Introduction

This introductory chapter gives an overview of different conceptualizations of institutionalization to understand the dynamics of stability and change in policy-making processes at sea. Institutionalization is on the one hand about processes in which norms, values, roles, perceptions and ways of interaction are created and stabilized in more or less fixed patterns of rules, organizational structures and institutions. On the other, it is about the decay of institutions and/or processes in which stabilized and fixed rules of the game, organizational structures and institutions are challenged. The chapter starts with an overview of how institutionalization is defined in the social sciences. This book contributes to the debates on institutionalization by introducing and analyzing the core concept of liquid institutionalization to understand processes of change and stability of blue governance arrangements at seas. In Sect. 1.3 the structure of the book is presented.