Every individual and every group is concerned about its self-perception. Who are we? What are our central ideas and our defining values? Which position does an individual or a society as a whole have in the world? Society cannot be defined with the same accuracy as it is expected from empirical natural sciences. However, it should be clear that views of the world and of society are not an exclusive topic of social sciences or the humanities. As the struggle for the perception of society is richly diverse – often for reasons of political power – an interdisciplinary answer is essential. Considering the normative structure of modern societies, an explanatory concept of ‘institution’ can be positioned between functional analysis and a theory of human action.
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