Institutional Violations, Costs and Attitudes
Abstract
The paper proposes an alternative approach to the ontology
of social institutions by systematizing various normative
institutional influences and identifying processes that
distinguish between conforming and violating behaviour.
The prevailing – cost-based model – suggests that
an agent's conformity to a specific institutional rule can
be represented by a single measure – cost. The model is
limited in its explanatory potential since it accounts for
varieties of institutional behaviour in terms of single parametrical
changes in the agents' utilities. The central argument
shows that normative attitudes represent a distinctive
normative structure capable of explaining crucial aspects
of institutional behaviour. These attitudinal aspects provide
the structure necessary for understanding institutional
normativity and its violations.