Conceptualizing Politics

2.   Rules, institutions and the regulation of fear
Political order does not consist primarily of courts, law enforcement, internal rev-
enue agencies or correction facilities, but rather of rules and sets of rules residing 
in the mind of the polity’s member; they may or may not find embodiment in 
organisations and buildings. Rules are rules of behaviour, not moral rules, even if, 
in some cases, the former may have ties to the latter. Rules of behaviour can be 
informal and operational, as they just arise and find implementation in the social 
and political life of communities, or have legal forms. Which version of rules comes 
first and then finds translation into the other cannot be said to be a sequel follow-
ing a stable pattern.
We call an institution a set of rules which
• 
is persistent over time
• 
is interconnected, does not contradict itself, contains no loopholes while regu-
lating a whole area of our collective activity and