Never has Berger and Luckmann (1966) resonated so much as it does in the context of Trump’s current challenges to the legitimacy of our electoral system. I teach this text every year and this time, it's like I was reading it for the very first time. 1/ https://www.amazon.com/Social-Construction-Reality-Sociology-Knowledge/dp/0385058985

My institutionalist friends, i apologize in advance if what I'm about to outline as my "ah-ha" moment is just a "duh. danna. we know this" moment. But sometimes revelations feel big because of how they shift... everything else in your mind. 2/

So, first, thinking about our electoral process as an institution. B&L explain that “institutionalization occurs whenever there is a reciprocal typification of habitualized actions by types of actors.” 3/

Person A engages in a behavior and person B responds to that behavior in a certain way… repeatedly... over time.

These becomes the rules of the game.

So, here, people vote and citizens and elites agree that the person with the most votes is the winner.

(duh)

This process repeats itself over time. Reciprocity is key here. These are shared habitualized actions that we all agree upon. Democratic elections (and the electoral college) constitute institutions that are real and work because we all agree they are real and work.

To protect those institutions, we have systems and laws in place for transparency and regulation, as ways to “sanction” improper behavior and socialize people into compliance.

After having been created, such institutions are no longer thought of as mere “constructs” or “games.” Rather, “institutions are experienced as possessing a reality of their own, a reality that confronts the individual as an external and coercive fact.”

In other words, we take it as a given that the person who gets the most votes through our free and fair electoral process is the winter of the election.

However, deviance from – and challenges to - institutions happen. “Deviance from the institutionally programmed courses of action becomes likely once institutions have become realities divorced from their original relevance in the concrete social processes from which they arose.”

Meaning...over time, people forget why the institution was needed in the first place, which can make it vulnerable to challenge or competing institutions.

However, when various institutions in society all work under a shared set of assumptions with common goals, the scope of institutionalization is shared. For decades in the US, this characterized our dominant experience:

...think about the high modern era of journalism in the 1960s – 70s, with a focus on a large mass audience, one objective reality, and a shared experience. It was also a time of high trust in government and the news and low political polarization among members of congress.

But, when institutions work against one other, institutional power is weakened. Today, partisan & social media deliver different realities to different people based on ideology.

Political polarization among members of congress reduces legislative productivity & increases out-party demonization. Affective polarization means Dems and Reps hate one another. Social Sorting of the parties means we have less and less in common with those on "the other side."

“The segmentation of the institutional order & the concomitant distribution of knowledge will lead to the problem of providing integrative meanings that ... provide an overall context of objective sense for the individual’s fragmented social experience & knowledge.”

For my purposes as a comm person, much of the longevity and sanctity of such institutions depends upon the roles people play, and how they communicate. It is through roles and communication that habituated patterns of behavior result in (or destroy) institutions.

In congress and on partisan media and online, the roles that Americans are most often playing right now (both elites and regular folks) are predicated on opposition, distrust, and refusal to compromise.

Especially in conservative media, outrage hosts demonize the other side and frame Democrats as a threat.
This is the role they play.
And their viewers get angry and tune in again & again.
This is the role *they* play.

and THIS... THIS is “reciprocal typification of habitualized actions by types of actors.”

Social/cultural conservatives tend to have different epistemic motives that shape how they come to conclusions about the world – w a preference for gut instinct/intuition over empirical data. These inclinations challenge MANY of our core institutions: journalism, science, meds

The GOP denies the validity of climate change data, denies the validity of data on the efficacy of masks and about COVID deaths. Scientists present the data, and conservative talk show hosts doubt the data, challenge the credibility of the agency...

and remind their viewers that THEY know best.
This is their role.
This is the game they play.

Meanwhile, GOP members of Congress hem & haw, say they haven’t seen enough to know for sure, & leave it to the “gut check” of the conservative viewers.
This is THEIR role.
This is the role THEY play.
This is “reciprocal typification of habitualized actions by types of actors.”

And now here we are.
Institutions are segmented, new roles have been defined, the groundwork has been laid. Instead of the reciprocal typification of habitualized actions agreeing that votes are counted and we agree the winner WON...

...the new typification stemming from a hyper-partisan GOP mediated world works this way:

Votes are counted and GOP elites:

...hem and haw, say they haven’t seen enough to know for sure, and leave it to the “gut check” of conservative voters.

This is their role.

This is the game they play.

And this is how democratic institutions die.