Norms are relational: cognitive institutions, practices, and the ‘where’ question

Post-Northian institutional economics has been predicated on the socially extended and enactivist concept of cognitive institution. It has recently been suggested that this framework should include North’s definition of institutions as ‘rules of the game’. In this paper, we agree with this normative turn but take issue with the mental-model framework in which it is proposed. Retaining both shared mental models and rules of the game remains too ‘Northian’, even if complemented with enactivist dynamic principles of mental-model change. We propose an alternative enactivist concept of norm that entirely avoids mental models. We base it on an alternative social ontology that considers norms as located in the relation between agents and institutions. The implications of this relational ontology for the norms (or principles) of rationality are also discussed. We argue that a truly relational framework requires abandoning the adaptationist norm of rationality in favour of coordinative rationality principles.