Evolution Of Norms Research Articles

International Leadership and Norm Evolution

Since the end of the Cold War, fast-paced globalization has increased interaction among states and promoted development of international norms in many fields. Constructivists argue that international interactions can only advance international norms towards a Kantian culture of friendly mutual help and could not propel any regression to a Hobbesian culture of hostile confrontation. We can observe, however, that the reality of international politics does not support this argument. Although certain interactions have promoted international cooperation, others have intensified international conflicts. For instance, China, the United States, Russia, Japan, South Korea and North Korea held during the five years from August 2003 to December 2008 seven rounds of Six Party Talks on nuclear issues on the Korean Peninsula. The six nations’ continuous interaction during this period, however, resulted not in North Korea’s acceptance of the norm of non-proliferation, but in its conducting on May 25 2009 its second nuclear test. This example calls to question whether or not interaction among states drives international norms in one specific direction. Drawing on the Pre-Qin philosophers’ idea that the type of monarch has different impacts on relations among states, this article analyses how the different types of leadership of a leading power influence the process and direction of evolution of international norms.

Agent-based modeling of the effects of social norms on enrollment in payments for ecosystem services

Conservation investments are increasingly being implemented through payments for ecosystem services (PES) for the protection and restoration of ecosystem services around the world. Previous studies suggested that social norms have substantial impacts on environmental behaviors of humans, including enrollment of PES programs. However, it is still not well understood how social norms are affected by the design of PES programs and how the evolution of social norms may affect the efficiency of conservation investments. In this paper, we developed an agent-based simulation model to demonstrate the evolution and impacts of social norms on the enrollment of agricultural land in a PES program. We applied the model to land plots that have been enrolled in China's Grain-to-Green Program (GTGP) to examine reenrollment in an alternative payment program when the current payments ceased. The study was conducted in Wolong Nature Reserve where several thousand plant and animal species, including giant pandas, may benefit from the reenrollment. We found that over 15% more GTGP land can be reenrolled at the same payment if social norms were leveraged by allowing more than 10 rounds of interactions among landholders regarding their reenrollment decisions. With only three rounds of interactions, an additional 7.5% GTGP land was reenrolled at the same payment due to the effects of social norms. In addition, the effects of social norms were largest at intermediate payments and were smaller at much higher or much smaller payments. Even in circumstances where frequent interactions among landholders about their enrollment decisions are not feasible, policy arrangements that divide households into multiple waves for sequential enrollment can enroll over 11% more land at a given payment level. The approach presented in this paper can be used to improve the efficiency of existing PES programs and many other conservation investments worldwide.

Análisis sobre el marco jurídico que regula el aprovechamiento forestal en Colombia

In Colombia there is an ample environmental legal framework which is disregard frequently in the performance of activities and projects. The aforementioned disregard implies risks of environmental deterioration and negative impact on natural resources and biological diversity. In this sense, a docu- mental research was carried out, by which it was examined and analysed the legal framework of forest use in Colombia, the origin and evolution of the legal norms on forest use, specifically in relation with woods and wild flora. Furthermore, it was examined the legislation applicable to black communities in respect to the use of forest resources. This research has also identified as authorities with competence in forest affairs, the Ministry of Environment and Sustainable Development, and the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development. Finally, the two most important legal bodies in existence, which regulate forest use in Colombia, are the National Code of Renewable Natural Resources and Protection of Environment (Decree 2811 of 10/18/1974) and the Legal Regime of Forest Use (Decree 1791 of 10/04/1996).

The Origin of Moral Norms: A Moderate Nativist Account

ABSTRACT: In this paper, I distinguish between two families of theories which view moral norms as either “inputs” or “outputs.” I argue that the most plausible version of each model can ultimately be seen as the two sides of the same model, which I call Moderate Nativism. The difference between these two apparently antagonistic models is one of perspective rather than content: while the Input model explains how emotional dispositions constrain the historical evolution of moral norms, the Output model explains how these same dispositions naturally give rise to corresponding moral judgments in individuals.

The politics of self-defence: beyond a legal understanding of international norms

This contribution considers an alternative approach to the research on the use of force, a field that has been largely dominated by international legal scholars. I argue for application of an evolutionary approach to international (legal) norms, one that complements current legal approaches and moves the discussion of norms beyond their dichotomous legal/illegal understanding. This kind of research highlights the role of politics in international law and allows us to determine factors influencing dissemination of international norms. Through a study of seven post-Second World War cases, I trace the development of both narrow and expanded notion of preemptive self-defence and conclude that while ascertaining legality of specific actions is vital for understanding established international law, one cannot talk about radical breaks in development of the law on the use of force. The expanded concept is in fact a product of the evolution of (societal) norms on self-defence and an accumulation of previous successful challenges in metanorms on the use of force.

On the Origins of Gender Roles: Women and the Plough

This paper seeks to better understand the historical origins of current differences in norms and beliefs about the appropriate role of women in society. We test the hypothesis that traditional agricultural practices influenced the historical gender division of labor and the evolution and persistence of gender norms. We find that, consistent with existing hypotheses, the descendants of societies that traditionally practiced plough agriculture, today have lower rates of female participation in the workplace, in politics, and in entrepreneurial activities, as well as a greater prevalence of attitudes favoring gender inequality. We identify the causal impact of traditional plough use by exploiting variation in the historical geo-climatic suitability of the environment for growing crops that differentially benefited from the adoption of the plough. Our IV estimates, based on this variation, support the findings from OLS. To isolate the importance of cultural transmission as a mechanism, we examine female labor force participation of second-generation immigrants living within the US.

History, Expectations, and Leadership in Evolution of Social Norms

We study the evolution of a social norm of `cooperation' in a dynamic environment. Each agent lives for two periods and interacts with agents from the previous and next generations via a coordination game. Social norms emerge as patterns of behavior that are stable in part due to agents' interpretations of private information about the past, influenced by occasional commonly-observed past behaviors. For sufficiently backward-looking societies, history completely drives equilibrium play, leading to a social norm of high or low cooperation. In more forward-looking societies, there is a pattern of 'reversion' whereby play starting with high (low) cooperation reverts toward lower (higher) cooperation. The impact of history can be countered by occasional 'prominent' agents, whose actions are visible by all future agents and who can leverage their greater visibility to influence expectations of future agents and overturn social norms of low cooperation.

Lawmaking by the International Court of Justice—Factors of Success

The process of norm evolution and development in international law has been highly debated in recent international law and international relations scholarship. However, the debate focuses primarily on states or non-state actors as the agents responsible for shaping international law. In contrast, the role of the judiciary is often neglected in the debate. It is an open secret, though, that courts are not merely Montesquieu'sbouche de la loi, impartial arbiters, who apply and interpret exogenous norms. Armin von Bogdandy and Ingo Venzke have already pointed out that decisions for concrete cases can hardly be derived from abstract legal concepts by the mere exercise of logical deduction. Instead, the application of legal provisions often involves the development of the applied norm itself. This not only applies in the domestic setting, but is also valid in the international arena. This contribution will deal specifically with lawmaking by the International Court of Justice (ICJ).

Impact of Environmental Covariation in Growth and Mortality on Evolving Maturation Reaction Norms

Maturation age and size have important fitness consequences through their effects on survival probabilities and body sizes. The evolution of maturation reaction norms in response to environmental covariation in growth and mortality is therefore a key subject of life-history theory. The eco-evolutionary model we present and analyze here incorporates critical features that earlier studies of evolving maturation reaction norms have often neglected: the trade-off between growth and reproduction, source-sink population structure, and population regulation through density-dependent growth and fecundity. We report the following findings. First, the evolutionarily optimal age at maturation can be decomposed into the sum of a density-dependent and a density-independent component. These components measure, respectively, the hypothetical negative age at which an individual's length would be 0 and the delay in maturation relative to this offset. Second, along any growth trajectory, individuals mature earlier when mortality is higher. This allows us to deduce, third, how the shapes of evolutionarily optimal maturation reaction norms depend on the covariation between growth and mortality (positive or negative, linear or curvilinear, and deterministic or probabilistic). Providing eco-evolutionary explanations for many alternative reaction-norm shapes, our results appear to be in good agreement with current empirical knowledge on maturation dynamics.

The influence of random interactions and decision heuristics on norm evolution in social networks

In this paper we explore the effect that random social interactions have on the emergence and evolution of social norms in a simulated population of agents. In our model agents observe the behaviour of others and update their norms based on these observations. An agent's norm is influenced by both their own fixed social network plus a second random network that is composed of a subset of the remaining population. Random interactions are based on a weighted selection algorithm that uses an individual's path distance on the network to determine their chance of meeting a stranger. This means that friends-of-friends are more likely to randomly interact with one another than agents with a higher degree of separation. We then contrast the cases where agents make highest utility based rational decisions about which norm to adopt versus using a Markov Decision process that associates a weight with the best choice. Finally we examine the effect that these random interactions have on the evolution of a more complex social norm as it propagates throughout the population. We discover that increasing the frequency and weighting of random interactions results in higher levels of norm convergence and in a quicker time when agents have the choice between two competing alternatives. This can be attributed to more information passing through the population thereby allowing for quicker convergence. When the norm is allowed to evolve we observe both global consensus formation and group splintering depending on the cognitive agent model used.

Quantitative genetic variation for thermal performance curves within and among natural populations ofDrosophila serrata

Thermal performance curves (TPCs) provide a powerful framework for studying the evolution of continuous reaction norms and for testing hypotheses of thermal adaptation. Although featured heavily in comparative studies, the framework has been comparatively underutilized for quantitative genetic tests of thermal adaptation. We assayed the distribution of genetic (co)variance for TPC (locomotor activity) within and among three natural populations of Drosophila serrata and performed replicated tests of two hypotheses of thermal adaptation--that 'hotter is better' and that a generalist-specialist trade-off underpins the evolution of thermal sensitivity. We detected significant genetic variance within, and divergence among, populations. The 'hotter is better' hypothesis was not supported as the genetic correlations between optimal temperature (T(opt)) and maximum performance (z(max)) were consistently negative. A pattern of variation consistent with a generalist-specialist trade-off was detected within populations and divergence among populations indicated that performance curves were narrower and had higher optimal temperatures in the warmer, but less variable tropical population.

Self-Organization and Emergence in Social Systems: Modeling the Coevolution of Social Environments and Cooperative Behavior

We demonstrate with computational simulation scenarios how social environments and individual behavior coevolve and how fundamentally different macro-effects emerge, when separate micromechanisms are combined. Our framework considers social interactions among agents on a spatial grid or in networks. In the Prisoner's Dilemma, neither imitation of more successful strategies nor the migration to more favorable locations can promote cooperation. However, when both microscopic mechanisms are combined, they cause the segregation of cooperators and defectors, and the self-organization of cooperative clusters on the macro-level. These are robust to randomness, while cooperation may break down in a “globalized society.” The implications for the evolution of norms and institutions are discussed.

Game Theory, Indirect Modeling, and the Origin of Morality

The idea that the origin of moral norms can be explained in Darwinian terms has been with us since Darwin himself. But recently it has taken a more promising form with the advent of evolutionary game theory. Combining concepts and formal tools from evolutionary biology and economics, current evolutionary game theoretic models embody a distinct picture of the origin of morality. On this picture morality is the product of cultural evolution. That is, the evolution of norms happens within culture as the aggregate product of individual-level behavioral learning. The circumstances in which moral norms come into play are represented as strategic interactions such as bargaining and cooperation/defection scenarios. A basic assumption is that social agents generally seek to improve their lot in such interactions and that they do so by learning from peers. Strategies that have secured higher payoffs will tend to spread, because social learners will tend to adopt them more readily. The result is a Darwinian process operating on top of the basic

Fang and Others v. Jiang Zemin and Others

702State immunity — Jurisdictional immunity — Torture — Whether State immunity applicable in cases of alleged torture — Convention against Torture, 1984 — United Nations Convention on Jurisdictional Immunities, 2004 — Whether any torture or jus cogens exception to State immunitySources of international law — Domestic law — Principles of development and evolution of international legal norms — State immunity — Whether national courts free to develop new exception to State immunity — The law of New Zealand

Responsibility to Protect: The Evolution of an International Norm

This paper draws on the theoretical literature on the emergence and evolution of new international norms and on the norm lifecycle model to explain the emergence of the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) norm and analyse its current international status. It analyses the challenges that the norm faces, explains why it is still tenuous and discusses its prospects. I find that the characteristics inherent to the norm of R2P, especially its specificity and its coherence and adherence are among the factors that can help us understand the evolution of R2P and its current international status, as well as help us think about its prospects and future viability.

Brothers Without Borders? Investigating Process of Norm Evolution in the International Muslim Brotherhood

Brothers Without Borders? Investigating Process of Norm Evolution in the International Muslim Brotherhood

La acreditación de traductores y/o intérpretes jurados en España: novedades, contrastes e incoherencias

This paper presents an in-depth study of the present situation regarding the appointment of Sworn Translators and/or Interpreters in Spain. Based on a comparative analysis of regulatory norms and official announcements, the novelty of the study lies in the fact that it takes into account all the legislation currently valid in Spain, and systematically analyses legal rules with respect to denomination, examination and ways of entry into the profession. In addition, the publication of two norms in the last year – one from themState Administration and another from the Basque Country Regional Administration – is used as the basis to reflect firstly, on the evolution of legal norms over the past thirty years and secondly, on the feedback between the Regional and State Admin- istrations. The article also systematically examines the differences in criteria and the lack of coherence between the various Administrations with regard to prerequisitesmand accreditation.

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Evolutionary precursors of social norms in chimpanzees: a new approach

Moral behaviour, based on social norms, is commonly regarded as a hallmark of humans. Hitherto, humans are perceived to be the only species possessing social norms and to engage in moral behaviour. There is anecdotal evidence suggesting their presence in chimpanzees, but systematic studies are lacking. Here, we examine the evolution of human social norms and their underlying psychological mechanisms. For this, we distinguish between conventions, cultural social norms and universal social norms. We aim at exploring whether chimpanzees possess evolutionary precursors of universal social norms seen in humans. Chimpanzees exhibit important preconditions for their presence and enforcement: tolerant societies, well-developed social-cognitive skills and empathetic competence. Here, we develop a theoretical framework for recognizing different functional levels of social norms and distinguish them from mere statistical behavioural regularities. Quasi social norms are found where animals behave functionally moral without having moral emotions. In proto social norms, moral emotions might be present but cannot be collectivized due to the absence of a uniquely human psychological trait, i.e. shared intentionality. Human social norms, whether they are universal or cultural, involve moral emotions and are collectivized. We will discuss behaviours in chimpanzees that represent potential evolutionary precursors of human universal social norms, with special focus on social interactions involving infants. We argue that chimpanzee infants occupy a special status within their communities and propose that tolerance towards them might represent a proto social norm. Finally, we discuss possible ways to test this theoretical framework.

Cooperation, Norms, and Revolutions: A Unified Game-Theoretical Approach

BackgroundCooperation is of utmost importance to society as a whole, but is often challenged by individual self-interests. While game theory has studied this problem extensively, there is little work on interactions within and across groups with different preferences or beliefs. Yet, people from different social or cultural backgrounds often meet and interact. This can yield conflict, since behavior that is considered cooperative by one population might be perceived as non-cooperative from the viewpoint of another.Methodology and Principal FindingsTo understand the dynamics and outcome of the competitive interactions within and between groups, we study game-dynamical replicator equations for multiple populations with incompatible interests and different power (be this due to different population sizes, material resources, social capital, or other factors). These equations allow us to address various important questions: For example, can cooperation in the prisoner's dilemma be promoted, when two interacting groups have different preferences? Under what conditions can costly punishment, or other mechanisms, foster the evolution of norms? When does cooperation fail, leading to antagonistic behavior, conflict, or even revolutions? And what incentives are needed to reach peaceful agreements between groups with conflicting interests?Conclusions and SignificanceOur detailed quantitative analysis reveals a large variety of interesting results, which are relevant for society, law and economics, and have implications for the evolution of language and culture as well.