WORKSHOP: New Perspectives on Intractable Problems: Informal Institutions as Policy Responses to Global Grand Challenges -Spring

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This workshop at Purdue University draws together a global group of interdisciplinary scholars who, together with Purdue faculty, offer analyses of a series of pressing global challenges. The workshop focuses on finding new perspectives on seemingly "intractable" global policy problems by examining a cutting edge area of research in the social sciences: the role of social norms, considered as a kind of informal institution, in shaping policy design, adoption, and implementation. The workshop aims to apply these theoretical insights on multipe difficult problems that have faced policy makers internationally. The workshop involves a series of substantive issue panels focusing on the actual and/or potential role of informal institutions in offering solutions. It also includes an intergrative, cross-issue panel drawing out broader lessons about informal institutions as they relate to multiple diverse issues. The presentations and broader conclusions of this work will be disseminated in both scholarly and non-scholarly outlets.With regards to intellectual merit, informal institutions (or norms) are increasingly recognized as vital determinants of human behavior in multiple contexts and disciplines. Where simpler models of rationality once dominated our understanding of human behavior, more complicated models emphasizing the influence of norms are now recognized as playing a critical, but poorly understood role. While much progress has been made in the past decade in studying these informal institutions in multiple disciplines and as they operate in many different contexts, the intellectual challenges of understanding the impact of these norms remain daunting and the integration of this work remains limited. By convening this interdisciplinary, cross-national group of scholars, the organizers aim to contribute to the understanding of solutions to policy challenges as well as to advance theoretical understanding of the ways that informal institutions and social norms affect global problems.With regards to broader impacts, the workshop will offer new solutions to serious problems, promote the professional and intellectual development of graduate students working on vital scientific questions that affect serious policy problems, and build international, interdisciplinary networks and partnerships that include scholars and students from underrepresented gender, racial, and geographic groups.