Beyond the Binary: A Framework for Examining the In/Formality of Institutions in Social‐Ecological Systems

Original

Beyond the Binary: A Framework for Examining the In/Formality of Institutions in Social‐Ecological Systems

Corrie Hannah, Seemi Waheed, Beril Ocaklı, Flavia Guerrieri, Bente Castro Campos, Mohammed Abubakari, Kimberlee Chang, Maria Katharina Gerullis, Menelisi Falayi, Elle Pattenden, Gabriela Silva Santa Rosa Macedo, Hita Unnikrishnan

Abstract

ABSTRACT Designing contextually relevant policies for the sustainable governance of social‐ecological systems hinges on an accurate understanding of how social systems are structured and organized through institutions, that is, the set(s) of formal and informal rules that shape human behavior. When researchers only consider either formal (e.g., written law) or informal (e.g., norms) rules, without acknowledging or accounting for the full diversity of rules and their interplay, important drivers of human behavior and collective action can be missed. Yet, there is limited guidance in the literature on the study of institutions regarding how to account for the diverse formal and informal rules in a research design. To address this gap, we present a framework for the study of institutions as sets of formal and informal rules along a gradient of in/formality and within a nexus of rule production, recognition, enforcement, and compliance. This in/formality framework offers a guide for researchers to consider the range of rules beyond the binary of ‘formal’ and ‘informal’ in a social‐ecological context. The framework encourages scholars who study diverse institutions to be more reflexive and explicit with their research design, measurement of institutions, and the development of theory and tools for analyzing diverse institutions.