Substitutable Protections: Credible Commitment Devices and Socioeconomic Insulation

Scholars have argued that credible commitment institutions have important impacts on political outcomes as diverse as economic growth and social order. If commitment institutions function as theorized, then their effects should vary across individuals, groups, or states, based on their respective vu...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Political research quarterly 2010-03, Vol.63 (1), p.115-128
Main Authors: Staton, Jeffrey K., Reenock, Christopher
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Credible commitment
Democracy
Design
Economic Development
Economic models
Errors
Income distribution
Institutions
Insulation
Judicial system
Law reform
Legal reform
Legal systems
Modeling
Political economy
Political research
Political systems
Reform
Risk
Scholars
Social Order
Socioeconomics
Studies
Wealth
Citations: Items that this one cites
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Summary:Scholars have argued that credible commitment institutions have important impacts on political outcomes as diverse as economic growth and social order. If commitment institutions function as theorized, then their effects should vary across individuals, groups, or states, based on their respective vulnerability to promise breaking. Yet existing empirical studies never pursue this implication. The failure to do so risks a number of inferential errors and can lead to suboptimal policy prescriptions for institutional reform. In this article, the authors develop and provide empirical evidence for these claims within the context of a commitment problem that scholars believe undermines social order.
ISSN:1065-9129
1938-274X
DOI:10.1177/1065912908327394