The Competitive Advantage of Sanctioning Institutions

TLDR

Human cooperation and social order are shaped by institutional competition, yet empirical evidence on the role of punishment in competing institutions remains inconclusive. We show experimentally that a sanctioning institution outcompetes a sanction‑free one, with the entire population migrating to the sanctioning institution and strongly cooperating, while the sanction‑free society depopulates, demonstrating the competitive advantage of sanctioning institutions.

Abstract

Understanding the fundamental patterns and determinants of human cooperation and the maintenance of social order in human societies is a challenge across disciplines. The existing empirical evidence for the higher levels of cooperation when altruistic punishment is present versus when it is absent systematically ignores the institutional competition inherent in human societies. Whether punishment would be deliberately adopted and would similarly enhance cooperation when directly competing with nonpunishment institutions is highly controversial in light of recent findings on the detrimental effects of punishment. We show experimentally that a sanctioning institution is the undisputed winner in a competition with a sanction-free institution. Despite initial aversion, the entire population migrates successively to the sanctioning institution and strongly cooperates, whereas the sanction-free society becomes fully depopulated. The findings demonstrate the competitive advantage of sanctioning institutions and exemplify the emergence and manifestation of social order driven by institutional selection.