Agents, Structures and International Relations

a high degree of coherence, or informal, which makes the group frag-

mented. Some social groups can also be organisations, but not all are.
Organisations consist of an embodied formal structure of interlocking
positions, roles and relations. Hence the defining element of an organisa-
tion is the structure of interlocking positions/roles standing in relation
to one another. By embodied I mean that specific individuals occupy the
roles. However, the identity of the particular agents occupying any given
role is not constitutive of the organisation, whereas for social groups it
clearly may be. Organisations, that is, are identified in terms of the struc-
ture they embody, kind of activity they undertake, and functions (and
ends) they serve. Understood as a complex of positions, roles and rela-
tions, organisations have no normative dimension. However, in practice
it is clear that empirically most organisations do indeed have a norma-
tive dimension. This normative dimension emerges as a result of the
fact that once embodied (occupied by individuals) the constitutive roles
and functions a given organisation serves are given a moral character.
Once moral agents occupy these positions, roles and relations, organisa-
tions pursue moral ends and undertake moral activities to secure these
ends.
An institution is a wider concept, although it is clear that the term is
often used as a synonym for an organisation in common usage. For the
purposes of social analysis, however, we need to distinguish between
an institution and an organisation. Bull provides perhaps the most com-
prehensive account of institutions in international politics, and does, at
times, treat organisations and institutions as one and the same. Hence
he refers to the ‘government’ as an institution of the modern state.101 Yet,
Bull also argues that by an institution he does not necessarily mean an
‘organisation or administrative machinery, but rather a set of habits and
practices shaped towards the realisation of common goals’.102 My
account of institutions is similar to Bull’s, although I do not make the
realisation of common goals a necessary element, since human actors
can construct institutions without requiring a common goal that binds
them to the institution. Bull’s inclusion of common goals in his def-
inition of institutions is yet another indicator of his commitment to
individualism.
By institution, I mean a custom, practice, relationship or behavioural
pattern of importance in social life: the institutions of marriage and
the family, for instance. Capitalism, for example, is a particular kind

101 Bull (1977: 55). 102 Bull (1977: 71).

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