nADICO: A nested grammar of institutions

Abstract

We propose a refined institutional scheme derived from Crawford and Ostrom's Grammar of Institutions (GoI) that has been refined to provide a more comprehensive representation of conventions, norms, and rules, which extends to describing institutions in more detail but also allowing the expression of fuzzy aspects (e.g. the uncertainty about a sanction's occurrence). After initially reviewing the GoI grammar structure (also referred to as ADICO), we discuss its adoption as well as limitations. We introduce selected extensions and refinements that enable the grammar's ability to describe institutions in more detail, but also to capture more complex institutions as well as characteristics of institutions themselves, such as institutional regress. Central features of our Nested ADICO (nADICO) include: - A notion of nesting monitored and consequential ('Or else') statements, and - a refined differentiation between norms and rules. nADICO both enables a more comprehensive expression of institutions and extends the use of the original grammar into various application domains, while taking the initial step towards a more dynamic perpective on institutional modelling. © 2013 Springer-Verlag.