institutionsreal

Institutionsreal is a term used in social science to denote the real-world realization or manifestation of institutions—those structures that govern behavior such as laws, norms, and routines. Unlike formal design documents, which specify intended rules, institutionsreal focuses on how rules are actually applied, enforced, and lived by agents in daily practice. The concept covers formal institutions (constitutions, statutes, regulatory agencies) as well as informal ones (practices, conventions, tacit norms), and it emphasizes the gap between official mandates and observed behavior.

In research, institutionsreal is used to study how institutions function in practice, including compliance, enforcement, incentives, culture, and power relations. It is frequently operationalized through empirical methods such as field experiments, case studies, surveys, or ethnographic observation, often by comparing stated designs with recorded outcomes, or by tracing how institutions evolve over time in response to political and economic pressures. The approach is common in governance and development studies, political economy, and organizational sociology.

Critics warn that the term can be vague or tautological if not carefully defined. Measuring real-world institutional behavior can be challenging due to context-dependence, selection effects, and the multiplicity of interacting rules. Proponents counter that focusing on real-world manifestations yields more accurate assessments of policy impact and institutional quality than formal design alone.

See also: institutions, institutionalism, governance, political economy.