The Role of Definitions in Institutional Analysis

There is hardly a conference on institutional analysis during which, at a certain point, a heated discussion will not start about the proper definition of the word "institution". This happens because most participants tend to think that every scientific discussion of institutions should have one true definition of the term "institution" as a starting point, since this is the subject matter of their analysis. In this paper it is argued that social scientists who are interested in the study of institutions should not argue about the meaning of "institution", "organization" and the other terms that are used in the theory of institutions. They should instead concentrate on constructing theories in order to explain the phenomena that they are interested in. Defining the terms that one wants to use is a legitimate part of this theoretical endeavour, but it is by no means as important as most institutional theorists tend to think. It is argued in favor of this claim by drawing on a relevant discussion in the philosophy of science which deals with the role of definitions in the process of constructing a theoretical system