Covenants With and Without a Sword: Self-Enforcement is Possible

Abstract

"Contemporary political theory often assumes that individuals cannot make credible commitments where substantial temptations exist to break them, unless such commitments are enforced by an external agent. Empirical evidence suggests, however, that individuals facing social dilemmas in many cases develop credible commitments without relying on external authorities. Fishers, irrigators, or herders appropriating from a CPR have repeatedly shown their capacity to organize themselves, to establish credible commitments, to monitor each others' behavior, and to impose sanctions on those who break their commitments. In this paper, we present findings from a series of experiments designed to explore the issue of endogenous formation of commitments and enforcement of such commitments. In a laboratory environment designed to parallel the decision environment of many CPRs, we manipulate treatments to examine: (1) communication alone (one-shot and repeated), (2) sanctioning alone, and (3) communication combined with the possibility of sanctioning."