Rule

A rule is a principle to which action should conform: a widely accepted standard of behavior. The term governance is closely linked to the concept of rule making, via the Greek and Latin verbs kubernan and gubernare, respectively. Modern definitions of governance refer to the stewardship of the formal and informal “rules of the game.” The growth of multilevel and multiactor governance makes a focus on rules particularly timely. In this context, the omission of governance-as-process with government-asorganization becomes problematic. The study of governance requires a focus on underlying rules and how they vary over time and across space (governments are just one, albeit an important, player within that game).

Elinor Ostrom has defined rules as prescriptions that define which actions are required, prohibited, or permitted, and specify the sanctions for noncompliance. In the domain of governance, rules shape the behavior of actors—elected politicians, public officials, community leaders, and individual citizens—by making certain courses of action more or less possible and more or less attractive. Rules create “positions” (president, prime minister, committee chair, spokesperson, community representative, voter, consultee), and they determine how participants enter or leave [Page 843]these positions (election, appointment, random selection, patronage, contract), what actions they are permitted to take, and what outcomes they are allowed to affect.

Typologies of modes of governance ascribe a more important role to rules in bureaucratic or hierarchical systems than in market- or network-based arrangements. However, with a more expansive definition, it becomes clear that rules bring an important element of stability, regularity, and predictability to behavior within all governance systems. Rules can be informal as well as formal. Formal rules are consciously designed and clearly specified—as in the case of written constitutions, treaties, laws, contractual agreements, property rights, the terms of reference and standing orders, and so forth. Informal rules are not consciously designed or specified in writing—they are routines, customs, and conventions that are part of habitual action. Informal rules may be as influential as official codes of conduct and written constitutions; indeed, “invisible” rules may be more powerful. Rooted as they are in custom and tradition, informal rules are particularly difficult to change. It is not uncommon for long-standing informal rules to persist in the face of (and in potential contradiction with) new formal rules. Ostrom distinguishes between rules of form and rules of use.

An expansive conception of rules has been criticized on the grounds of nonfalsifiability: All behavior conforms to some rule, even if it has yet to be identified. The concept of “standard operating procedures” offers a helpful way forward: The researcher's aim should be to identify the specific rules of behavior that are agreed upon and (in general) followed by agents, whether explicitly or tacitly agreed to. Informal rules are distinct from personal “rules of thumb”: They are specific to a particular governance setting, they are recognized by actors (if not always adhered to), and they can be described and explained to the researcher. Standard operating procedures may be circumvented or manipulated by certain groups of actors, but actors are still able to identify, and reflect upon, the nature of such rules.

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