The Importance of the Thin Conception of the Rule of Law for International Development: A Decision-Theoretic Account

The rule of law is frequently claimed to be an important factor – if not a necessary element – for advancing international development. Among the development goals conformity with the rule of law has been thought to advance are economic growth, legal compliance, and respect for human dignity. Yet, as many commentators have observed, any attempt to draw straightforward conclusions about the relationship between the rule of law and these aims will inevitably be frustrated by the fact that there exist a number of very different understandings of what conformity to the rule of law consists in. In this paper, I draw attention to the distinction between competing “thin” and “thick” conceptions of the rule of law. Understandably, the thin conception’s relevance for advancing development aims has often been overlooked in favor of the thick conception’s. Nevertheless, I offer here a decision-theoretic analysis of the thin conception’s relationship to growth, compliance, and respect for dignity that justifies special focus on its significance for these areas. Specifically, I argue that, all things being equal, members of a state which violates the thin conception will have less incentive to engage in pro-growth conduct and/or more incentive to engage in anti-growth conduct, less incentive to comply with the law and/or more incentive to not comply, and will have less incentive to perform actions that will yield them greater utility and/or more incentive to perform actions that will yield them lower utility. In turn, this analysis predicts a negative relationship between violations of the thin conception and economic growth, legal compliance, and the amount of utility members of the state’s decisions will yield them.