Mexico.
6. Hobbes, T. (1651) The Leviathan. Editorial Alliance. Spain.
7. Sánchez, C. (1962) Political institutions in Universal History: evolution of government systems until the Democratic Republic of our time. Bibliographic Editorial. Argentina.
8. Valderrama, D; Lasso, P. (1645) Political institutions. Editorial Tecnos. Madrid.