# Institutions

Institutions are repeated rules, roles, expectations, records, and sanctions that let an order reproduce beyond individual intention. They are both constraints and stored capacity. Reform succeeds when authorization, resources, implementation, feedback, and maintenance align. It fails when a new rule encounters vetoes, weak capacity, frontline discretion, capture, litigation, preemption, or organized backlash.

Read each institution at four levels: formal design; informal practice; distributional effect; and historical lineage. Local boards, permits, budgets, procurement, and street-level decisions often carry more lived power than nationally visible rhetoric.
