Weingast and Moran state that “the threat of ex post sanctions creates ex ante incentives for the bureau to serve a congressional clientele.” If doubt exists in the credibility of the threat of sanctions, then the incentives will be weakened. As a result, behavior will diverge from that which is desired. This same theory can be extended to countless examples, including that of the Honor System at UVa.
The Honor System and the “community of trust” it strives to maintain rest on the principle of “single sanction.” If a student is found to have cheated, he or she will be expelled. However, as of 2001, “of the students who said they were aware of an actual honor violation, 95.4 percent said they did not report it or initiate charges of any kind.” If students do not report violations then the threat of ex post sanctions has no credibility and thus does not create ex ante incentives; that is, if students do not report honor violations then there is no incentive to adhere to the honor code. One possible solution that has been explored is that of a multi-sanction system, but such a system has failed to garner the necessary support and also does not guarantee improved incentives. In order for the honor system to function effectively – with any number of sanctions – it is necessary for students to report honor violations. If increased initiatives are taken to promote honor and support students who report violations, then perhaps the status quo of letting violations go unreported can be replaced by an expectation that students will report violators. This would increase the credibility of the threat of the honor system, and, according to Weingast and Moran, decrease instances of honor violations.
1 comment:
Yah, this is a pretty interesting to see the failures of such a nationally 'famous' system. The first thing that comes to mind is how inefficient the system is with such a harsh penalty. One idea that we discussed in class with the Weingast and Moran paper is the role of fear in agency behavior with Congressional dominance. Congress is still able to 'control' agency behavior without constantly checking-in and following agencies because of the severe punishments that congress is able to instill on diverging agency policy. In the same way, I would have thought that because of the severity of the single sanction expulsion that accompanies the Honor Code, students would be more likely to follow the Honor System in fear of getting kicked out of school - since that's the only sanction available for any kind of violation. It's difficult though for the University to be able to witness honor violations. In the Congress/agency relationship, Congress is still able to observe a final product of agency outcomes although they can't witness how the agency produces their outcomes. In this way, Congress can easily sanction or reward agencies based on their production outcome. In a different way, though, the University can't really observe a final production of student honor violations. Honor violations usually occur during the process of producing. Honor violations aren't the outcome, they are used to create an outcome. In a way, then, the University is relying on students to report violations within the system. It would be like Congress relying on members within the agencies to report on others of violations. This is one reason why I believe the system is inefficient and ineffective.
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