Hostname: page-component-6bf8c574d5-rwnhh Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-02-22T16:37:46.749Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Law without the State

Legal Attributes and the Coordination of Decentralized Collective Punishment

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 October 2022

Gillian K. Hadfield  and
Barry R. Weingast
Gillian K. Hadfield
Affiliation:
University of Southern California
Barry R. Weingast
Affiliation:
Stanford University and Hoover Institution on War, Revolution, and Peace
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Most social scientists take for granted that law is defined by the presence of a centralized authority capable of exacting coercive penalties for violations of legal rules. Moreover, the existing approach to analyzing law in economics and positive political theory works with a very thin concept of law that does not account for the distinctive attributes of legal order as compared with other forms of social order. Drawing on a model developed elsewhere, we reinterpret key case studies to demonstrate how a theoretically informed approach illuminates questions about the emergence, stability, and function of law in supporting economic and democratic growth.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Law and Courts , Volume 1 , Issue 1 , Spring 2013 , pp. 3 - 34
Copyright
© 2013 by the Law and Courts Organized Section of the American Political Science Association. All rights reserved.

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Basu, Kaushik. 2000. Prelude to Political Economy: A Study of the Social and Political Foundations of Economics. New York: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Benson, Bruce L. 1989a. “Enforcement of Private Property Rights in Primitive Societies: Law without Government.” Journal of Libertarian Studies 9:1–26.Google Scholar
Benson, Bruce L. 1989b. “The Spontaneous Evolution of Commercial Law.” Southern Economic Journal 55:644–61.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bland, Alfred Edward, Brown, Philip Anthony and Tawney, Richard Henry. 1914. English Economic History: Select Documents. London: Bell.Google Scholar
Boyd, Robert, Harold Gintis, and Samuel Bowles. 2010. “Coordinated Punishment of Defectors Sustains Cooperation and Can Proliferate When Rare.” Science 328:617–20.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bryce, James. 1901. Studies in History and Jurisprudence. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Chwe, Michael. 2001. Rational Ritual: Culture, Coordination, and Common Knowledge. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Clay, Karen, and Gavin Wright. 2005. “Order without Law? Property Rights during the California Gold Rush.” Explorations in Economic History 42:155–83.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dixit, Avinash. 2006. Lawlessness and Economics: Alternative Modes of Governance. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Ellickson, Robert C. 1991. Order without Law: How Neighbors Settle Disputes. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fehr, Ernst, and Simon Gachter. 2002. “Altruistic Punishment in Human.” Science 415:137–40.Google Scholar
Friedman, David. 1979. “Private Creation and Enforcement of Law: A Historical Case.” Journal of Legal Studies 8:399–415.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fuller, Lon L. 1964. The Morality of Law. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Greif, Avner. 1989. “Reputation and Coalitions in Medieval Trade: Evidence on the Maghribi Traders.” Journal of Economic History 49:857–82.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Greif, Avner. 1993. “Contract Enforceability and Economic Institutions in Early Trade: The Maghribi Traders’ Coalition.” American Economic Review 83:525–48.Google Scholar
Greif, Avner. 2006. Institutions and the Path to the Modern Economy: Lessons from Medieval Trade. London: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Greif, Avner, Paul Milgrom, and Weingast, Barry R.. 1994. “Coordination, Commitment, and Enforcement: The Case of the Merchant Guild.” Journal of Political Economy 102:745–76.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hadfield, Gillian K., and Weingast, Barry R.. 2012. “What Is Law? A Coordination Model of the Characteristics of Legal Order.” Journal of Legal Analysis 4:471–514.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hart, H. L. A. 1987. The Concept of Law. 2nd ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Henrich, Joseph, et al. 2006. “Costly Punishment across Human Societies.” Science 312:1767–70.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hobbes, Thomas. 1651.1991. Leviathan. Ed. Richard Tuck. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Hoebel, E. Adamson. 2006. The Law of Primitive Man: A Study in Comparative Legal Dynamics. 2nd ed. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Klerman, Daniel. 2007. “Jurisdictional Competition and the Evolution of the Common Law.” University of Chicago Law Review 74:1179–1226.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kornhauser, Lewis A. 2004. “Governance Structures, Legal Systems and the Concept of Law.” Chicago-Kent Law Review 79:355–81.Google Scholar
Kreps, David. 1990. “Corporate Culture and Economic Theory.” In Perspectives on Positive Political Economy. ed. James E. Alt and Shepsle, Kenneth A.. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
McAdams, Richard H. 2000. “A Focal Point Theory of Expressive Law.” Virginia Law Review 86:1649–1729.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McDowell, Andrea G. 2002. “From Commons to Claims: Property Rights in the California Gold Rush.” Yale Journal of Law and Humanities 14:1–72.Google Scholar
McDowell, Andrea G. 2004. “Real Property, Spontaneous Order, and Norms in the Gold Mines.” Law and Social Inquiry 29:771–818.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Milgrom, Paul, North, Douglass C.. and Weingast, Barry R.. 1990. “The Role of Institutions in the Revival of Trade: The Medieval Law Merchant, Private Judges, and the Champagne Fairs.” Economics and Politics 2:1–23.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Miller, W. I. 1990. Bloodtaking and Peacemaking: Feud, Law, and Society in Saga Iceland. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mitchell, W. 1904. An Essay on the Early History of the Law Merchant. London: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Moore, Ellen Wedemeyer. 1985. The Fairs of Medieval England: An Introductory Study. Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies.Google Scholar
Myerson, Roger B. 2004 “Justice, Institutions, and Multiple Equilibria.” Chicago Journal of International Law 5:91–107.Google Scholar
Ogilvie, Sheilagh. 2011. Institutions and European Trade: Merchant Guilds, 1000–1800. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ostrom, Elinor. 2000. “Collective Action and the Evolution of Social Norms.” Journal of Economic Perspectives 14:137–58.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ostrom, Elinor, James Walker, and Roy Gardner. 1992. “Covenants With and Without a Sword: Self-Governance Is Possible.” American Political Science Review 86:404–17.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Putnam, Robert D. 1993. Making Democracy Work: Civic Traditions in Modern Italy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Raz, Joseph. 1977. “The Rule of Law and Its Virtue.” Law Quarterly Review 93:195–211.Google Scholar
Sugden, Robert. 1986. The Economics of Rights, Cooperation and Welfare. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
Trakman, Leon E. 1983. The Law Merchant: The Evolution of Commercial Law. Littleton, CO: Rothman.Google Scholar
Umbeck, John. 1977. “A Theory of Contract Choice and the California Gold Rush.” Journal of Law and Economics 20:421–37.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Waldron, Jeremy. 2008. “The Concept and the Rule of Law.” Georgia Law Review 43:1–61.Google Scholar
Weber, Max. 1978. Economy and Society: An Outline of Interpretive Sociology. Ed. Guenther Roth and Claus Wittich. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Zerbe, Richard O. Jr., and C. Leigh Anderson. 2001. “Culture and Fairness in the Development of Institutions in the California Gold Fields.” Journal of Economic History 61:114–43.CrossRefGoogle Scholar