Mini-Symposium Introduction

It is increasingly evident that informal institutions, or the sets of “unwritten” rules and configurations of social practices that exist outside “formal” structures of government (Chudek and Henrich 2011; Helmke and Levitsky 2004, 727), exercise tremendous influence over social behavior and political choice, and should not be ignored by those seeking fresh approaches to solving seemingly intractable problems. A vital component of many informal institutions are social norms, that is, “standards of appropriate behavior for actors with a given identity” (Finnemore and Sikkink 1998, 891). To understand the political world, it seems, we must understand norms and the informal institutions they help comprise. These phenomena frequently cause behavior that is inconsistent with formal laws and policies, confounding the efforts of policymakers and reformers seeking to solve challenging problems. At the same time, the power of informal institutions and norms offers unique opportunities for addressing social and political problems. Despite their importance, however, informal institutions still receive relatively little attention from those trying to solve important policy challenges.

This mini-symposium seeks to provide new theoretical insights into how informal institutions and norms affect social and political choice, and also to provide new perspectives and potential solutions to seemingly intractable social and political problems. In this introduction, we note a few overarching strategies for using informal institutions to promote social change, drawing on policy examples and specific insights discussed in this collection of articles.

Norms and informal institutions are often at the root of many social challenges, and serve as formidable obstacles to reform. Certain gender and familial norms, for instance, can be a major impediment to the enactment of new policies protecting the human rights of women. In addition, informal institutions can undermine enforcement of new formal rules even after policy reforms are adopted. Even new institutions, which might seem like “fresh starts” or “blank slates,” are embedded in a broader context of formal and informal institutions that can make change difficult (Chappell, this volume; MacKay and Krook 2011). For example, Louise Chappell’s essay documents the ways that informal institutions work to discourage charges for war crimes related to rape and other violent acts against women, and limit the ability of the International Criminal Court to address these violations formally, in spite of strong formal language supporting such action. Similarly, Georgina Waylen’s contribution outlines how informal rules undermine the effectiveness of gender quota provisions and other formal institutional reforms related to women’s rights. Waylen’s paper further argues that a feminist approach provides valuable insights about informal institutions in the area of gender politics that both challenge and enrich the theoretical approach of historical institutionalism more generally.

As Raymond, Weldon, Kelly, Arriaga, and Clark point out in their article, an important strategy for norm-based change, therefore, is challenging problematic norms: making people more aware of them and subjecting them to scrutiny to weaken their influence over behavior. This process of “foregrounding” certain gender norms, for example, can lead some people to adjust their behavior to avoid sexist practices (Becker and Swim 2012). Activists have also foregrounded problematic norms by sponsoring women’s testimonials in Congressional hearings or at United Nations conferences. In these testimonials, women describe their experiences of violence, thereby breaking taboos against speaking out on the subject and drawing attention to the ubiquity and harmful nature of violent behavior supported by norms of masculine dominance.

Of course, not all norms or informal institutions are impediments to reform; in some cases, existing norms may hold untapped potential for promoting behavioral change that would ameliorate important social problems. People may be more likely to adopt a new practice when they are reminded of existing norms promoting that behavior. In fact, messages highlighting the widespread nature of a given practice can be more influential in eliciting behavior change than messages offering reasons for the desired practice.

Determining which norms to apply to a given issue is often complicated. Many norms are ambiguous in their applicability, creating uncertainty about which standard of appropriateness applies to a specific decision (Sripada and Stich 2007). In addition, the appropriate norm for a given situation will be driven by the actor’s identity, which can change over time. Both of these forms of ambiguity create opportunities for new policy opportunities in addressing intractable problems.

Recognizing the ability to apply more than one norm to a given issue, activists have been able to “reframe” certain issues in terms of alternative norms to create support for new policy options. As two contributions to the symposium note, for example, climate activists have blocked emissions limits for developing nations by reframing the right to emit greenhouse gasses responsible for climate change as a human right. In addition, the Raymond et al. piece describes how environmental activists in the United States were able to reverse a long-standing policy design by reframing the atmosphere as a “public resource” invoking “polluter should pay” norms that made it politically viable to force companies to begin paying for their emissions under recent emissions trading policies.

Finally, Kathryn Hochstetler and Manjana Milkoreit describe how a new identity for certain countries as “emerging powers” has brought new norms related to the responsibilities of being a more powerful nation into the policy discussion around limiting global greenhouse gas emissions. Although the ultimate influence of new norms based on this new “joint” identity remains uncertain, Hochstetler and Milkoreit show how this new joint identity offers new opportunities for moving international discussions on this difficult issue forward in the future.

In some cases, those seeking to promote social change must create and disseminate an entirely new norm. Some examples include activists consciously working in communities to generate and practice a new norm, pointing to the collective (i.e., interactive and group-based) nature of the process of norm creation and diffusion. There is also the role of persuasion and imitation in helping to spread the new norm to others. In this mini-symposium, Raymond et al. offer a detailed account of this process of new norm creation, showing how activists engaged in deliberation within and across national boundaries to develop the category of violence against women (VAW) and to develop new ideas about VAW as a justice and human rights issue. Activists worked to develop and disseminate new norms based on these ideas, new norms that have come to shape policymaking around the world.

In sum, this mini-symposium demonstrates how informal institutions are important causes of and solutions for social problems and those seeking to address these problems should not overlook the importance of these “unwritten” rules. Several authors demonstrate how existing informal rules that constitute informal institutions have fundamentally impeded progress on social reforms related to women’s rights or environmental protection. At the same time, this collection of essays also reflects the premise that motivated the project in the first place—that paying more attention to informal institutions can offer a variety of important new strategies for social and political change.