What Is Law? A Coordination Model of the Characteristics of Legal Order

TLDR

Legal philosophers have long debated what law is, yet few social scientists have explained the phenomenon of legal order. The study builds a rational‑choice model of legal order based on decentralized enforcement in pre‑nation‑state societies and many modern contexts. The model achieves equilibrium through an institution that provides a common logic for classifying behavior as wrongful or not. The model shows that decentralized enforcement via collective punishment can deter wrongful behavior and explains key legal order features such as generality, impersonality, open process, and stability.

Abstract

Legal philosophers have long debated the question, what is law? But few in social science have attempted to explain the phenomenon of legal order. In this article, we build a rational choice model of legal order in an environment that relies exclusively on decentralized enforcement, such as we find in human societies prior to the emergence of the nation state and in many modern settings. We demonstrate that we can support an equilibrium in which wrongful behavior is effectively deterred by exclusively decentralized enforcement, specifically collective punishment. Equilibrium is achieved by an institution that supplies a common logic for classifying behavior as wrongful or not. We argue that several features ordinarily associated with legal order—such as generality, impersonality, open process, and stability—can be explained by the incentive and coordination problems facing collective punishment.