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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
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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.

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