Economics Dictionary of ArgumentsHome
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| Sanctions: Sanctions are coercive measures imposed by one country or group of countries against another country, organization, or individual to encourage a change in behavior, punish non-compliance with international norms or laws, or achieve specific policy objectives._____________Annotation: The above characterizations of concepts are neither definitions nor exhausting presentations of problems related to them. Instead, they are intended to give a short introduction to the contributions below. – Lexicon of Arguments. | |||
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Lawrence Lessig on Sanctions - Dictionary of Arguments
Parisi I 473 Sanctions/social meaning/Lessig/Carbonara: Social meaning can be built and changed through law. An enlightening example is provided by Lessig (1996)(1) and is related to possible techniques used to eliminate dueling. While prohibiting duels in itself is neutral for social meaning, the sanction provided to punish violators does affect it and might improve substantially the efficacy of the prohibition. Consider two possible legal strategies: imprisoning duelers and inflicting a sanction that, in addition to imprisonment, prevents duelers from holding public office. Both techniques have the effect of increasing the cost of dueling but have very different impacts on social meaning. The first type of sanction simply increases the cost of dueling, raising its expected harm. The meaning of the act, however, remains unaltered: duelers are gentlemen defending their honor and that of their community. Disqualifying duelers from public office not only increases the cost for duelers but it also changes the meaning of the act and, more precisely, the meaning of disobeying the law. >Law/Carbonara, >Social Norms. Assume in fact that the regulation imposes imprisonment: complying with the law means that the dueler is not willing to defend his community’s honor because the cost of doing so is too high. He may well be seen as a coward, someone willing to escape his duty to serve his community. Consider the alternative case, in which the sanction is disqualification from public office. Now, if someone refuses to duel, it might either be because she refuses the challenge and is therefore a coward, or because she privileges another type of public duty that the law has put in competition with the duty of defending the community’s honor. The second type of sanction “ambiguates” the meaning of refusing to duel, changing the possible meaning of the act and therefore reducing its cost, rendering compliance with the law more attractive. 1. Lessig, Lawrence (1996). “Social Meaning and Social Norms.” University of Pennsylvania Law Review 144: 2181–2189. Emanuela Carbonara. “Law and Social Norms”. In: Parisi, Francesco (ed) (2017). The Oxford Handbook of Law and Economics. Vol 1: Methodology and Concepts. NY: Oxford University._____________Explanation of symbols: Roman numerals indicate the source, arabic numerals indicate the page number. The corresponding books are indicated on the right hand side. ((s)…): Comment by the sender of the contribution. Translations: Dictionary of Arguments The note [Concept/Author], [Author1]Vs[Author2] or [Author]Vs[term] resp. "problem:"/"solution:", "old:"/"new:" and "thesis:" is an addition from the Dictionary of Arguments. If a German edition is specified, the page numbers refer to this edition. |
Lessig I Lawrence Lessig Code: Version 2.0 New York 2006ff Parisi I Francesco Parisi (Ed) The Oxford Handbook of Law and Economics: Volume 1: Methodology and Concepts New York 2017 |
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