Coordinating in the Shadow of the Law: Two Contextualized Tests of the Focal Point Theory of Legal Compliance

Abstract

In situations where people have an incentive to coordinate their behavior, law can provide a framework for understanding and predicting what others are likely to do. According to the focal point theory of legal compliance, the law's articulation of a behavior can sometimes create self-fulfilling expectations that it will occur. Existing theories of legal compliance emphasize the effect of sanctions or legitimacy; we argue that, in addition to sanctions and legitimacy, law can also influence compliance simply by making one outcome salient. We tested this claim in two experiments where sanctions and legitimacy were held constant. Experiment 1 demonstrated that a mandatory legal rule operating in a property dispute influenced compliance only when there was an element of coordination. Experiment 2 demonstrated that a default rule in a contract negotiation acted as a focal point for coordinating negotiation decisions. Both experiments confirm that legal rules can create a focal point around which people tend to coordinate.Ac entral question for social scientists who study law concerns the mechanisms by which law affects human behavior; that is, how does law work? Of course, there is no simple answer to this question because a great variety of factors shape and control the impact of law. Perhaps the most comprehensively researched factor is sanctions. For economists, questions about the effect of law on human behavior begin (and generally end) with the assumption that behavior responds to rewards and punishments. That is, people obey law to the extent that legal sanctions raise the expected cost of noncompliance beyond the expected benefits (Becker 1968).On the other hand, scholars working from the perspective of other social sciences (anthropologists, psychologists, sociologists, and political scientists, among others) recognize that motives for compliance are often more complex than the stark cost-benefit analysis assumed by economists (Stryker 1994;Friedman 2005). To this end, many social scientists who study legal compliance emphasize that people generally obey law to the extent that they perceive law and legal actors as authoritative and legitimate. There are many examples from many different domains. When police treat people with respect and dignity, they gain legitimacy, and as a result, the cooperation and compliance of citizens (Tyler 1990; Tyler & Fagan n.d.). Tax authorities gain more compliance when they treat people fairly and respectfully (Wenzel 2002;Murphy 2005). The institutional legitimacy of the U.S. Supreme Court has remained steady over many years, and this reserve of goodwill is thought to increase the likelihood of acceptance of unpopular court decisions (Caldeira & Gibson 1992;Gibson 2007). Indeed, law is a complex structure, and its perceived legitimacy varies widely, over cultures, times, and domains of its everyday instantiation (Sarat & Kearns 1993:9; Suchman 1997:486-90;Calavita 2001).The two approaches of sanctions and legitimacy are quite different from one another. The approach that f...

The Force of Norms? The Internal Point of View in Light of Experimental Economics

“…Giving participants a random, but not binding, signal for one of the stable combinations of hawk and dove significantly influences their choice—an effect that is enhanced if the mechanism is swapped for a merit‐based leader. The authors replicate this effect in a study based on surveys that control for legitimacy (McAdams and Nadler ).…”

Law and the Use of Force in World Politics: The Varied Effects of Law on the Exercise of Military Power in Territorial Disputes

“…First, legal principles, by virtue of being formalized in public instruments, such as treaties, agreements, and court rulings, are common knowledge among states (Mcadams and Nadler 2005, 2008). Consequently, they are a well‐known source for leaders to reference when they disagree.…”

The Coevolution of Behavior and Normative Expectations: Customary Law in the Lab

“…While some contributions narrowly conceive law as a mere sanction (Bohnet and Cooter 2001;Tyran and Feld 2006;Galbiati and Vertova 2008;Bernasconi, Corazzini et al 2010), others adopt a richer concept of law, arguing that the law serves as a focal point McAdams and Nadler 2005;McAdams and Nadler 2008), informs people about behaviour others will approve , induces people to change their beliefs about the consequences associated with an action (Geisinger 2002), or changes the perception of underlying social norms (Feldman and Nadler 2006). Empirical findings have been mixed.…”