Rules-in-use vs rules-in-form — the invisibility problem

The idea

Institutions are shared concepts living "in the minds of the participants" — invisible (Ostrom 2007, p. 23). So institutional analysis targets rules-in-use, not rules-in-form: "the dos and don'ts that one learns on the ground that may not exist in any written document," which may even contradict the written rules (p. 23). Working rules are "the set of rules to which participants would make reference if asked to explain and justify their actions" (p. 36). McGinnis's shorthand: formal rules ("rules-on-paper") vs the repertoire of strategies, norms, and rules actually used (p. 12).

The methodological cost is high: rules-in-use aren't in documents, aren't survey-able, often aren't conceptualized as rules by participants; eliciting them means fieldwork — asking "how X is done here and why Y is not done here" (p. 23) via "nonthreatening, context-specific questions" over time at a site (p. 39; IFRI protocols, n. 5 pp. 53–54).

The Nostr engagement

This is the load-bearing methodological hook for the whole project. On Nostr a large share of rules-in-use are enacted as signed, timestamped, typed events — mutes, reports, follows, relay policy docs, allowlist changes — so the rules-in-use/rules-in-form gap becomes directly measurable (compare a relay's posted policy with its observed accept/reject behavior). Ostrom's ethnographic elicitation problem is replaced by a log-reading problem: {{ref:claim-formation-observable|Formation is observable for the first time}}, {{ref:claim-interviews-carry-claim|Interviews carry the claim; the trace locates}}, {{ref:concept-institutional-invisibility|Institutional invisibility}}. Residual invisibility remains (operator intentions, out-of-band norms in group chats) — the gap the interviews still have to carry.

Sources

- Ostrom 2007, pp. 23 (invisibility, definition), 36–37 (working rules, rules not self-enforcing), 39 (field elicitation), 53–54 n. 5. - McGinnis, p. 12 (§9).

Related: - {{ref:emergentgov|Index}} - {{ref:src-ostrom-irc-iad|Ostrom 2007}} - {{ref:src-iad-guide|McGinnis 2010/2011}} - {{ref:concept-iad-framework|The IAD framework}} - {{ref:concept-rule-types|The seven rule types}} - {{ref:concept-adico-grammar|ADICO grammar of institutions}} - {{ref:concept-governance-as-software|Governance as software}} - {{ref:concept-survivorship-bias|Survivorship bias in commons theory}}