The starting point of the project is an argument based on game theory that has exercised a significant influence on the analysis of "private orders." According to this argument, individuals would not need the support of a judicial institution in order to regulate their interactions in small communities. Indeed, the interplay of reputation bonds would suffice to govern these small communities. As these communities grow beyond a critical size, however, judicial institutions would emerge to centralize information regarding community members (and allow the interplay of reputation bonds). This argument therefore accounts for the emergence of judicial institutions, but limits their role to a “repository” of information. On the basis of empirical evidence, the project ambitions to challenge this argument. For that purpose, the community of fishermen in the port of Marseille (South of France) appears to fulfill the conditions set by game theory (i.e., a small community with complete information about its members and infinite-horizon games). The prediction of game theory, when applied to the fishermen of Marseille, should then be the following: fishermen should self-regulate their community through reputation bonds (without recourse to a judicial institution). But the study of the fishermen of Marseille contradicts this prediction: in fact, a judicial institution called a Prud’homie de pêche has emerged and settled the (contractual and property) disputes among fishermen since the Middle Ages. The example of the Prud’homie de pêche will thus provide empirical material to test three main hypotheses: (i) contrary to the findings of game theorists, reputational effects do not always suffice to regulate small communities, even when information is readily available in these communities, (ii) judicial institutions may emerge in communities where information is readily available irrespective of the size of these communities, and (iii) the role of judicial institutions may go beyond the mere “repository” of information described by game theorists. When testing these hypotheses, particular attention will be given to the foundations of game theory. Indeed, game theory presupposes the rationality of individuals. But individuals – however rational they might be – often fail to overcome emotions and ingrained biases. This is particularly true in the context of repeated games, where the ‘tit for tat strategy’ is highly likely to degenerate into retaliatory games. In this context, judicial institutions would serve to harness the retaliatory games that may arise in small communities, but also in large ones. On the basis of these observations, a distinction will then be drawn between a “relation-based” model of governance and a “rule-based” model of governance. The relation-based model (founded on information flows) would prevail until the community reaches a critical size, or when a stable community (in terms of size) faces external or internal shocks that prompt cycles of retaliation. In these circumstances, the relation-based model would cede ground to the rule-based model, where institutions provide a normative structure backed by reasons and/or threats (epitomized for instance by the State) in order to break the cycles of retaliation. This distinction will be applied to the case of the Prud'homie de pêche before being transposed to the transnational level, where contractual and property disputes commonly arise. Some transnational networks have developed their own judicial institutions in order to solve these disputes. The distinction between the relation-based and rule-based models of governance will thus provide an analytical framework to determine the circumstances where judicial institutions are needed to solve these disputes.

This research will analyse the expertise mechanism in one of the most important economic sectors - the building industry - during the early modern times. How were the technical, regulatory and controlling language used by the experts to coerce society? How did the technical competence of experts become an authority, even sometimes an “abuse of authority”? We intend to start by undertaking a large and multidisciplinary (legal, economic and architectural) research programme concerning building expertise using a unique archive collection (A.N. Z1J) which contains all the Parisian building surveyors’ reports from 1643 to 1792. 1690 was the year when architects were first officially able to be recognized as experts in the way that masons and carpenters had been for a long time. At that time, the community of surveyors was divided into two different groups: the architects and the contractors who were as well competitor as complementary. The basis of our work will be to build two bodies of knowledge in parallel: first, the creation of a prosopography of the 234 experts working from 1690 to 1790 by studying multiple sources (manuscripts and printed literature); secondly, the production of an inventory and an analysis of surveyors’ reports. Reflecting the great size of the archive collection, we intend to work on a group of around 10 000 expert assessments, chosen from 1 year in 10, from 1696 to 1786. Each case will be inventoried, indexed, scanned and analysed in detail. The regular series of reports will be studied serially, and to a depth corresponding to their contents. Three key issues are at stake: The first one concerns the balance between risk and social innovation. How did risk situations lead to technical and even social innovation? One of our hypotheses is that the confrontation between doubts can lead to the resolution of conflicts between opposing parties. As building surveyors belonged to two different communities (craftsmanship and art), did the expertise depend on the roots of each particular expert? Experts often innovated while working. Does it mean that expertise may lead to innovation? The second issue addresses the involvement of the law in the democratic decision making. How can the law be used by non-lawyers? The spread of legal principles through society can be found in the different levels of public activities as well as in those of private ones. In our project, we ask how and why did experts, who were familiar with the law, but were not qualified lawyers, set out lawyers’ arguments and convince judges to adopt their positions. The third issue concerns the organization of real estate value. What were the standards necessary to build a kind of hierarchy of material things? Face to market forces, strict and unbiased standards could be undesirable, knowing that the rigour of the market would find equilibrium between different standards of valuation. How did surveyors precisely build and use both objective and subjective standards to estimate the value of real estate? Accepting the possibility of an “abuse of authority” by the expert, would the sharing of expertise by different kinds of social actors possessing different kinds of knowledge reduce the risk of abuses of authority and, furthermore, reduce technical risk in general? The results of the research will be disseminated through a collaborative knowledge basis on a dedicated website in which the two corpuses will be accessed by the scientific community. The analysis of cases will be editorialized in the form of virtual exhibitions for the general public. The final, general report of the results will be recorded in a book and the project will end with two national and international workshops.

This project seeks to study the evolution of legal systems that include? a plurality of personal statuses for their citizens and the relationships with the principle of equality.? Around two dozen of countries in Asia and Africa are characterized by a? multiplicity of personal-status laws. In these countries, the rules concerning? marriage, affiliation and succession rights are not united, but applied? diversely to citizens according to their belonging to a specific community. The research question turns around the tension between this? diversity of personal-status laws inside the same legal system and the principle ?of equality. The program proposes in-depth ?studies of case law associated with anthropological inquiries in six? countries selected because of such observable tensions (India, Indonesia,? Lebanon, Egypt, Cameroon, Tanzania). It will involve the preparation of? a handbook addressing all legal systems in Asia and Africa concerned by this plurality of personal-status laws.