Notes

Abstract: It Doesn't Matter Whether We Recognize It Or Not

Abstract: Whether we are aware of it or not it is evident that the Internet is full of innovative and unique institutional structures that are changing the way that people interact on and offline. Software engineers have faced difficulties in managing governance issues on these platforms as well as other institutions. Many of them haven't had exposure to relevant history or theories of design for institutions. Here, we offer one useful framework that aims to stimulate dialogue between computer scientists as well as political scientists. Incentive-focused behavioral engineering paradigm and a range of atheoretical methods such as A/B testing and incremental issue-driven programming have been the most popular guiding practices in the design of digital institutions. One of the institutional analysis frameworks that has proved useful in the design of traditional institutions is the resource governance literature known as the "Ostrom Workshop". One of the key findings of this literature that has yet to be fully integrated into the design of many new institutions is the importance of including participatory process mechanisms in what is known as an "constitutional" layer of design for institutions. Minecraft servers defines rules that permit and allow different stakeholder participation in institution design modifications. We investigate whether this consideration is and/or could be fulfilled in three different instances of digital institutions: cryptocurrencies, cannabis informatics and amateur Minecraft server governance. Analyzing these diverse cases allows us to demonstrate the wide-ranging importance of constitutional layers in a variety of types of digital institutions.


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