Microfoundations of the Rule of Law
TL;DR: In this article, the authors canvas literature in the social sciences to identify the themes and gaps in the existing accounts and conclude that this literature has failed to produce a microfoundational account of the phenomenon of legal order.
Abstract: Many social scientists rely on the rule of law in their accounts of political or economic development. Many, however, simply equate law with a stable government capable of enforcing the rules generated by a political authority. As two decades of largely failed efforts to build the rule of law in poor and transition countries and continuing struggles to build international legal order demonstrate, we still do not understand how legal order is produced, especially in places where it does not already exist. We here canvas literature in the social sciences to identify the themes and gaps in the existing accounts. We conclude that this literature has failed to produce a microfoundational account of the phenomenon of legal order. We then discuss our recent effort to develop the missing microfoundations of legal order to provide a better framework for future work on the rule of law.
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TL;DR: By using the vrk model to diagnose constraints in decision processes, it is shown how the reframing of adaptation initiatives can reveal new approaches to developing adaptation responses to complex global change problems.
192 citations
TL;DR: The recent rise of the rule of law, from controversial legal ideal to unopposed international cliche/slogan, has rendered increasingly murky what the concept might mean, what the phenomenon might be, and what it might be worth as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: The recent rise of the rule of law, from controversial legal ideal to unopposed international cliche/slogan, has rendered increasingly murky what the concept might mean, what the phenomenon might be, and what it might be worth. This article argues, nevertheless, that the concept engages with fundamental and enduring issues of politics and law, particularly the dangers of arbitrary power, and the value of its institutionalized tempering. The article seeks to support the rule of law ideal, if not all the ways it is invoked, by recovering some past thinking about and experience with and without the rule of law understood this way. The review criticizes current discussions for their temporal parochialism and their inadequate treatment of ideals and of contexts. It concludes with two pleas: a call for a social science that does not exist, and a suggestion that, in order to pursue its own ideals, the time might have come to move beyond the rule of law.
57 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors compare four major indicators of the rule of law and show that their approaches to conceptualization and measurement differ, and conclude that measurement strategy, rather than differences in conceptualization, explains the convergence between the indicators.
Abstract: The rule of law era has given rise to multiple indicators purporting to measure the concept. This article compares four major indicators of the rule of law and shows that their approaches to conceptualization and measurement differ. Given their disparate conceptualizations and measurement strategies, one might expect a weak correlation between them. Strikingly, however, all four indicators are highly correlated with each other (with the pair-wise correlations between three of them exceeding 0.95). They are also correlated with the widely used measure of corruption. This suggests that the indicators might capture a more encompassing concept, like impartial administration. The article critiques the rule of law measurement enterprise as insufficiently linked to the underlying normative concept. It points to the reliance on expert perceptions and information constraints as a possible cause for the convergence. It concludes that measurement strategy, rather than differences in conceptualization, explains the convergence between the indicators.
42 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors extend the contract theory of the state by showing how the behavior of rulers depends on political stability, political constraints, self-governance, and foreign intervention, and use evidence from Afghanistan to illustrate how political instability and the absence of meaningful political constraints enables the predatory state.
Abstract: According to the contract theory of the state, individuals give up their freedom to a specialist in violence who then provides public goods, such as private property rights and collective defense. The predatory perspective views the state as expropriating what it can unless individuals develop institutions of collective action to limit the scope of the state. We extend these economic theories of the state by showing how the behavior of rulers depends on political stability, political constraints, self-governance, and foreign intervention. We use evidence from Afghanistan to illustrate how political instability and the absence of meaningful political constraints enables the predatory state. Foreign aid and foreign military intervention amplify the wealth-destroying features of political institutions. Customary self-governance provides public goods locally but is only a partial defense against predatory rulers and can be overwhelmed by predatory self-governing organizations, especially warlords and the Taliban.
40 citations
Book•
09 Feb 2016TL;DR: The Rule of Law in the Real World by Paul Gowder as mentioned in this paper argues that the rule of law, thus understood, creates and preserves social equality in a state, and sheds light on how societies have achieved the law, how they have sustained it in the face of political upheaval, and how it may be measured and developed in the future.
Abstract: In The Rule of Law in the Real World, Paul Gowder defends a new conception of the rule of law as the coordinated control of power and demonstrates that the rule of law, thus understood, creates and preserves social equality in a state. In a highly engaging, interdisciplinary text that moves seamlessly from theory to reality, using examples ranging from Ancient Greece through the present, Gowder sheds light on how societies have achieved the rule of law, how they have sustained it in the face of political upheaval, and how it may be measured and developed in the future. The Rule of Law in the Real World is an essential work for scholars, students, policymakers, and anyone else who believes the rule of law is critical to the proper functioning of society.
38 citations
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Book•
01 Jan 1990TL;DR: Douglass C. North as discussed by the authors developed an analytical framework for explaining the ways in which institutions and institutional change affect the performance of economies, both at a given time and over time.
Abstract: Continuing his groundbreaking analysis of economic structures, Douglass North develops an analytical framework for explaining the ways in which institutions and institutional change affect the performance of economies, both at a given time and over time. Institutions exist, he argues, due to the uncertainties involved in human interaction; they are the constraints devised to structure that interaction. Yet, institutions vary widely in their consequences for economic performance; some economies develop institutions that produce growth and development, while others develop institutions that produce stagnation. North first explores the nature of institutions and explains the role of transaction and production costs in their development. The second part of the book deals with institutional change. Institutions create the incentive structure in an economy, and organisations will be created to take advantage of the opportunities provided within a given institutional framework. North argues that the kinds of skills and knowledge fostered by the structure of an economy will shape the direction of change and gradually alter the institutional framework. He then explains how institutional development may lead to a path-dependent pattern of development. In the final part of the book, North explains the implications of this analysis for economic theory and economic history. He indicates how institutional analysis must be incorporated into neo-classical theory and explores the potential for the construction of a dynamic theory of long-term economic change. Douglass C. North is Director of the Center of Political Economy and Professor of Economics and History at Washington University in St. Louis. He is a past president of the Economic History Association and Western Economics Association and a Fellow, American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He has written over sixty articles for a variety of journals and is the author of The Rise of the Western World: A New Economic History (CUP, 1973, with R.P. Thomas) and Structure and Change in Economic History (Norton, 1981). Professor North is included in Great Economists Since Keynes edited by M. Blaug (CUP, 1988 paperback ed.)
27,080 citations
Posted Content•
TL;DR: In this article, the authors examine the role that institutions, defined as the humanly devised constraints that shape human interaction, play in economic performance and how those institutions change and how a model of dynamic institutions explains the differential performance of economies through time.
Abstract: Examines the role that institutions, defined as the humanly devised constraints that shape human interaction, play in economic performance and how those institutions change and how a model of dynamic institutions explains the differential performance of economies through time. Institutions are separate from organizations, which are assemblages of people directed to strategically operating within institutional constraints. Institutions affect the economy by influencing, together with technology, transaction and production costs. They do this by reducing uncertainty in human interaction, albeit not always efficiently. Entrepreneurs accomplish incremental changes in institutions by perceiving opportunities to do better through altering the institutional framework of political and economic organizations. Importantly, the ability to perceive these opportunities depends on both the completeness of information and the mental constructs used to process that information. Thus, institutions and entrepreneurs stand in a symbiotic relationship where each gives feedback to the other. Neoclassical economics suggests that inefficient institutions ought to be rapidly replaced. This symbiotic relationship helps explain why this theoretical consequence is often not observed: while this relationship allows growth, it also allows inefficient institutions to persist. The author identifies changes in relative prices and prevailing ideas as the source of institutional alterations. Transaction costs, however, may keep relative price changes from being fully exploited. Transaction costs are influenced by institutions and institutional development is accordingly path-dependent. (CAR)
26,011 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, it is shown that a definition of a firm may be obtained which is not only realistic in that it corresponds to what is meant by a firm in the real world, but is tractable by two of the most powerful instruments of economic analysis developed by Marshall, the idea of the margin and that of substitution.
Abstract: Economic theory has suffered in the past from a failure to state clearly its assumptions. Economists in building up a theory have often omitted to examine the foundations on which it was erected. This examination is, however, essential not only to prevent the misunderstanding and needless controversy which arise from a lack of knowledge of the assumptions on which a theory is based, but also because of the extreme importance for economics of good judgement in choosing between rival sets of assumptions. For instance, it is suggested that the use of the word “firm” in economics may be different from the use of the term by the “plain man.”1 Since there is apparently a trend in economic theory towards starting analysis with the individual firm and not with the industry,2 it is all the more necessary not only that a clear definition of the word “firm” should be given but that its difference from a firm in the “real world,” if it exists, should be made clear. Mrs. Robinson has said that “the two questions to be asked of a set of assumptions in economics are: Are they tractable? and: Do they correspond with the real world?”3 Though, as Mrs. Robinson points out, “more often one set will be manageable and the other realistic,” yet there may well be branches of theory where assumptions may be both manageable and realistic. It is hoped to show in the following paper that a definition of a firm may be obtained which is not only realistic in that it corresponds to what is meant by a firm in the real world, but is tractable by two of the most powerful instruments of economic analysis developed by Marshall, the idea of the margin and that of substitution, together giving the idea of substitution at the margin.
21,195 citations
Book•
01 Jan 1990TL;DR: In this paper, an institutional approach to the study of self-organization and self-governance in CPR situations is presented, along with a framework for analysis of selforganizing and selfgoverning CPRs.
Abstract: Preface 1. Reflections on the commons 2. An institutional approach to the study of self-organization and self-governance in CPR situations 3. Analyzing long-enduring, self-organized and self-governed CPRs 4. Analyzing institutional change 5. Analyzing institutional failures and fragilities 6. A framework for analysis of self-organizing and self-governing CPRs Notes References Index.
16,852 citations
TL;DR: The Economic Institutions of Capitalism as mentioned in this paper is a seminal work in the field of economic institutions of capitalism. Journal of Economic Issues: Vol. 21, No. 1, pp. 528-530.
Abstract: (1987). The Economic Institutions of Capitalism. Journal of Economic Issues: Vol. 21, No. 1, pp. 528-530.
16,767 citations